Dot-com job losses decrease over summer

Could we be over the worst? Surely not...

Job cuts within the dot-com market have decreased, after heavy losses in July, but this could purely be a reflection of how few jobs are actually left. A US based survey by Challenger, Gray and Christmas reported 4,899 jobs were cut in the dot-com sector during August compared with 8,967 in July. But it also revealed the number of company's closing down have doubled, with 21 shutting their doors in August compared to nine in July. Mark Simon, CEO and founder of venture capital company The Chemistry, told silicon.com: "I'm not surprised by the survey because basically there are fewer people employed to lose their jobs." Marie Cronogue, managing director at recruitment company Maya International UK, said in terms of the dot-com job market "confidence is picking up" and added that in the UK it appears the worst of the redundancies are over. "It's been a very rough eight months," she admitted. However, Simon was not so optimistic about the immediate future. "Depending on what type of dot-com you are talking about - if it's in the B2B or B2C market where a company is carrying out all its business over the internet, then the trend is still downwards," he said. The survey reported 248 dot-coms closed in the US so far this year. Simon said this was due to many companies "simply having bad ideas with flawed business plans".