Five Notable Tech Layoffs Of 2009

The jobs numbers are in for December 2009, and overall, they are pretty dismal. Although analysts had expected to lose in the neighborhood of 11,000 jobs, the economy shed 85,000. Still, jobs were added in some sectors, particularly in Management and Technical Consulting Services, and Computer Systems Design and Related Services. However, jobs were shed overall in IT last year. Following is a list of layoffs from some notable tech companies.

1. IBM

In 2009, IBM lost approximately 10,000 workers, according to various published reports. That number included roughly 4,500 people at IBM's Global Business Services unit and an additional 1,600 positions in its applications services business. Some of those positions were outsourced, while others were lost due to restructuring. The company did announce it was hiring 500 customer service call center workers in Boulder, Colo. -- over the next five years. In addition, those annual job salaries will range from $23,000 to $38,000 -- considered low for the tony Colorado region.

2. Novell

Novell's woes continued last year. In addition to being mired in litigation over the UNIX operating system, its earnings faltered also. Then, in November, the Linux vendor announced it was cutting 100 to 130 of its 3,900 jobs and that it was also suspending contributions to employees' 401K pension plans. Earlier in the year, back in March, Novell laid off 100 employees as well.

3. Microsoft

Microsoft cut approximately 5,800 positions last year, with 800 coming last November. The last round included Don Dodge , Microsoft's Director of Business Development for the Emerging Business Team, widely known as the face of Microsoft in the start-up world. Dodge evangelized Microsoft's wares to a community that often did not include Microsoft as a top-of-mind vendor choice. Other groups affected by the layoffs were MS Learning, the MSN portal, and Worldwide Partner Group, according to the Mini-Microsoft blog.

4. Cisco

The network giant announced job cuts of 2,000. Six hundred of those took effect in July. However, John Chambers, Cisco CEO, doesn't, apparently, consider those losses to be layoffs. Earlier this year, on a conference call with analysts, he said that he considered a companywide layoff to be at least 10 percent of a company's work force. So, with Cisco having more than 60,000 employees, it's unclear what Chambers would consider those 2,000 former employees if not laid off.

5. Sun Microsystems

The stream of never-ending pink slips at Sun Microsystems began last year in January, with the systems vendor laying off 1,300. That was part of a plan announced in November 2008 that included the termination of 5,000 to 6,000 workers in 2009 -- equal to roughly 15 percent of its entire workforce. But the worst is seemingly yet to come: In April, Oracle announced its intention to buy the beleaguered Sun, which analysts estimate will lead to the loss of between 10,000 and 15,000 jobs.

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