The economic news from the past few weeks has not been good and its getting worse as the seriousness is starting to sink in. What started as a housing market collapse, morphed into a full fledged financial/banking crisis and is now threatening all other sectors of the economy. Officially its now the "Panic of 2008."

With the stock market plunging, consumer spending reducing and companies facing severe credit crisis, its only to be expected that layoffs/downsizing start rearing its head and true to form that has started happening. Mass Layoffs are at the highest level since 9/11. 

As late as September, it was generally thought that the technology sector would weather the crisis, but looks like that is not likely .. this crisis is proving to be an equal opportunity spreader of gloom and doom.

Here are a couple of links that track the layoffs in the tech area.

TechCrunch Layoff Tracker: 19,683 Tech Layoffs and Counting

CNET: Layoff Scorecard

If you are of a strong disposition, look at the personal experiences of  "Joe the Laid-off Guy"

and I am sure more are on the way.

 A ray of hope in the vast sea of bad news and more bad news is that we at OdinJobs continue to see a fairly decent number of job opening from companies. Even in a recession, companies need to hire, they may hire less, they may take more time to hire but they hire.

Find & Be Found Easily

Let me pass you a  tip a recruiter friend gave me during the dot-com blow up - Find and be Found easily. Make sure you can find opportunities both online and off, and make sure people can find you both online and off.  During these times companies tend to be picky, hiring managers do not have to spend too much time trying to find people as many are readily available, so its up to you to make sure you can find opportunities quickly and opportunities find you easily. Of course, we at OdinJobs can help you find and be found online as a our mission is to match you to the right opportunity, where ever it is.

While you are waiting for your next opportunity, here are 14 Things You can do if you are laid off from a Tech job.