Companies are looking to fill specialty positions, even as the area's big employers are trimming workers.
December 26, 2006
For technology professionals seeking a job in the Sacramento region, landing a spot these days definitely depends on what you know, not whom.
Even as Intel Corp. has been shedding more than 300 Folsom-based workers this month, and Hewlett-Packard Co. dropped 92 in November, other companies are signing on new hires. But many of them require specialized skills.
Aerojet, for instance, has immediate openings for about 153 employees in Rancho Cordova across a broad range of disciplines ranging from chemists to aerospace engineers.
The hiring surge comes from the company's participation in a huge contract to build the Orion space exploration vehicle, NASA's successor to the space shuttle.
But it's unlikely that Sacramento's labor pool can fill all the jobs, said Linda Cutler, a spokeswoman for Aerojet's parent company, GenCorp Inc. "We try to get as much local focus as we can, but we recognize there are other pockets of the country that have a lot of talent," Cutler said.
"(Aerospace) will be a tough one to fill," predicted David Lyons, a labor market analyst with the California Employment Development Department. "I don't know a lot of rocket scientists."
Indeed, many tech companies are either hiring or preparing to add staff, but they are being very particular in the skills required.
"For our specific needs, it's very specialized," said Melanie Topp, manager of corporate recruiting for Visionary Integration Professionals LLC, a Folsom-based consulting firm that handles large projects for public agencies.
"The type of consultant we look at hiring has a diverse technical background with various certifications and qualifications," Topp said. "... It's very challenging" to find them.
Peter Van Deventer, said his Folsom-based company, SynapSense Corp., will soon be in hiring mode. He declined to say how many would be hired or what their skills should be.
But in assessing the hiring market, the former Intel executive said, there appears to be a strong demand for software engineers.
NEC Electronics, which has expanded the production line at its Roseville chip-making plant, will be hiring next year. NEC spokeswoman Denise Iwata said that most of the 50 engineers and clean-room technicians recently hired came from the Sacramento area, and she expects that the 150 to be hired beginning next summer will be primarily local workers.
"We've felt it's a good pool," she said. "We've been very pleased with the local talent."
While many companies are hiring, a lot of technical specialists are still scrambling for work. Among those are hundreds of workers from Intel Corp. in Folsom, where layoffs continue.
Former Intel employee Scott Nipper and three colleagues found work with Australia-based Webit Online, an Intel supplier of online training systems.
"It worked out pretty well for us," he said, adding that many of his former colleagues aren't enjoying the same good fortune.
"There are little pockets of opportunity, but generally the landscape is pretty sparse," he said.
Roseville technology consulting company Delegata has about 12 openings and is looking to laid-off Intel and HP workers to fill some of the positions, said Paul Strandburg, one of the company's directors.
"We can't fill all our company's needs here, but about two-thirds to three-quarters of our workers are from the area," he said.
Van Deventer, the former Intel executive, said the laid-off workers offer a good opportunity for local companies.
"That talent pool is world-class, and they can easily reinvent themselves if they need to," he said. "We have brought some of them into our shop, and we couldn't be happier."
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