Daily Debrief 2nd edition: A chill in the air for tech workers

[ music ] ^m00:00:04 >> Kara Tsuboi: Welcome to the daily debrief, I'm CNET's Kara Tsuboi. Here is senior writer, Ina Fried, and yet another sign that our economy perhaps entering a really rough time is signs of potential hiring freezes or layoffs in the tech industry. I know you caught some rumors earlier today about Microsoft. Why don't you explain? >> Ina Fried: Sure, there was a report out there that Microsoft had a companywide hiring freeze and Microsoft's saying that's not the case. But there is a chill at least, so basically they are gonna take another look at their hiring plans for next year. And certainly for a company like Microsoft that hires a lot of people, have been growing, it's a big deal even that they're taking a second look. And I think everyone in this economy really is gonna be doing that. >> Kara Tsuboi: Now a freeze or a chill is obviously a lot better than announcing mass lay off's of course, but some companies in the tech world are starting to think about laying off employees ever quarter. Is that right? >> Ina Fried: Definitely. We've seen a lot of companies that are doing layoffs. HP announced 24,000 jobs that they're cutting. Dell's been cutting a huge number from its work force. Intel's cut a lot of jobs over the last few years as it's gotten out of some businesses. So a lot of companies are scaling back. Microsoft actually will hire people over the next year, in part because it's already announced a lot of things that it's doing like building these big data centers that do require some people. So they said they still expect to add thousands of jobs, but I wouldn't be surprised if we see some of the traditional core software groups not filling open positions, perhaps scaling back. And I think we're gonna see companies across the board really take a close look at that spending, as well as on the capital side; especially the hardware companies, yeah how much they need to invest in capital spending as well. >> Kara Tsuboi: As you were doing your own research on Microsoft today I noticed some of our CNET News colleagues were also looking into some of their companies that they report and follow. Any specific examples you can share that our reporters have found out and helps with your article today? >> Ina Fried: Well it is a little hard to say because a lot of companies are already in the midst of cutting jobs, so they don't exactly have to say if they're gonna cut a few more jobs. So I think people are taking a little bit of a wait and see too, people know things are bad, it's hard to say just how bad. >> Kara Tsuboi: Absolutely, we don't want to see any companies be too reactionary just because the market over the last couple of weeks has tanked, and the bailout plan of course is sputtered and passed finally, but yeah, companies are obviously taking their time to figure these things out. Thank you very much. Senior editor Ina Fried, I'm Kara Tsuboi, we'll see you on the next daily debrief. [ music ]