Word: silicones
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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These are just a few of the goodies handed out by electronics companies in California's "Silicon Valley," some 40 miles south of San Francisco. It is the scene of a frenzied recruiting drive for anybody with a scientific skill?and many with no skills...
Some 500 companies are locked in a desperate recruiting battle for a severely limited number of workers. The more esoteric the specialty, the keener the competition. The mere mention of the name of an MOS (metal on silicon) engineer causes executive knees to bend. In personnel offices, linear engineers and microsystems programmers are spoken of in awed whispers, as if they were deities...
Monolithic Memories Corp. has a standing order for wafer sorters and probe-card repair technicians; meanwhile, the company is turning down orders for lack of workers. Synerteck needs ion implanters, who manipulate control panels to change the electrical properties of silicon. Fairchild Camera and Hewlett-Packard both have hundreds of positions available that cut across every level of skill. Avantek has an eye out for janitors interested in profit sharing...
This activity is part of the explosive growth of the microelectronics industry, which since 1963 has transformed Santa Clara County, whose heart is Silicon Valley, from a bucolic orchard to a crazy quilt of low-slung buildings and endless seams of freeway. Electronics sales are rising 14% annually and will reach an expected $66 billion this year; 10% of the total volume comes from Silicon Valley. Partly because of a post-Viet Nam decline in trained electronics workers coming out of the military, the valley's personnel officers are searching to fill an estimated 5,000 openings...
...would have had to accept a lower living standard at double the cost." No doubt many other employees, new and old, are happy out in the valley. But with the nation's economy now slowing, the highly cyclical microelectronics industry could soon find its order books shrinking. If so, Silicon Valley might well face some layoffs instead of the free-for-all body snatching...