Adobe joins tech jobs cull

A fresh wave of job cuts has started to ripple through the technology industry, despite mounting evidence that tech companies have weathered the worst of the recession and are seeing the first signs of an upturn.

The cuts reflect a move to streamline further after the fall-off in orders this year, as well as the after-effects of acquisitions and the failure of some big companies to keep pace with changes in their markets.

Adobe, the software maker, on Tuesday became the latest to cut back as it announced plans to shed 680 jobs, or 9 per cent of its workforce.

It blamed the job losses on a move to “appropriately align” its costs with its 2010 business plan.

In a sign of confidence, the group, which makes the Acrobat document reader and Photoshop software, recently reaffirmed its financial guidance for next year and said it expected the launch of Microsoft and Apple operating systems to trigger higher demand for its desktop software.

Like other big tech companies, Adobe had acted quickly to shed jobs when the recession took hold, sacking 600 workers at the end of last year. But with revenues down 18 per cent in the first nine months, the company signalled that it needed to bring its costs down further.

Microsoft took similar action last week as it cut a further 800 jobs. That came on top of the 5,000 job losses it announced in January, the first time in its 34-year history that it had been forced into company-wide cost-cutting.

Other tech companies have recently announced plans to cut back even more severely as they adjust for bigger declines in their businesses. Electronic Arts, the video-game maker which has struggled with a lack of new hit products, said this week that it would axe 1,500 jobs, or 17 per cent of its workforce. The cuts come on top of an 11 per cent reduction last year.

Meanwhile Sun Microsystems said last month that it would cut 3,000 jobs, marking its 10th restructuring plan as it tries to deal with a shift in its markets that has seen customers move to lower-cost, standardised servers.

The company also put the timing of the latest cuts down to a delay in the completion of its acquisition by Oracle, which this week became the subject of an official objection from European regulators.

The rise in merger and acquisition activity in the sector has also taken its toll on workers. Abobe recently sacked 9 per cent of the 1,200 employees at Omniture, a fast-growing e-commerce software company it acquired last month.