Dot.com lay-offs ease

Yahoo said it was cutting 300 jobs in November

Hopes that the dot.com sector may have seen the worst of the downturn have risen after a survey found the number of job cuts made by internet firms continuing to fall.

The latest survey from US employment firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas found the number of internet job cuts made in December was the smallest in 18 months.

It found that 2,403 jobs were shed in this month, down from 2,901 in November and well below the 10,549 shed in December last year.

"For now, things appear to be somewhat more stable for the dot.coms that survived the major shakeout that lasted about nine months, from November of last year through July 2002," the firm's chief executive John Challenger said.

"But this is still a relatively young industry that is still going through growing pains and is therefore very volatile."

Despite the recent slowdown in lay-offs - the total figure of 100,925 job cuts for 2001 is more than two and half times the number made last year 2000.

Survival prospects

The slowdown in job losses from the dot.com sector backs up a study of internet failures by the US firm Webmergers.com.

It found that while the numbers of dot.com firms failing this year more than doubled in comparison to 2000, there are signs that the worst may be over.

Only 21 internet firms failed during November and December, the lowest rate since August 2000.

While some have argued this slowdown is because there are not that many dot.com firms left to go bust, Webmergers.com disagrees.

They say that only about 10% of the dot.com sector has been lost, leaving behind a stronger set of companies.