At LaunchPad Job Club, we've known for a while that there's been an economic downtown in the Austin area. Finally, unfortunately, the rest of Austin is starting to get clued into that fact.

Today, Dell announced that it will be closing the desktop computer manufacturing plant in North Austin by the end of the year, cutting 900 jobs.  There were roughly 100 people laid off related to that.  Only there have been small lay offs at Dell for several months.  The smaller layoffs don't get noticed by the media. Nor the fact that they've laid off groups of recruiters.

The thing is, at LPJC, we've seen more and more people showing up to our weekly program, to the point we're bursting at the seems of our meeting site, and not just high tech.  Many of the people we see are the more experienced professionals, frequently with ten years tenure before being RIF'd.  One friend at a recent PMI Chapter meeting mentioned he was a little nervous because he was close to ten years at his organization, and that seemed to be a key indicator of being considered for the chopping block.

So for all you Austinites out there, particular in the larger high tech companies, make sure you don't get caught unawares.  There are steps you can take to be prepared for a RIF, such as making sure your job seeker's tool kit is current.

But if you do get caught in a RIF, or you have free time on Friday mornings, check out Launch Pad Job Club, one of Austin's best kept secrets.