Silicon Valley's jobless rate 7.9 per cent

he technology downturn continues to hammer California's Silicon Valley, where the unemployment rate in October was 7.9 per cent, the highest level since 1983 and well above last month's statewide average of 6.4 per cent.

State officials said unemployment in Santa Clara County, the heart of the Silicon Valley high-tech hub, was unchanged in October from September, but they revised the September rate up to 7.9 per cent from an initial 7.7 per cent.

The recent levels reflect the fallout from sharply reduced demand for technology goods and services over the past two years that has led to scores of layoffs in Silicon Valley, where the jobless rate had been as low as 1.3 per cent in December 2000.

Sunnyvale, California-based Advanced Micro Devices Inc. said it would take a charge of several hundred million dollars in the fourth quarter as it cuts jobs and costs in a bid to return to profitability.

AMD, the chief rival to Intel Corp. INTC.O in the market for microprocessors, did not detail the number of jobs it would cut, but its chief financial officer said the headcount reduction would be significant.

In contrast to Silicon Valley, other major California urban areas saw their local jobless rates improve last month, helping the state's overall 6.4 per cent October unemployment rate hold steady from September.

In San Francisco, which has seen its once red-hot dot-com industry evaporate and has suffered as financial services firms cut jobs, the October unemployment rate was 6.7 per cent, compared with 6.9 per cent in September.

The jobless rate in Los Angeles County fell in October to 6.1 per cent from 6.5 per cent the prior month, and in neighboring Orange County the October unemployment rate narrowed to 4 per cent from 4.1 per cent in September. San Diego County's 4.2 per cent unemployment rate was unchanged from September.

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