Freescale to lay off 138 locally

AUSTIN (KXAN) - Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. will lay off 138 of their 5,000 workers in Travis and Williamson counties before the start of 2009. The news comes on the heels of layoffs at other high tech companies like Dell, AMD and Sun Microsystems. Despite the recent layoffs, staffing companies are not seeing an influx of unemployed workers in Austin.

"Especially with technical and IT skill sets, a lot of times they transcend to different industries so, because you're working for a manufacturing company, you could also go work for a lawfirm, because they also need your IT and technical skills," said Deborah Nicholas of Burnett Staffing.

Job growth in Austin is up by 2 percent but down from last year.  It is still far better than the nationwide numbers. Nicholas is telling her clients to keep their resumes updated and consider diversifying their skill sets.