More than 350,000 people have been made redundant from the telecoms and computing industries over the last year – 15 times more than the number last year, according to a recent survey.

The figures from US outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas, quoted in today’s Guardian, reveal that the number of jobs shed by technology firms worldwide in 2001 rose 15 times from last year to 358,375.

The paper quotes the FirstPersonGlobal techjob index, which shows that recruitment for the technology industries remains in downturn, as it has been since July last year, according to figures.

The redundancies appear to contradict the much-publicised skills shortages in the IT market – in February, then Employment Minister Tessa Jowell <A href="https://www.trainingzone.co.uk/cgi-bin/item.cgi?ap=1&id=38877&d=pnd&dateformat=%o-%B
” target=_blank>called for the establishment of a Europe-wide task force to address IT skills shortages.