This year, winter in Taiwan has been far from cold, but for people like Stone Lee, a 28-year-old Internet marketing staffer, it has been the chilliest winter on record.
"We were informed there'd be no weiya [an end-of-year party in which company staff can expect to win a variety of valuable prizes] and no bonus," he said. Now, he is even worried that he may not receive his salary for the previous month.
Since October, Lee said, he has been "doing nothing" at work. Although he goes to the office every day, his first task is to log on to Manpower 104 (a popular job search Web site), then activate ICQ to chat with Internet friends. "We bitch about our bosses, commiserate about our common plight in a go-nowhere Internet business and exchange job information and gossip," he said.
Lee said that this is the third month in a row that his company -- a sport content Web site -- has been late paying salaries. "Each month it gets later. This month's salary was paid 10 days late," he said. Everyone in his office knows that the company's financial situation is precarious, he said.
So at the end of what was touted as an auspicious Dragon Year, many people in the Internet industry find themselves in a situation similar to Lee's -- doing nothing at the office, waiting for a job offer instead of a bonus.
The run-up to the Chinese New Year is putting the brakes on job hunting for dotcom employees who suspect that their companies are not going to survive the current winter.
"I'm just hanging on for the moment. With Chinese New Year coming up, I can't really change my job just now, so I just have to wait," Lee said. The weeks following Chinese New Year, after year-end bonuses have been paid, is traditionally the time when people change jobs. In the lead up to the celebrations, there is little opportunity for movement.
Black Friday
The mood of despondency is pervasive in the dotcom sector, and stories of layoffs regularly appear in the business press. According to Victor Chan (
According to a report from Webmergers.com, dotcoms are closing at a rate of one a day in the US. Throughout the US and Europe, there have been 130 dotcom shutdowns since the beginning of 2000. In October of last year alone, there were 21 shutdowns, including pets.com, furniture.com and mothernature.com.
It was late last summer when people began to suggest that the dotcom bubble had burst. Large scale staff cuts began in November. According to MIC's research unit Focus on Internet News and Data (FIND), at least 10 of Taiwan's major dotcoms have been forced to lay off staff since then, including Yam, one of Taiwan's pioneering portal sites, Acer121, the business branch of Taiwan's leading computer maker Acer and EasyPop, a Web site established by the China Times Group. Downsizing has ranged from 20 percent to 50 percent (See table).
Layoffs are never happy occasions for anyone, and information circulated on the Internet suggests that companies fear reprisals from staff. An unconfirmed story has been circulated via the Internet through e-mail about the layoffs that took place at Acer.
On the day dubbed Black Friday by Acer121 staffers, one rumor says that staffers were asked into a meeting where the layoffs were announced. After the meeting concluded, security guides prevented ex-staffers from returning to their offices or turning on their computers for fear that they would release a virus or do some other action to disrupt the computer system.Chan says that at least 80 percent of Taiwan's recently born dotcoms were shortlived and have either already folded or are waiting to be acquired by other firms. "This figure might rise," he said, suggesting that only 10 percent might survive.
Waiting can be the hardest part for staffers of financially strapped dotcoms. Lee said his firm was waiting for acquisition, but the process had been held up for unspecified reasons. "He [the owner] didn't even have the guts to tell us the truth and just kept everyone hanging on," Lee said. "If we were laid off, we would still have our salary and a redundancy payment. What I'm worried about is that the boss will just declare bankruptcy and we'll just get a check that can never be cashed," he said.
Exactly how many dotcom employees like Lee there are is not known. Lee suggests a figure around 10,000 from time spent browsing ICQ and Manpower104. These people have much in common, Lee said. The majority are 20-somethings in PR or marketing -- the content and ideas people.
But content has not been the draw many people hoped. The expected advertising revenue did not materialize. MIC's Chan said that it was content providers that had been hit the worst. "The business models [for the Web] are still not clear. Content sites did not attract advertising revenue, and users proved they didn't like to be charged," he said.
Unrealized dreams
For employees, the bursting of the bubble has seen dreams and efforts disappear in a puff of smoke. "The greatest point in common among [dotcom victims] was a zeal for the Internet business and enthusiasm about profit sharing after our companies listed on the NASDAQ," Lee said.
This belief in the promise of the Internet led many to abandon jobs in conventional media. There are many people like Celia Yang, who has recently been laid off from an e-commerce Web site.
A filmmaking major, Yang had worked primarily in TV, writing scripts and marketing proposals. Seeking a innovative environment, she joined a dotcom marketing department.
"There were only three girls in the section. We cranked up ideas, looked for customers and funding. We worked very long hours," she recalled.
As the environment deteriorated, Yang and her teammates realized that the company was not making money. Before she could act, Yang was the only person left in the department. "I was left alone and received no budget. And a month later, I knew I'd be laid off," she said.
Even senior employees are under pressure. Hsieh Shu-shu (謝書書), who is currently the director of Acer Internet Ticketing, used to be a senior news editor at Formosa TV Corporation (民視), and as head of the Media Affairs Department of Acer Internet Service, helped create content sites of recognized quality. Some of her sites even won user awards.
"As media people, we dealt with words and human-related affairs. We endeavored to create the best looking, most informative content sites we could," she said.
"But when money does not come to content sites, no matter how presentable your sites are, they are still of little value [in business terms]," she said. During Acer's November employment cuts, Hsieh's department was entirely dismissed and she was transferred to Acer121, Acer's ticketing arm.
Despite this, Hsieh still feels she made the right decision. "I just feel very sorrowful, after all the hard work of so many people. We were trying to be the best," she said. Having experienced the ups and downs of the dotcom industry, Hsieh's optimism for the Internet remains intact. But she has become more realistic.
For people who still want a piece of the Internet economy, she said you must ask one question: "Do I know how to make money on the Internet?"
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