Qualcomm Inc (QCOM)

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Qualcomm to hold first local job fair since '97

By Jennifer Davies
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

February 28, 2004

The wireless telephone business may finally be on the rebound, particularly if Qualcomm's hiring plans are an indication.

The San Diego wireless technology company is holding a local job fair today, its first since 1997 when the tech economy was just beginning to gather steam.

Dan Sullivan, Qualcomm's executive vice president of human resources, said there are about 450 current openings and the company is on pace to add 1,000 workers by the end of the year. Qualcomm now has about 6,500 employees, with 6,000 of them based in San Diego.

The fair is from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 6455 Lusk Blvd. in Mira Mesa.

Most of the positions Qualcomm wants to fill are high-paying engineering jobs for its increased research and development efforts. The company has said it want to focus on R&D so it can expand beyond its primary technology business – the patented wireless standard called CDMA, short for code division multiple access.

Sullivan said that while talent is not as tight as it was during the boom years, the company is finding it increasingly difficult to fill technical jobs.

"The types of engineers that Qualcomm looks for are in short supply," he said.

At Qualcomm's last job fair, Sullivan said, the company expected 2,000 to 4,000 applicants, but more than 10,000 showed up in the rain. This time the company expects between 3,000 to 5,000 applicants.

The company declined to provide specific salary ranges for the positions being filled but said the wages were competitive.

Kelly Cunningham, an economist with the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce, said that the long-pummeled technology and telecommunications industries appear to be on the mend.

In 2001, San Diego had about 28,400 telecom jobs, a figure that dipped to 25,113 in 2002, according to Cunningham. The number of telecom positions as of October 2003 had increased to 29,255.

"It does seem from what we are seeing that there is a rebound in technology, as is the case with Qualcomm," he said.

The hiring at Qualcomm also benefits the larger San Diego economy because the jobs being created pay so well. Cunningham calls them "multiplier jobs," because each one helps create one to two other jobs in the region.

He said the Qualcomm employees spend enough money that additional people need to be hired at local retail stores. In addition, more housing might need to go up, which could translate into more work for building industry employees.

"It has a ripple effect in retail activity and in construction," he said.

A question is whether Qualcomm, which has experienced phenomenal growth recently, is an aberration or part of a larger trend.

Michael King, an industry analyst for Gartner Group, said the wireless market as a whole is staging a comeback but that Qualcomm has done exceptionally well in recent months as the demand for its CDMA technology has grown.

For the entire 2002 fiscal year, for instance, Qualcomm shipped 65 million cell phone chips. But in just the first two quarters of fiscal 2004, the company expects to ship as many as 64 million chips. Qualcomm makes its money from the sale of cell phone chips as well as by charging a royalty every time its technology is used in a cell phone.

"We are seeing two things," King said. "One: CDMA is doing better. Two: The market is back somewhat. I don't think you could say it is back 100 percent to what it was, but it is coming back."

Qualcomm, which has $6.4 billion in assets, is trying to reinvest that money so that it can expand its business beyond CDMA, King said. But instead of investing in infrastructure, Qualcomm is investing in people.

"It is an idea company," King said. "Because of that, it needs to hire people to make sure that there is a steady stream of ideas in the pipeline."

While Qualcomm plans to grow significantly this year, it is still far smaller than it was at its peak in 1999, when it had some 11,000 workers. Qualcomm streamlined its operations by selling its infrastructure division to Ericsson and its cell-phone manufacturing business to Kyocera Wireless.

Ericsson, which at one point had some 1,300 employees in San Diego, now has just 400 here after the company shifted much of its research and development operations to Montreal in a cost-cutting move.

While Ericsson is not in a hiring mode, its business is beginning to turn around and that could translate into new jobs, said Wendy Faulk MacMurray, vice president of marketing and communications for the company's local operations.

"We've got a short ways to go before we start hiring again," she said.

Kyocera has started hiring both on a global and local basis, said Mary Palmer, the company's spokeswoman. The company has hired some 200 people in the last year and now has 150 job openings, with 75 percent in engineering. Kyocera employs 2,000 full-time workers in San Diego and has another 1,000 in manufacturing contract positions. Palmer said that Kyocera plans to have its own job fair in April and will add as many as 70 engineering positions next month.

Nokia, which has a CDMA research and development facility in Poway, increased its local work force by 50 percent to 1,200 in 2003.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/business/20040228-9999-1b28qcom.html

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Jennifer Davies: [phone]; [e-mail]