The Y2K scare was more a marketing ploy than a real problem. It made companies nation-wide (and world-wide) dispose of old equipment and outdated software and upgrade. And companies hired hundred of techs, programmers, analysts, etc to cover themselves, to keep up with demand and remain operational after 1999. They threw every spare cpital cash dollar at the effort. Then once we made it to 2000, the demand comes to a halt! Suddenly no one's ordering new software or hardware because they're all up-to-date. And now they have all these high-tech high-salaried engineers with little to do, and little capital available to cover them all. The layoffs were inevitible (sp?).
And when they start seeing that people in Asia will do the same job for 1/3 the price...