Despite Dell Layoffs, IT Jobs Abound in Austin

Though Dell confirmed an undisclosed number of layoffs Wednesday, the Austin area continues to be a thriving IT job market. Among the happenings:

• General Motors has selected Austin as the first of four technology centers in the United States, each to employ at least 500 people, The Associated Press reports. The company says it’s bringing its IT work back in-house to develop software and change processes to help GM bring new vehicles to market faster. It will be hiring software developers, project managers, database experts and business analysts. GM has not announced the sites for the other three IT centers.

• Seattle’s Tableau Software also will open a sales and development office in Austin and will hire up to 150 people in the next year, according to the Austin American-Statesman. Its products produce graphical or visual displays of data for clients in technology, banking, media, higher education and government.

• The 26-employee company Gravitant Inc. has just landed $3.8 million in first-round investment from Austin’s S3 Ventures. The company is focused on making it easier for businesses and government agencies with complex computing requirements to use cost-effective cloud computing services from various vendors, the American-Statesman says.

• E-commerce software maker Bigcommerce has raised $20 million to expand.

• The state and local governments have offered about $3 million in grants and property tax rebates to lure Calif.-based HID Global Corp. there. Plans call for the company, which designs and produces high-end security, identification and authentication technologies, to build a 200,000-square-foot plant and add 276 jobs. The company is also considering a site in Memphis, Tenn., though.

The laid-off Dell workers are eligible to apply for other positions within the company. Though the company has been hit hard in the PC market, Seeking Alpha still finds much to like in the company’s stock.