Sluggish housing industry prompts tech firm job cuts

Proof that a slumping housing market affects industries throughout the economy, it was made public on Tuesday that Boise-based tech firm MobileDataforce had eliminated seven of its 38 employee positions. The company, which develops and sells software for a variety of hand-held devices, saw the 200 percent growth rate it had expected curtailed when clients in the housing-services industry (or “hard hats markets,” as CEO Kevin Benedict said) cut back on orders.

“When there’s a rapid growth curve and you see the economy change, you’ve just got to be smart,” he said. “We’re going to be watching that carefully.”

The company supplies a broad range of construction and housing-related industries with software that helps mobile workers keep track of invoices, perform inspections and handle work orders, among other solutions.

Benedict said that despite the layoffs, four-year-old MobileDataforce is still growing strongly, with public and private sector contracts for several projects, including: software to help track AIDS medicine as it crosses the world to 12 countries in Africa; energy conservation and environmental remediation in the U.K.; and, just recently, a project that will help 116 hospitals in Australia keep track equipment maintenance, and another for environmental impact studies on a series of oil pipelines.

“We were investing in some areas that were just unprofitable and that just wasn’t going to work,” Benedict said. “The growth curve may slow, so we’re going to be prudent about this whole thing…. While some of these markets slow, others are very profitable, and we’ll be moving in those directions.”

(MobileDataforce Web site)