There's a "Jacobs" here in Greenville. They've been laying off too.
I work for a small private firm of about 25 people. My pay sucks compared to other engineer's in the area w/ the same job, BUT my benefits are OK and they sat us down after letting 4 people go saying "this is our core group" we don't want to let anyone else go. BUT... in order to get through the economy thing everyone's hours were cut a few months ago. My paycheck is a good bit smaller every month (yet another reason I'm "still pink.")
I have a feeling that in January we're either going to cut hours further or I'm 1 of possibly 3 or 4 peeps that will be moving on (after all the others were let go, I'm at the bottom of the pecking order.)
I'll also add that I've been somewhat actively looking for something else the past few months and nada, so I'm kinda stuck here.