Hiring freezes and the elimination of vacant positions are all too familiar to Silicon Valley executives, their employees -- and their ex-employees.

A job-cutting order issued by Gov. Gray Davis on Tuesday recognized that the state has to cut its workforce. Davis took the blunt approach. Cutting jobs by not replacing whoever happens to have left is not to be confused with a thoughtful and strategic downsizing, which is what is needed.

But Davis' order, and his warning that as many as 20,000 employees could be laid off, send the right message to public employee groups. They seem uninterested in hearing that their employer, the state, finds itself in deep financial trouble.

This could have been done with more managerial dexterity. Blanket freezes always create situations were a vacancy is demonstrably cost-ineffective.

Instead of stalling all winter long, the Legislature could have been exploring where savings might be found with the least damage to state services.

So, what's left is a hiring freeze, with exceptions made for public safety, public health, guarding prisoners, and fighting fires.

A hiring freeze is among the limited options avaiable to Davis without a vote in the Legislature.

Freeze, unfortunately, appears to be the apt metaphor for what is happening legislatively in the first week after the deadline for having a new budget in place has passed.

One proposal, a complicated tax swap between state and local government to create a funding source for deficit-rollover bonds, touted as a possible breakthrough, was met with this reaction from an Assembly Democratic staffer: ``How many dollars does it bring in?'' Zero. ``OK, that's how much we like it.''

The deadlock is being noticed. On Wednesday, Standard & Poor's put California's ``A'' rating on ``Credit- Watch with negative implications.'' An ``A'' rating is already the lowest among the 50 states.

But that doesn't mean it couldn't go lower. Californians are watching.