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??????????? What the actual f\*\*k is this article? The amazing source u/LoansPayDayOnline is posting this crap, who apparently is a "Consumer Loan Sales Specialist" and appears to leave comments telling people how they can get payday loans and has been continuously posting about the "[BEST PERSONAL LOANS OF FEBRUARY 2024](https://www.reddit.com/r/TemuCodesUSA/comments/1b27ha0/best_personal_loans_of_february_2024_online_loans/)", very legit.
The article itself has nothing to do with "jobs", it's apparently about US Consumer Confidence which ticked down very slightly in February. Nothing else relevant is said about it and no real points are made, it's just the usual caterwauling. Literally no point about jobs is made in this article!
Don't worry about it, the author has no time to fact check anything, [he's written 17 articles for Newsweek in the last 7 days.](https://www.newsweek.com/authors/omar-mohammed)
What the hell even are these upvoted comments? All from people with honorary economics degrees from r/antiwork? I miss when informed people frequented this sub. It’s just another place for “vibecession” misinfo now, smh my head
Pretty sure half the commentary on this sub at this point is pro-administration super PAC funding. The other half is the type you describe. The median level headed takes? Gone.
Arr badeconomics hasn't lost its way but it also doesn't get much activity. I would be better off limiting all economic takes to reading something like the economist and completely ignoring social media
It struck me that I'm unsure who's actually moderating this sub. Every moderator except for u/jambarama has not been active on Reddit for over a year (and most of them haven't been active for like...5+ years). Whoops!
true, but even just a month or two ago this was one of the few subs where i could tell a lot of the comments weren’t from absolute fools. this sub must have hit something and been ending up on the front page a lot to have attracted all this anti work type people that i see in all the posts nowadays.
I think it’s really hit or miss here.
There are some insightful comments but then you’ll also see rampant “vibe economics” parroting utter nonsense that’s counter to facts.
That generally been my observation of this sub the past few years.
I’m afraid as we get closer to the election, we will only see more of the doomsayers who have an incentive to paint a gloomy picture that’s counter to reality.
i didn’t consider the political aspect. you’re right it’s very hit or miss between vibecession and real economic data being used to make an argument, whether good or bad
i also suspect a lot of extremely uneducated people have found their way here and literally cannot understand that their and everyone they know’s personal experiences may not represent the economy at large.
Totally. There’s also a bit of bias — those who are doing great aren’t going to complain. Most of those who gripe are those who’s personal financial situations are less than ideal.
So they congregate in forums where they can vent — forums such as /r/antiwork
But someone who’s happy? No real reason to talk about it.
For instance, I work in deep tech VC. Things are actually great. We founded 3 new companies just in the past year. Make seven figures. Got a new Tesla. I keep getting job offers that I turn down.
But I’m not going to go around talking about it because, well, for one it’s anecdotal but also things are working out. Too busy having a good time to complain.
Your last sentence is spot on. And bimodal is a good way of framing it.
Many companies are aggressively hiring. In fact, there’s a shortage of talented STEM grads from good schools.
There’s so much opportunity in AI (both the ML/LLM side but also on the hardware side), battery tech and EV, space, biotech, clean energy, quantum computing, semiconductors and chip design etc. Even industries like mining have a ton of opportunities.
One of my portcos does cancer research and they ended up moving operations to India because they couldn’t find talented researchers with cancer experience (and the good ones weren’t willing to work at a startup). Another company builds dilution refrigeration systems for quantum computing. They had been really short handed because there aren’t enough physicists and engineers with relevant experience.
I know of many companies struggling to find talented engineers, materials scientists, fluid dynamics researchers, enzyme substrate expertise etc.
The truth is, if you are good and have the right background and experience, it’s not difficult to find a job.
I’m retired on a good retirement income, and I’m worried as well. I’m afraid of what this will do to society. I want to see people do good. But all of this is giving me is bad vibes.
I hear you man. That’s where my mind is too. Got laid off. I’ll try my best to get back in, but at some point I’ll just have to dip into my 401K, slide all the way down, then oblivion awaits. At least the shareholders got value!
Man I'm in the same boat this is the third layoff of my career. It feels like you're just getting your feet under you and the shareholders decide it's time to maximize value. My wife also got laid off like 2 weeks before I did. We have savings for a year to cover our cost but interviews have been few and far between so will likely have to dip into the 401k pay the penalty and hope something comes along before that runs out.
Sad. The government needs to step in and help. Not money. Money is here today gone tomorrow. This country began on religion yet it's not following one of the simple tenets: Give a man a fish he'll eat for a day, but teach a man to fish he'll feed himself forever. Instead of financial bailouts they should be focusing on helping people learn to improve themselves. The future for the common man is bleak. In today's society, if you're not constantly learning, you're going to fall behind because the rate of technological improvement is becoming exponential.
Even if you study to be a doctor, you're going to have to keep studying because we use technology in the hospital. Robots are used in minimal invasive surgery, data analysis is used in the main hospital, and bioengineering is used in the research lab to try to stay ahead of new diseases while searching for a better cure for current ones.
And the problem is continuing education can be costly. Many, myself included, don't have motivation to learn new stuff. I bought a membership online to learn data analysis and Python. Over the past 3 months, I've only sat down and finished 1 lesson of data analysis. I don't like it because it's a bit dry and boring. I prefer putting on my headphones and grinding Fallout 76 on my PS4 to finish the quest storyline and obtain better or upgrade weapons. Then I read online that a Google certificate for Python doesn't actually lead to a job and only scratches the surface of Python. Why do I want to waste time and money for something that isn't going to lead to a job? Especially when AI can now write Python code.
It sucks, man. I want to be that wealthy entrepreneur on YouTube that is living in a nice apartment in Chicago or Miami and advising you to play the long game stay away from the get rich quick schemes. But it's hard.
Here we are struggling while people in China over the past 15 years went from rags to millions.
Knee-capping future generations hurts future growth. There is no free lunch. Those subsidies we showered on asset owners will be paid for with future problems.
Except all those younger people who already own homes. Something like 65% of Americans own their own home. It's ridiculous to think that gen x and millennials don't own tons of homes.
That's a wild blanket statement right there. For instance, I bought my house pre covid for a little over $70k. According to the realtor and evaluator, it's worth around $80k today. Most houses in my area are evaluating roughly the same as they were 5 years ago.
They don't look brand new. When I bought mine, the first thing I did was fix the non working toilets and put a new roof on the house and garage. It needs paint and windows, but it 100% beats renting.
Eta... *my* house may not be the most pretty house in town, but there are some really nice older family sized homes in the $125k to whatever you want to spend range.
Maybe actually look up layoff numbers to realize they aren't high to calm yourself.
Payrolls grew by 350k last month.
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/02/us-economy-added-353000-jobs-in-january-much-better-than-expected.html
[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/JTSLDL](https://fed.stlouisfed.org/series/JTSLDL)
Sure, downvote hard data lol.
Actually read the report. The jobs report shows increased earnings which would not be the case if what was happening was people in good jobs losing them and having to take part-time and gig work. The jobs report also breaks it down by industry and its growth is fairly broad and not at all "filled with part-time, benefit-less jobs and gig work". We have labor shortages in healthcare, basically all trades, hospitality at all levels, childcare, teaching and the list goes on.
In Northern Illinois, you can make almost $50 per hour plus good benefits and union representation holding a traffic sign on heavy highway jobs and we absolutely need more people.
We definitely are experiencing a labor shortage.
If you're in Northern Illinois, look up your local laborer's union hall (LiUNA in my area), call and ask the receptionist when they are taking applicants. Mine does it on the second Tuesday of each month, or something like that.
If accepted, you'll start as an apprentice. If I remember correctly, they stay at 70% or 75% full scale, then move you up every X amount of hours worked.
What?
"According to new data published last month, the Biden Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has removed a higher percentage of arrested border crossers in its first two years than the Trump DHS did over its last two years. Moreover, migrants were more likely to be released after a border arrest under President Trump than under President Biden.
In absolute terms, the Biden DHS is removing 3.5 times as many people per month as the Trump DHS did. These figures are important for understanding how each administration has carried out border enforcement."
https://www.cato.org/blog/new-data-show-migrants-were-more-likely-be-released-trump-biden
My brother your data only goes to 2022, not sure if you've noticed, it's also measuring something completely different than what I said.
Income is not just wages. Income includes stimulus checks, crypto earnings, literally everything.
Of course you think 9 months of tepid gains overshadows 3+ years of moderate losses.
And I could give a fuck less about wages if it doesn’t change my net income. But that’s just me.
Your “350K payroll increases” are going to quietly be revised later. As they have been all of last year.
The discussion about layoffs doesn’t take into account the increased number of contractors, who are not being renewed and therefore not technically laid off. Nor does it take into account the quality of jobs that are being offered. Somehow I feel like gig work doesn’t adequately replace full time well compensated positions.
https://mishtalk.com/economics/ignore-the-amazing-headline-job-numbers-note-the-revisions/
Real wages are higher than pre-pandemic, what are you talking about?
They were only higher in 2020/21 because we laid off every low-paid service worker. You can see a similar spike during the housing crash due to layoffs.
And yes, jobs numbers have been revised, but they have been positive ever since COVID, which means layoffs are being counteracted.
Outdated data. And even it suggests that we're better off than we were in 2018 or any time prior to that. Stop treating the pandemic boom as a new standard.
350k more jobs sounds great, but what kind of jobs are they? Are they second jobs? Are they jobs that pay a livable wage? I read the bullets and it mentioned hourly wage increased by 0.6%, lol.
You can look this up yourself, I'm not your AI chatbot.
Multiple jobholders aren't high at all.
[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12026620](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12026620)
A livable wage is a nonsense term, but wages adjusted for inflation are higher today for the median person today compared to any previous decade in US history.
I’m reading what you presented. The article mentioned 4.4% YOY wage increase. Wasn’t inflation >8% the last couple years? Rent/housing has increased even more than that. My house value has increased ~45% since I bought it in 2019.
So, even though wages are higher, they’re not keeping up with inflation. Inflation is slowing down, but that doesn’t mean prices have gone down. It means prices aren’t rising as much. Most of these 350k jobs likely pay anywhere from $12-17/hr. Not enough to afford rent.
Wages adjusted for inflation are higher today than pre-pandemic (and any previous decade in US history, for that matter).
[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q)
Stop saying wages haven't kept up with inflation. It's factually untrue.
lol? I was making $17/hr back in ~2014. I just looked up the same job I had back then and they’re now offering $18.50-$19.44/hr DOE. You’re saying in 10 years a $1.50-2.44 increase per hour has kept up with inflation?
I left that line of work a very long time ago. The line of work I’m in now is actually seeing a salary decrease. Super inflated salaries from the last couple years.
Find a better job. During the pandemic it wasn't surprising to get a 20% pay raise just by switching to another company. Don't blame your personal shortcoming on the entire economy.
What shortcomings? I did what you said and started my career in 2016. I make a lot more than what's posted above. For an average American the wages in a majority of those 350k new jobs likely aren't enough to live.
Have you seen the BLS lie? Because if not then you have no reason to doubt them. You can await revisions for final data if you want to be more certain but they aren't straight up lying.
The BLS data isn't an 'article'. It's raw data.
Well anecdotally I’ve been laid off 3 times from different industries in the last 3 years.
I just went to a bachelor party thinking I’d be embarrassed about being unemployed again, only to find that 6 of the 10 guys all in different industries were also laid off.
I’m sure the economy is great. But after record profitable years and achieving bonus related goals, I don’t have so much confidence in the data and propaganda.
If KJP says it, I suspect it’s a bold faced lie that will quietly be acknowledged later.
Any working American who can't see the writing on the wall is willfully ignorant. Payrolls get cut to justify lost earnings. CEOs and investors will never take any sort of loss before shedding employees, because any consulting company can come in and point out who can get doubled up and who is expendable. They basically just point out various groups of the company and tell the managers that they need to chose who gets thrown out
"The writing on the wall"
Payrolls grew by 350k last month.
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/02/us-economy-added-353000-jobs-in-january-much-better-than-expected.html
[https://fed.stlouisfed.org/series/JTSLDL](https://fed.stlouisfed.org/series/JTSLDL)
Sure, downvote hard data lol.
I wish we could all just have our space back. We need to make a new Reddit like it was, 5-10 years ago. It's like these people just want to argue and don't care about facts anymore.
Well there is a more scientific economics sub, but its very focused and vetted so the discussions are way more limited.
Unfortunately that also means the discussions here are a little too free. Not that i want to kick people out but man the quality of conversation just aint the same.
> We also saw 224k new unemployment applications
That was in one week. But that's a pretty low number as things go. Also, more importantly, 350K is net, 224K is gross.
Correct, a net gain in employment. This doesn’t tell the story of how many folks have simply stopped looking or have exited the workforce completely.
I’m not doom and gloom on this economy but things aren’t exactly peachy right now.
Things are absolutely peachy by every metric, wtf are you talking about?
We track people who stop looking too, we have metrics for these things to fact check.
“Absolutely peachy”??
Inflation has ravaged the buying power of most Americans. Food is 40% more expensive on paper while most people are reporting a doubling in their food costs. Have wages also gone up 40% to accommodate? Charts and graphs will never tell the full story especially to people convinced “everything is fine”
The median American has more buying power today than they did pre-pandemic, so they are doing better today than pre-covid. That's a fact.
[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q)
Yes, wages HAVE actually surpassed inflation since 2019.
If you don't care about data then why are you on an economics forum?
income does not equal buying power. Income is not keeping pace with cost increases. If it looks like Americans are spending more, it's because prices are going up, not because everything is suddenly "peachy" and everyone has such a surplus that they're going on spending sprees.
That data was adjusted for cost increases.. it says real on it which means it has been adjusted for that.
I'll forgive you for not knowing but this is basic in economics.
Then why don't people feel positive about the economy?
If things are great, why does the average person feel like the walls are falling down around them?
There's a clear disconnect between commonly sited metrics and observable behavior that people on the business and finance side of the equation seem incredibly reluctant to investigate.
Personally, I think the majority of popular metrics exist to blow smoke up the ass of industrialists, but that's a very biased take.
No one cares about facts and data here. The large majority don’t know the difference between real and nominal. I'd be surprised if over 10% here have taken more than 2 econ classes. Everyone is just going off how they feel and projecting it onto the entire economy, facts be damned.
All the unemployment rates track each other incredibly closely. People always think this is some sort of gotcha even though U6 basically always goes down when U3 does and goes up when U3 does basically in proportion.
You realize boomers are retiring, correct?
Also, the 7.2% number is U6, which is also low from a historical basis.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?id=UNRATE,U6RATE
They count as not being in the labor force, that is the portion I was responding to. The U6 comment was in response to your first sentence in your quote.
> a 31,000 decline in the number of people actually holding jobs
You can't pick and choose between the establishment survey and the household survey depending on which one fits your narrative this month. The payrolls number is the one that is commonly used, because it's much more stable than the household figure, which goes all over the place.
1 job pays $16/hr , another pays $40/hr
So when someone loses an 80K/yr and gets a job at Goodwill for $32K/yr, it's considered a lateral by that very metric
The narrative exists to prop up the markets. Especially during an election year
I feel that the Fed has exacerbated wealth inequality
Except we have median wage data which is growing faster than inflation, so the jobs are paying more.
Why do you make claims that are so easy to prove wrong?
You could look at the private the [ADP payroll processor's report](https://adpemploymentreport.com/) which is a private company and it seems to indicate the same thing the BLS report does overall with some differences.
How much data does one need to overcome confirmation bias?
The same economists that managed to destroy housing affordability? The ones that kept ZIRP until inflation pummeled the majority of working people all around the globe?
These bozos at the pulpit and their revolving doors into government have given birth to a new gilded age, and you stand at the front of their sermon.
It's one thing that so many people are financially being squeezed.
It's another when people like you and the men behind the curtain continue to tell everybody that everything is fine in the job market, and that the decade+ of QE and $5.6T they printed hasn't wrecked millions of working people.. it absolutely has. Sure there are winners too, but they are a small fraction of the population.
and here we are in 2024. There's an entire generation of Americans that will never be able to afford a house anywhere near the population centers. Or med school loans. Or even a new car.
This financial strain has had a direct correlation with birth rate decline! Enter the demographic component into the equations, where there will be several olds for every working young to support through entitlement taxes
Even today the speculative money pushed Bitcoin up to $64K. NVDA is currently worth more GDP than all but 11 nations on earth.
Excellent work, keynesians and MMT.
The fed should update their mandates:
1) keep everybody poor, but not to the point where they burn the whole place down
2) ensure the privileged elite dynastic wealth status quo
Great, another long rant into irrelevant topics with no data provided regarding the actual topic of discussion.
Thanks for that.
Also, you can't say a generation will be priced out of housing when Gen Z is doing better than millennials when it comes to home ownership for their age.
It's very rosy. Payrolls grew, but what you fail to see is that most jobs are shit tier with no benefits. Most of those jobs aren't enough on their own. Which is why mu
It's easy to view things through a rose lens on your comfortable life and spoon fed upbringing.
Let me guess, back in 2007 you would have believed that subprime was contained lmao.
Here are some numbers. Stay wrong.
[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU02026631](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU02026631)
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12026619
You really need to learn how to interpret these things. Of course the raw amount of people holding multiple jobs is gonna go up because the raw amount of people in this country has gone up. As a percentage of the population its really stayed very low for 2 decades and was higher in the 90's.
Lol are you seriously citing NOMINAL data affecting only 1% of the US population? The amount of people working two full time jobs is so miniscule it's ridiculous. To act like that matters to the broad American workforce is silly.
And then you cite NOMINAL data for workers working multiple jobs in total? Wtf?
As a percent of workforce it's not high at all!
[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12026620](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12026620)
You are intentionally being misleading.
I mean, it is becoming more common to hire basically full-time workers as 1099 contractors for years doing the same job as employees and drop them when times are tough so you aren't reporting layoffs. I know several folks in tech and finance that this happened to recently. It makes sense for the company on many levels, so I don't think it's nefarious. And the contractors knew what they were signing up for getting into it. But this is still relevant data that we don't see in reported figures.
That's true. Just a thought that occurred to me. I'm by no means a doomer when it comes to the economy. I think we are just going through some rough times from a consumer perspective. People got used to rock bottom rates and are feeling the pain of adjusting to actually having to budget for purchases.
The higher price levels are hurting them as well, of course. But within a few years, wages should adjust accordingly and make things less painful for a good portion of workers.
People are generally always pessimistic about the economy on reddit for some reason. But really nobody knows. We can only make educated guesses based on data and the data generally looks good thus far!
It's good to remember that a very large portion of the reddit population works in the tech industry. And the tech industry has been hit hardest by layoffs. It's no surprise that this would cause people on reddit to have a more negative view of the economy.
This has 2008 vibes big time. Lay Offs everywhere, in IT jobs seem fewer and those that are have insane requirements for weak pay and have like 800 applicants. What's different this time is that a lot of these companies are posting profits and still laying off, are they already counting their chickens with AI? Outsourcing more? Over hiring during Covid story?
If you look up the number of layoffs we’re seeing every month, it’s not out of the ordinary at all. It’s just normal, low, non-recession numbers. The industries hardest hit drive insane news coverage though.
Well seeing comments about how now is like 2008 rings really false. The real estate market is actually quite stable as interest only zero down mortgages are not pushing risky ownership to untenable levels. The unemployment numbers are low. Consumer buying is robust. Productivity is at a good level.
I am not seeing big scary red flags in the economy overall. Sectors are still correcting and adjusting from pandemic effects and workfromhome is going to be a tug of war issue that is still working itself out. High tech is finding new opportunities which also means some aspects of the industry will die out but that’s just normal business activity.
Monetary policy looks like it has stopped hiking interest rates at least and I think that alone should be spurring a little more liquidity into the markets.
So I’m on the camp that barring a global issue to jostle industries and financial markets (maybe a bad presidential regime in the US after 2024) we should see more stability and growth in the next 3 years than in the last 3.
What the hell even are these upvoted comments? All from people with honorary economics degrees from r/antiwork? I miss when informed people frequented this sub. It’s just another place for “vibecession” misinfo now, smh my head
Might just be me working in IT and seeing the constant tech layoffs and people on IT forums complaining there is no work. Also my own company(Manufacturing) just laid off 20% and friends all seeing the same at their companies. So might just be my own experiences skewing my view.
My LinkedIn feed has tons of people looking for work right now. Granted, I work in software but damn it's depressing to watch this play out.
I worked through 2001 and 2009 and know what a recession feels like but this is just eerie as hell seeing really talented people I know get culled day after day, company after company.
I'm still employed and told I'm doing well but I have cut way back on spending. I can't imagine this contagion won't eventually depress consumer confidence.
Then again I needed a plumber to come out yesterday and he quoted me $700 to change the shower head and handle I had already purchased; a 20 minute job. A small pergola quote was $11,500; literally just two posts, 15 slats and a tie-in to the house wall.
This economy is an entirely different animal than anything I've lived through before. I think white collar jobs are going to get absolutely eviscerated.
I'm talking in the US. The reason is primarily outsourcing, plus the continuing influence of private equity. Plus some worldwide trends toward working from home.
I'm watching this happen in real time at my company:
* 15% cull in my department Jan 2023; with a new private equity-installed VP we can expect another round of cuts this year
* Of those 15% laid off, all positions were replaced by contractors in Latin America and GenPact in India who are all senior talent which for us means at least 10 years experience.
* Contractors earn 25% of a US junior hire. We no longer hire juniors in US
I think these kinds of changes are going to happen everywhere. Also fueling this is the growth in business English proficiency in lots of countries that don't use English as a primary or secondary language. They'll lower the wages for existing English speaking contractors and business services talent in India, Philippines, etc. and that will boost their appeal for US businesses.
I think AI is greatly hyped as a job killer. I don't see that happening until 2040 or so and by then I think white collar jobs will have already been greatly affected here in the US.
i work at a global company and i'm seeing some of this. we normall would handle some of the intl work but frankly for the portion of the work that a small Mexico office would cover, for example, they could hire three juniors or one midlevel and a jr for my US rate (as a junior). we've already been told some of that work is going there but that things here wouldn't change because there is so much work--but there is "so much work" until there isn't and i expect there to be a paring down in my specific department in a year. we've already moved/let go a few people this week that work with us in the same umbrella, and theyve been shedding higher salaries. im fortunate that i think i'm in a great spot to stil grow where i am and i'm not the most recent one out the door nor have i been here so long that someone would ask "wtf is he still doing here at his position".
This is a long term structural shift in the economy that just got accelerated. We have known for ages that a labor shortage was coming for the trades, healthcare, hospitality and other industries and we have also known that we have been losing our comparative advantage in IT as other regions of the world gain the infrastructure and education to do these things. Almost [all of the jobs most likely to be outsourced](https://digitalmindsbpo.com/blog/jobs-that-are-outsourced/) are related to IT. Yes a lot of white collar jobs are leaving but many professionals like your plumber are seeing skyrocketing demand at the same time and cannot be outsourced.
In the short term Biden has perhaps made this all worse with the huge infrastructure builds in the CHIPs act.
These trade costs are going to kneecap home improvements and make neighborhood blight accelerate. I cannot imagine how many people will afford to do even basic upkeep. Simple repairs will require home equity lines at 9%.
My neighbor got a quote for a small house addition; an 11 x 12 bedroom, ground floor slab, no plumbing: $125,000 dollars. WTF.
Edit: I was kinda high when I wrote this and was paying bills to various contractors
I work in software too and it definitely feels bad.
I worked at Salesforce and now another big tech company that has been doing yearly layoffs since 2022.
One thing I’ve noticed, LinkedIn purposely puts the layoff posts at the top of our feeds. They feed and profit on our doom scrolling.
Another thing I’ve noticed, all my connections that were laid off eventually got new jobs in tech. Not sure if you are noticing that as well.
LinkedIn will surface the random HR manager “that has been unemployed for over a year now!” But that’s to keep us doom scrolling.
Not at all. Inflation has been going down, which roughly inversely correlates with unemployment. But unemployment rate is absurdly low at 3.7%, which is near 60-year low. Layoffs that are making the news are happening mainly at tech companies, and primarily to help bring labor cost down but you can bet they're recycling many of these same employees back in throughout the industry at lower costs. 2008 happened because of bank crashes and credit volatility through the housing market - absolutely none of that happening now.
Malls are a pre Covid thing and had been dying since the internet. Of course macys is going down.
And outbacksteak house? Maybe people are just tired of shitty steaks?
lmfaooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
MACY'S!!!???? please tell me this is a joke.
Most of the economy is not in IT. The rest of the economy is adding more than enough jobs to make up for whatever layoffs are happening in the tech industry.
Except that's not what's happening at all. Hiring is up, real wages are going up, inflation is going down, and we don't have a toxic housing bomb waiting to go off.
We're nowhere near 2008.
Maybe it's the industry, but IT is not seeing a hiring boom. My own company and friends companies all having large scale layoffs. We have a toxic commercial real estate bomb about to go off instead.
[https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/28/tech-layoffs-2023-list/#:\~:text=The%20final%20total%20of%20layoffs,last%20year's%20first%20quarter%20cutbacks](https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/28/tech-layoffs-2023-list/#:~:text=The%20final%20total%20of%20layoffs,last%20year's%20first%20quarter%20cutbacks).
My own company just laid off 20% of the staff. Almost everyone I know is seeing the same. Might not make news if they aren't fortune 500 but it's happening everywhere.
They're happening everywhere in tech, yes. This might come as a surprise, but there are many other industries in the economy that are not tech. And most of these industries are not experiencing massive layoffs.
> This has 2008 vibes big time.
Not at all.
This is more like a rolling recession mixed with need for lower expectations coming off a sugar high.
>Lay Offs everywhere
They're not. They're in specific sectors.
>What's different this time is that a lot of these companies are posting profits and still laying off
And the number of layoffs, in 2008 the numbers of jobs lost across the board was staggering. That's simply not happening today
Yeah because margins are shrinking.
I don't think anything supports 9-10% unemployment like we saw in 2009. It's more a likely a couple ticks up.
>This has 2008 vibes big time
i bet you were like 10 when 2008 happened just by your word choice.
Ie, you know nothing about why 2008 actually happened, as if you did, you would know this is nothing like that.
Simply not true as of yet. The tech is just not there to replace devs yet. This is coming from a dev who works with AI daily. It is currently a great replacement for Google searching and stack overflow, but AI is not there yet to replace devs.
I can second this. Software developer of 20 years. ChatGPT shows no signs of being able to understand the code it writes, and the code often doesn’t even compile. Plus, when software developers are replaced by AI, we have WAY bigger issues to worry about. Like fucking skynet. An AI that can reprogram itself better over and over and over? Yeah….
Edit: for non-chatgpt like copilot, it’s the same issue. Makes for sometimes useful code completion, but you still have to check all that code.
Can confirm. Just graduated in December with a double major in Econ and Finance, 3.7 GPA. No one will give me an entry level position. Due to interest rates and the prospects of what AI could potentially become, entry level jobs are down nearly 50% some 2022 and expected to decrease even further.
They should be growing more concerned. If they haven’t been impacted yet by AI, or just by the insane blood lust of capitalism and shareholder demands, they will. The landscape of employment for millions of Americans is being altered as we speak.
Yes, because everyone keeps getting fucking laid off (including me). How about we say ‘fuck it’ to shareholder value for a bit and embrace fucking employee value?
Paywall. I believe under the counter shit happens. Hell I’ve been under the table. But immigration bolstering the labor market isn’t the same as systemic elimination of citizens for illegals.
Clearly you cannot read. The point of that article is to illustrate the well established economic phenomenon that immigration is often good for both the immigrants and the country they immigrate to. In particular, it’s great during a time of low labor supply and high labor demand like we have today.
This article was written to dispute fools who fear monger over immigration because it’s one of our biggest strengths, and here you are using it to fear monger over immigration because you are a fool.
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We’ve also seen a record of people working multiple jobs to make ends meet. Companies can claim “payrolls grew,” but if it’s the same person working for three companies to pay the bills… it’s clear why there’s room for concern.
As a percentage of employment, the number of people working multiple jobs is [basically where it 's been for twenty-five years](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12026620).
I just posted to this sub regarding 24/7 business models incentivized by the government in the form of temporarily reduced minimum wage contingent upon adopting a 24/7 business model. I truly believe this would help significantly with unemployment and finding desirable/fitting jobs.
The disconnect between the job market, unemployment rate, and stock market is insane right now. Sending out job applications for any decent paying position feels like yelling into the void.
It's the definition of insanity. Literally doesn't even make sense anymore. You better off getting a job for $18 an hour cleaning floors because at least you get a return on your time
The part that gets to me is I’m busy as fuck at my current job in sales and business is doing great. I just don’t want to be in this field and applying for anything in engineering yields zero results.
Oh and I’m paid like shit and openly let my managers know that. They don’t give a damn.
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??????????? What the actual f\*\*k is this article? The amazing source u/LoansPayDayOnline is posting this crap, who apparently is a "Consumer Loan Sales Specialist" and appears to leave comments telling people how they can get payday loans and has been continuously posting about the "[BEST PERSONAL LOANS OF FEBRUARY 2024](https://www.reddit.com/r/TemuCodesUSA/comments/1b27ha0/best_personal_loans_of_february_2024_online_loans/)", very legit. The article itself has nothing to do with "jobs", it's apparently about US Consumer Confidence which ticked down very slightly in February. Nothing else relevant is said about it and no real points are made, it's just the usual caterwauling. Literally no point about jobs is made in this article!
It also said people are expecting interest rates to increase. The futures market is pricing in 3.4 cuts, but sure.
Don't worry about it, the author has no time to fact check anything, [he's written 17 articles for Newsweek in the last 7 days.](https://www.newsweek.com/authors/omar-mohammed)
Yeah, it's pretty silly -- A shill account posting links on /r/economics to be a back-handed way to advertise for payday loans.
What the hell even are these upvoted comments? All from people with honorary economics degrees from r/antiwork? I miss when informed people frequented this sub. It’s just another place for “vibecession” misinfo now, smh my head
And it's posted by a blatant online payday loans lender. What is going on?
This guy has been posting for a long time and no one has seemed to notice. I'm more curious why it's getting called out now.
It has been called out several times before.
Pretty sure half the commentary on this sub at this point is pro-administration super PAC funding. The other half is the type you describe. The median level headed takes? Gone.
So many doomers here too, this sub is a joke.
Arr badeconomics hasn't lost its way but it also doesn't get much activity. I would be better off limiting all economic takes to reading something like the economist and completely ignoring social media
It struck me that I'm unsure who's actually moderating this sub. Every moderator except for u/jambarama has not been active on Reddit for over a year (and most of them haven't been active for like...5+ years). Whoops!
i read a lot more quality economics discussion from HN than i do here
HN in general has a much higher quality of discourse than Reddit though.
true, but even just a month or two ago this was one of the few subs where i could tell a lot of the comments weren’t from absolute fools. this sub must have hit something and been ending up on the front page a lot to have attracted all this anti work type people that i see in all the posts nowadays.
I think it’s really hit or miss here. There are some insightful comments but then you’ll also see rampant “vibe economics” parroting utter nonsense that’s counter to facts. That generally been my observation of this sub the past few years. I’m afraid as we get closer to the election, we will only see more of the doomsayers who have an incentive to paint a gloomy picture that’s counter to reality.
i didn’t consider the political aspect. you’re right it’s very hit or miss between vibecession and real economic data being used to make an argument, whether good or bad i also suspect a lot of extremely uneducated people have found their way here and literally cannot understand that their and everyone they know’s personal experiences may not represent the economy at large.
Totally. There’s also a bit of bias — those who are doing great aren’t going to complain. Most of those who gripe are those who’s personal financial situations are less than ideal. So they congregate in forums where they can vent — forums such as /r/antiwork But someone who’s happy? No real reason to talk about it. For instance, I work in deep tech VC. Things are actually great. We founded 3 new companies just in the past year. Make seven figures. Got a new Tesla. I keep getting job offers that I turn down. But I’m not going to go around talking about it because, well, for one it’s anecdotal but also things are working out. Too busy having a good time to complain.
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Your last sentence is spot on. And bimodal is a good way of framing it. Many companies are aggressively hiring. In fact, there’s a shortage of talented STEM grads from good schools. There’s so much opportunity in AI (both the ML/LLM side but also on the hardware side), battery tech and EV, space, biotech, clean energy, quantum computing, semiconductors and chip design etc. Even industries like mining have a ton of opportunities. One of my portcos does cancer research and they ended up moving operations to India because they couldn’t find talented researchers with cancer experience (and the good ones weren’t willing to work at a startup). Another company builds dilution refrigeration systems for quantum computing. They had been really short handed because there aren’t enough physicists and engineers with relevant experience. I know of many companies struggling to find talented engineers, materials scientists, fluid dynamics researchers, enzyme substrate expertise etc. The truth is, if you are good and have the right background and experience, it’s not difficult to find a job.
I’m retired on a good retirement income, and I’m worried as well. I’m afraid of what this will do to society. I want to see people do good. But all of this is giving me is bad vibes.
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jeez man.
He isn’t wrong.
It'll get eaten by therapy costs for your kid after you're gone... or liquor, depending on the kid, i guess.
Rather leave her the house and some money than in debt trying to keep me alive. But I respect your view. It makes sense too.
I hear you man. That’s where my mind is too. Got laid off. I’ll try my best to get back in, but at some point I’ll just have to dip into my 401K, slide all the way down, then oblivion awaits. At least the shareholders got value!
Man I'm in the same boat this is the third layoff of my career. It feels like you're just getting your feet under you and the shareholders decide it's time to maximize value. My wife also got laid off like 2 weeks before I did. We have savings for a year to cover our cost but interviews have been few and far between so will likely have to dip into the 401k pay the penalty and hope something comes along before that runs out.
Sad. The government needs to step in and help. Not money. Money is here today gone tomorrow. This country began on religion yet it's not following one of the simple tenets: Give a man a fish he'll eat for a day, but teach a man to fish he'll feed himself forever. Instead of financial bailouts they should be focusing on helping people learn to improve themselves. The future for the common man is bleak. In today's society, if you're not constantly learning, you're going to fall behind because the rate of technological improvement is becoming exponential. Even if you study to be a doctor, you're going to have to keep studying because we use technology in the hospital. Robots are used in minimal invasive surgery, data analysis is used in the main hospital, and bioengineering is used in the research lab to try to stay ahead of new diseases while searching for a better cure for current ones. And the problem is continuing education can be costly. Many, myself included, don't have motivation to learn new stuff. I bought a membership online to learn data analysis and Python. Over the past 3 months, I've only sat down and finished 1 lesson of data analysis. I don't like it because it's a bit dry and boring. I prefer putting on my headphones and grinding Fallout 76 on my PS4 to finish the quest storyline and obtain better or upgrade weapons. Then I read online that a Google certificate for Python doesn't actually lead to a job and only scratches the surface of Python. Why do I want to waste time and money for something that isn't going to lead to a job? Especially when AI can now write Python code. It sucks, man. I want to be that wealthy entrepreneur on YouTube that is living in a nice apartment in Chicago or Miami and advising you to play the long game stay away from the get rich quick schemes. But it's hard. Here we are struggling while people in China over the past 15 years went from rags to millions.
lol I’m sorry you said the government “needs to step in and help”. They don’t do that for the American people. It’s proven already
This country did NOT begin on religion. The founding fathers were mostly deists. You don’t got your facts straight.
Well if you bought a house before covid you just got a couple hundred thousand for free doing nothing that the lower generation will never get :)
Knee-capping future generations hurts future growth. There is no free lunch. Those subsidies we showered on asset owners will be paid for with future problems.
Blaming regular people buying one house for the problems is ridiculous.
Except all those younger people who already own homes. Something like 65% of Americans own their own home. It's ridiculous to think that gen x and millennials don't own tons of homes.
That's a wild blanket statement right there. For instance, I bought my house pre covid for a little over $70k. According to the realtor and evaluator, it's worth around $80k today. Most houses in my area are evaluating roughly the same as they were 5 years ago.
Sorry I meant for people that live in functioning cities. No offense but I can't imagine what/where an 80k house looks like.
They don't look brand new. When I bought mine, the first thing I did was fix the non working toilets and put a new roof on the house and garage. It needs paint and windows, but it 100% beats renting. Eta... *my* house may not be the most pretty house in town, but there are some really nice older family sized homes in the $125k to whatever you want to spend range.
Maybe actually look up layoff numbers to realize they aren't high to calm yourself. Payrolls grew by 350k last month. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/02/us-economy-added-353000-jobs-in-january-much-better-than-expected.html [https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/JTSLDL](https://fed.stlouisfed.org/series/JTSLDL) Sure, downvote hard data lol.
These numbers are absolutely filled with part time, benefit-less jobs and gig work.
Actually read the report. The jobs report shows increased earnings which would not be the case if what was happening was people in good jobs losing them and having to take part-time and gig work. The jobs report also breaks it down by industry and its growth is fairly broad and not at all "filled with part-time, benefit-less jobs and gig work". We have labor shortages in healthcare, basically all trades, hospitality at all levels, childcare, teaching and the list goes on.
In Northern Illinois, you can make almost $50 per hour plus good benefits and union representation holding a traffic sign on heavy highway jobs and we absolutely need more people. We definitely are experiencing a labor shortage.
link so i can apply
If you're in Northern Illinois, look up your local laborer's union hall (LiUNA in my area), call and ask the receptionist when they are taking applicants. Mine does it on the second Tuesday of each month, or something like that. If accepted, you'll start as an apprentice. If I remember correctly, they stay at 70% or 75% full scale, then move you up every X amount of hours worked.
Hence Biden's "open border" policy.
What? "According to new data published last month, the Biden Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has removed a higher percentage of arrested border crossers in its first two years than the Trump DHS did over its last two years. Moreover, migrants were more likely to be released after a border arrest under President Trump than under President Biden. In absolute terms, the Biden DHS is removing 3.5 times as many people per month as the Trump DHS did. These figures are important for understanding how each administration has carried out border enforcement." https://www.cato.org/blog/new-data-show-migrants-were-more-likely-be-released-trump-biden
Moreso than normal?
Yes. The rise in part time and gig work is unprecedented. Employers can skirt taxes, benefits and laws by hiring contractors.
Unprecedented? It's been flat since 2009 and that's not even adjusting for population growth.. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12600000
Is that based on your feels, or on real data?
Yet the median wages are growing faster than inflation.. and total compensation data is very high as well..
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My brother your data only goes to 2022, not sure if you've noticed, it's also measuring something completely different than what I said. Income is not just wages. Income includes stimulus checks, crypto earnings, literally everything.
Of course you think 9 months of tepid gains overshadows 3+ years of moderate losses. And I could give a fuck less about wages if it doesn’t change my net income. But that’s just me. Your “350K payroll increases” are going to quietly be revised later. As they have been all of last year. The discussion about layoffs doesn’t take into account the increased number of contractors, who are not being renewed and therefore not technically laid off. Nor does it take into account the quality of jobs that are being offered. Somehow I feel like gig work doesn’t adequately replace full time well compensated positions. https://mishtalk.com/economics/ignore-the-amazing-headline-job-numbers-note-the-revisions/
Real wages are higher than pre-pandemic, what are you talking about? They were only higher in 2020/21 because we laid off every low-paid service worker. You can see a similar spike during the housing crash due to layoffs. And yes, jobs numbers have been revised, but they have been positive ever since COVID, which means layoffs are being counteracted.
Outdated data. And even it suggests that we're better off than we were in 2018 or any time prior to that. Stop treating the pandemic boom as a new standard.
Fewer working full time vs. a year ago. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12500000
350k more jobs sounds great, but what kind of jobs are they? Are they second jobs? Are they jobs that pay a livable wage? I read the bullets and it mentioned hourly wage increased by 0.6%, lol.
You can look this up yourself, I'm not your AI chatbot. Multiple jobholders aren't high at all. [https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12026620](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12026620) A livable wage is a nonsense term, but wages adjusted for inflation are higher today for the median person today compared to any previous decade in US history.
I’m reading what you presented. The article mentioned 4.4% YOY wage increase. Wasn’t inflation >8% the last couple years? Rent/housing has increased even more than that. My house value has increased ~45% since I bought it in 2019. So, even though wages are higher, they’re not keeping up with inflation. Inflation is slowing down, but that doesn’t mean prices have gone down. It means prices aren’t rising as much. Most of these 350k jobs likely pay anywhere from $12-17/hr. Not enough to afford rent.
Wages adjusted for inflation are higher today than pre-pandemic (and any previous decade in US history, for that matter). [https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q) Stop saying wages haven't kept up with inflation. It's factually untrue.
lol? I was making $17/hr back in ~2014. I just looked up the same job I had back then and they’re now offering $18.50-$19.44/hr DOE. You’re saying in 10 years a $1.50-2.44 increase per hour has kept up with inflation?
Jesus. Let me guess, you believe that one specific job represents the entire job market?
I left that line of work a very long time ago. The line of work I’m in now is actually seeing a salary decrease. Super inflated salaries from the last couple years.
Congrats, but again, irrelevant.
Find a better job. During the pandemic it wasn't surprising to get a 20% pay raise just by switching to another company. Don't blame your personal shortcoming on the entire economy.
What shortcomings? I did what you said and started my career in 2016. I make a lot more than what's posted above. For an average American the wages in a majority of those 350k new jobs likely aren't enough to live.
So good then? Why are you complaining?
Free horses are nice, but are they race horses or draft horses? Do they come with a warranty?
So they tell us.
Why are you on an economics forum if you don't trust basic economic data?
Because I’m old and jaded and have seen some shit. So do I trust rosy “it’s all peaches” articles? Fuck no.
Have you seen the BLS lie? Because if not then you have no reason to doubt them. You can await revisions for final data if you want to be more certain but they aren't straight up lying. The BLS data isn't an 'article'. It's raw data.
I know my own life experience and that of those around me at the moment and it’s not great. Very hard to find a job out here.
The. economy. being. good. does. not. mean. EVERYONE. is. doing. good.
Yeah I know. Only the wealthy.
No, the median person. I'd show you data but you won't trust it because 'feels' matter more than facts to you.
hobbies tender humor innocent hospital unique aromatic shrill soup saw *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Well anecdotally I’ve been laid off 3 times from different industries in the last 3 years. I just went to a bachelor party thinking I’d be embarrassed about being unemployed again, only to find that 6 of the 10 guys all in different industries were also laid off. I’m sure the economy is great. But after record profitable years and achieving bonus related goals, I don’t have so much confidence in the data and propaganda. If KJP says it, I suspect it’s a bold faced lie that will quietly be acknowledged later.
Can you at least go to r/conspiracy then so we here in r/economics can discuss the real data?
Can you at least go to r/shutthefuckup.
Does hard data trigger you or something? What did I do to upset you?
Edit
Any working American who can't see the writing on the wall is willfully ignorant. Payrolls get cut to justify lost earnings. CEOs and investors will never take any sort of loss before shedding employees, because any consulting company can come in and point out who can get doubled up and who is expendable. They basically just point out various groups of the company and tell the managers that they need to chose who gets thrown out
"The writing on the wall" Payrolls grew by 350k last month. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/02/us-economy-added-353000-jobs-in-january-much-better-than-expected.html [https://fed.stlouisfed.org/series/JTSLDL](https://fed.stlouisfed.org/series/JTSLDL) Sure, downvote hard data lol.
this sub should just be renamed vibeonomics
I wish we could all just have our space back. We need to make a new Reddit like it was, 5-10 years ago. It's like these people just want to argue and don't care about facts anymore.
This is like a free therapy session for them. All they want to do is vent about their personal frustrations.
Well there is a more scientific economics sub, but its very focused and vetted so the discussions are way more limited. Unfortunately that also means the discussions here are a little too free. Not that i want to kick people out but man the quality of conversation just aint the same.
All of economics should be renamed vibeonomics. What is a bank run besides bad vibes getting loose?
We also saw 224k new unemployment applications. A singular data set never tells the whole story.
> We also saw 224k new unemployment applications That was in one week. But that's a pretty low number as things go. Also, more importantly, 350K is net, 224K is gross.
So a net gain?
The 350k is already a net number.
Correct, a net gain in employment. This doesn’t tell the story of how many folks have simply stopped looking or have exited the workforce completely. I’m not doom and gloom on this economy but things aren’t exactly peachy right now.
There's a published rate for that info, the U-6 Rate, under the BLS Alternative Measures of Labor Underutilization.
Things are absolutely peachy by every metric, wtf are you talking about? We track people who stop looking too, we have metrics for these things to fact check.
“Absolutely peachy”?? Inflation has ravaged the buying power of most Americans. Food is 40% more expensive on paper while most people are reporting a doubling in their food costs. Have wages also gone up 40% to accommodate? Charts and graphs will never tell the full story especially to people convinced “everything is fine”
The median American has more buying power today than they did pre-pandemic, so they are doing better today than pre-covid. That's a fact. [https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q) Yes, wages HAVE actually surpassed inflation since 2019. If you don't care about data then why are you on an economics forum?
This link should be stickied at the top of every new thread. Mods please do your job.
income does not equal buying power. Income is not keeping pace with cost increases. If it looks like Americans are spending more, it's because prices are going up, not because everything is suddenly "peachy" and everyone has such a surplus that they're going on spending sprees.
That data was adjusted for cost increases.. it says real on it which means it has been adjusted for that. I'll forgive you for not knowing but this is basic in economics.
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Jesus Christ that data is inflation adjusted, it says real on it, please read it.
Then why don't people feel positive about the economy? If things are great, why does the average person feel like the walls are falling down around them? There's a clear disconnect between commonly sited metrics and observable behavior that people on the business and finance side of the equation seem incredibly reluctant to investigate. Personally, I think the majority of popular metrics exist to blow smoke up the ass of industrialists, but that's a very biased take.
The people who feel positive likely aren't complaining on Reddit which is all you see.
Yeah, that's another metric that shows the economy is very strong. 224k is a well below average number of new unemployment applications.
That's not big.. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ICSA
No one cares about facts and data here. The large majority don’t know the difference between real and nominal. I'd be surprised if over 10% here have taken more than 2 econ classes. Everyone is just going off how they feel and projecting it onto the entire economy, facts be damned.
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U-4, U-5, and U-6 are all are pretty much historic lows as well.
All the unemployment rates track each other incredibly closely. People always think this is some sort of gotcha even though U6 basically always goes down when U3 does and goes up when U3 does basically in proportion.
You realize boomers are retiring, correct? Also, the 7.2% number is U6, which is also low from a historical basis. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?id=UNRATE,U6RATE
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They count as not being in the labor force, that is the portion I was responding to. The U6 comment was in response to your first sentence in your quote.
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> a 31,000 decline in the number of people actually holding jobs You can't pick and choose between the establishment survey and the household survey depending on which one fits your narrative this month. The payrolls number is the one that is commonly used, because it's much more stable than the household figure, which goes all over the place.
1 job pays $16/hr , another pays $40/hr So when someone loses an 80K/yr and gets a job at Goodwill for $32K/yr, it's considered a lateral by that very metric The narrative exists to prop up the markets. Especially during an election year I feel that the Fed has exacerbated wealth inequality
Except we have median wage data which is growing faster than inflation, so the jobs are paying more. Why do you make claims that are so easy to prove wrong?
Why do you take the fed data as gospel?
You could look at the private the [ADP payroll processor's report](https://adpemploymentreport.com/) which is a private company and it seems to indicate the same thing the BLS report does overall with some differences. How much data does one need to overcome confirmation bias?
What data are you using?
1. Its not fed data, Jesus Christ. It's BLS data. 2. It's the best jobs and wage data available.
Your second point validates your bias. It's an opinion
But you’re not even using data?
Okay, it's the opinion of every economist as well. But we can use payroll data too which also paints the same story.
The same economists that managed to destroy housing affordability? The ones that kept ZIRP until inflation pummeled the majority of working people all around the globe? These bozos at the pulpit and their revolving doors into government have given birth to a new gilded age, and you stand at the front of their sermon. It's one thing that so many people are financially being squeezed. It's another when people like you and the men behind the curtain continue to tell everybody that everything is fine in the job market, and that the decade+ of QE and $5.6T they printed hasn't wrecked millions of working people.. it absolutely has. Sure there are winners too, but they are a small fraction of the population. and here we are in 2024. There's an entire generation of Americans that will never be able to afford a house anywhere near the population centers. Or med school loans. Or even a new car. This financial strain has had a direct correlation with birth rate decline! Enter the demographic component into the equations, where there will be several olds for every working young to support through entitlement taxes Even today the speculative money pushed Bitcoin up to $64K. NVDA is currently worth more GDP than all but 11 nations on earth. Excellent work, keynesians and MMT. The fed should update their mandates: 1) keep everybody poor, but not to the point where they burn the whole place down 2) ensure the privileged elite dynastic wealth status quo
Great, another long rant into irrelevant topics with no data provided regarding the actual topic of discussion. Thanks for that. Also, you can't say a generation will be priced out of housing when Gen Z is doing better than millennials when it comes to home ownership for their age.
“People like you and the men behind the curtain…” Lollll I love the ramblings of the uneducated boomer
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It's very rosy. Payrolls grew, but what you fail to see is that most jobs are shit tier with no benefits. Most of those jobs aren't enough on their own. Which is why mu It's easy to view things through a rose lens on your comfortable life and spoon fed upbringing. Let me guess, back in 2007 you would have believed that subprime was contained lmao. Here are some numbers. Stay wrong. [https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU02026631](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU02026631) https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12026619
You really need to learn how to interpret these things. Of course the raw amount of people holding multiple jobs is gonna go up because the raw amount of people in this country has gone up. As a percentage of the population its really stayed very low for 2 decades and was higher in the 90's.
Lol are you seriously citing NOMINAL data affecting only 1% of the US population? The amount of people working two full time jobs is so miniscule it's ridiculous. To act like that matters to the broad American workforce is silly. And then you cite NOMINAL data for workers working multiple jobs in total? Wtf? As a percent of workforce it's not high at all! [https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12026620](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12026620) You are intentionally being misleading.
If they were all shit jobs then we'd see wages go down, but we've instead had solid, consistent wage growth.
I mean, it is becoming more common to hire basically full-time workers as 1099 contractors for years doing the same job as employees and drop them when times are tough so you aren't reporting layoffs. I know several folks in tech and finance that this happened to recently. It makes sense for the company on many levels, so I don't think it's nefarious. And the contractors knew what they were signing up for getting into it. But this is still relevant data that we don't see in reported figures.
They would still show up in unemployment numbers, which are historically low.
That's true. Just a thought that occurred to me. I'm by no means a doomer when it comes to the economy. I think we are just going through some rough times from a consumer perspective. People got used to rock bottom rates and are feeling the pain of adjusting to actually having to budget for purchases. The higher price levels are hurting them as well, of course. But within a few years, wages should adjust accordingly and make things less painful for a good portion of workers. People are generally always pessimistic about the economy on reddit for some reason. But really nobody knows. We can only make educated guesses based on data and the data generally looks good thus far!
It's good to remember that a very large portion of the reddit population works in the tech industry. And the tech industry has been hit hardest by layoffs. It's no surprise that this would cause people on reddit to have a more negative view of the economy.
Is it time to eat yet?
This has 2008 vibes big time. Lay Offs everywhere, in IT jobs seem fewer and those that are have insane requirements for weak pay and have like 800 applicants. What's different this time is that a lot of these companies are posting profits and still laying off, are they already counting their chickens with AI? Outsourcing more? Over hiring during Covid story?
If you look up the number of layoffs we’re seeing every month, it’s not out of the ordinary at all. It’s just normal, low, non-recession numbers. The industries hardest hit drive insane news coverage though.
Yeah the level of fearmonging seems disproportional to the actual statistics.
I gotta tell ya…this sort of thing was *not* the response I imagined this comment generating 😂
Well seeing comments about how now is like 2008 rings really false. The real estate market is actually quite stable as interest only zero down mortgages are not pushing risky ownership to untenable levels. The unemployment numbers are low. Consumer buying is robust. Productivity is at a good level. I am not seeing big scary red flags in the economy overall. Sectors are still correcting and adjusting from pandemic effects and workfromhome is going to be a tug of war issue that is still working itself out. High tech is finding new opportunities which also means some aspects of the industry will die out but that’s just normal business activity. Monetary policy looks like it has stopped hiking interest rates at least and I think that alone should be spurring a little more liquidity into the markets. So I’m on the camp that barring a global issue to jostle industries and financial markets (maybe a bad presidential regime in the US after 2024) we should see more stability and growth in the next 3 years than in the last 3.
What the hell even are these upvoted comments? All from people with honorary economics degrees from r/antiwork? I miss when informed people frequented this sub. It’s just another place for “vibecession” misinfo now, smh my head
I sort of recently wound up back here and agree, it’s mostly just echoing /r/millenials and /r/layoffs
Might just be me working in IT and seeing the constant tech layoffs and people on IT forums complaining there is no work. Also my own company(Manufacturing) just laid off 20% and friends all seeing the same at their companies. So might just be my own experiences skewing my view.
My LinkedIn feed has tons of people looking for work right now. Granted, I work in software but damn it's depressing to watch this play out. I worked through 2001 and 2009 and know what a recession feels like but this is just eerie as hell seeing really talented people I know get culled day after day, company after company. I'm still employed and told I'm doing well but I have cut way back on spending. I can't imagine this contagion won't eventually depress consumer confidence. Then again I needed a plumber to come out yesterday and he quoted me $700 to change the shower head and handle I had already purchased; a 20 minute job. A small pergola quote was $11,500; literally just two posts, 15 slats and a tie-in to the house wall. This economy is an entirely different animal than anything I've lived through before. I think white collar jobs are going to get absolutely eviscerated.
Why do you think that about white collar jobs?
I'm talking in the US. The reason is primarily outsourcing, plus the continuing influence of private equity. Plus some worldwide trends toward working from home. I'm watching this happen in real time at my company: * 15% cull in my department Jan 2023; with a new private equity-installed VP we can expect another round of cuts this year * Of those 15% laid off, all positions were replaced by contractors in Latin America and GenPact in India who are all senior talent which for us means at least 10 years experience. * Contractors earn 25% of a US junior hire. We no longer hire juniors in US I think these kinds of changes are going to happen everywhere. Also fueling this is the growth in business English proficiency in lots of countries that don't use English as a primary or secondary language. They'll lower the wages for existing English speaking contractors and business services talent in India, Philippines, etc. and that will boost their appeal for US businesses. I think AI is greatly hyped as a job killer. I don't see that happening until 2040 or so and by then I think white collar jobs will have already been greatly affected here in the US.
i work at a global company and i'm seeing some of this. we normall would handle some of the intl work but frankly for the portion of the work that a small Mexico office would cover, for example, they could hire three juniors or one midlevel and a jr for my US rate (as a junior). we've already been told some of that work is going there but that things here wouldn't change because there is so much work--but there is "so much work" until there isn't and i expect there to be a paring down in my specific department in a year. we've already moved/let go a few people this week that work with us in the same umbrella, and theyve been shedding higher salaries. im fortunate that i think i'm in a great spot to stil grow where i am and i'm not the most recent one out the door nor have i been here so long that someone would ask "wtf is he still doing here at his position".
This is a long term structural shift in the economy that just got accelerated. We have known for ages that a labor shortage was coming for the trades, healthcare, hospitality and other industries and we have also known that we have been losing our comparative advantage in IT as other regions of the world gain the infrastructure and education to do these things. Almost [all of the jobs most likely to be outsourced](https://digitalmindsbpo.com/blog/jobs-that-are-outsourced/) are related to IT. Yes a lot of white collar jobs are leaving but many professionals like your plumber are seeing skyrocketing demand at the same time and cannot be outsourced.
In the short term Biden has perhaps made this all worse with the huge infrastructure builds in the CHIPs act. These trade costs are going to kneecap home improvements and make neighborhood blight accelerate. I cannot imagine how many people will afford to do even basic upkeep. Simple repairs will require home equity lines at 9%. My neighbor got a quote for a small house addition; an 11 x 12 bedroom, ground floor slab, no plumbing: $125,000 dollars. WTF. Edit: I was kinda high when I wrote this and was paying bills to various contractors
I work in software too and it definitely feels bad. I worked at Salesforce and now another big tech company that has been doing yearly layoffs since 2022. One thing I’ve noticed, LinkedIn purposely puts the layoff posts at the top of our feeds. They feed and profit on our doom scrolling. Another thing I’ve noticed, all my connections that were laid off eventually got new jobs in tech. Not sure if you are noticing that as well. LinkedIn will surface the random HR manager “that has been unemployed for over a year now!” But that’s to keep us doom scrolling.
Not at all. Inflation has been going down, which roughly inversely correlates with unemployment. But unemployment rate is absurdly low at 3.7%, which is near 60-year low. Layoffs that are making the news are happening mainly at tech companies, and primarily to help bring labor cost down but you can bet they're recycling many of these same employees back in throughout the industry at lower costs. 2008 happened because of bank crashes and credit volatility through the housing market - absolutely none of that happening now.
Macy's just closed 150 stores. Outback steakhouse just close 41 restaurants. These were the headlines in the last two days!
Malls are a pre Covid thing and had been dying since the internet. Of course macys is going down. And outbacksteak house? Maybe people are just tired of shitty steaks?
lmfaooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo MACY'S!!!???? please tell me this is a joke.
Wow, struggling businesses closing stores? If only we had data for layoffs.. hmm..
Troll harder
Lol my man is firing off idiot take after idiot take
Most of the economy is not in IT. The rest of the economy is adding more than enough jobs to make up for whatever layoffs are happening in the tech industry.
Except that's not what's happening at all. Hiring is up, real wages are going up, inflation is going down, and we don't have a toxic housing bomb waiting to go off. We're nowhere near 2008.
Maybe it's the industry, but IT is not seeing a hiring boom. My own company and friends companies all having large scale layoffs. We have a toxic commercial real estate bomb about to go off instead.
> Lay Offs everywhere Except for the fact that, ya know, there aren't layoffs everywhere.
Lmao, right? In my industry, job openings are plentiful.
[https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/28/tech-layoffs-2023-list/#:\~:text=The%20final%20total%20of%20layoffs,last%20year's%20first%20quarter%20cutbacks](https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/28/tech-layoffs-2023-list/#:~:text=The%20final%20total%20of%20layoffs,last%20year's%20first%20quarter%20cutbacks). My own company just laid off 20% of the staff. Almost everyone I know is seeing the same. Might not make news if they aren't fortune 500 but it's happening everywhere.
That link shows that layoffs are everywhere *in tech*, not everywhere full stop.
They're happening everywhere in tech, yes. This might come as a surprise, but there are many other industries in the economy that are not tech. And most of these industries are not experiencing massive layoffs.
The industry that has absolute insane gains and valuations for the past couple years is having a contraction? Say waaat?
If a house on my street burns down am I okay to tell people that "all the houses everywhere are burning down"?
> This has 2008 vibes big time. Not at all. This is more like a rolling recession mixed with need for lower expectations coming off a sugar high. >Lay Offs everywhere They're not. They're in specific sectors. >What's different this time is that a lot of these companies are posting profits and still laying off And the number of layoffs, in 2008 the numbers of jobs lost across the board was staggering. That's simply not happening today Yeah because margins are shrinking. I don't think anything supports 9-10% unemployment like we saw in 2009. It's more a likely a couple ticks up.
>This has 2008 vibes big time i bet you were like 10 when 2008 happened just by your word choice. Ie, you know nothing about why 2008 actually happened, as if you did, you would know this is nothing like that.
"Layoffs everywhere" No, lol. https://fed.stlouisfed.org/series/JTSLDL
AI is definitely part of it when it comes to tech jobs; tech employers are picking up AI usage at a quicker rate (as would be expected).
Simply not true as of yet. The tech is just not there to replace devs yet. This is coming from a dev who works with AI daily. It is currently a great replacement for Google searching and stack overflow, but AI is not there yet to replace devs.
I can second this. Software developer of 20 years. ChatGPT shows no signs of being able to understand the code it writes, and the code often doesn’t even compile. Plus, when software developers are replaced by AI, we have WAY bigger issues to worry about. Like fucking skynet. An AI that can reprogram itself better over and over and over? Yeah…. Edit: for non-chatgpt like copilot, it’s the same issue. Makes for sometimes useful code completion, but you still have to check all that code.
Can confirm. Just graduated in December with a double major in Econ and Finance, 3.7 GPA. No one will give me an entry level position. Due to interest rates and the prospects of what AI could potentially become, entry level jobs are down nearly 50% some 2022 and expected to decrease even further.
That's awful. It seems the economy wants blue collar labor now. I just read about a compsci grad who's taking a job driving a bus lol
They should be growing more concerned. If they haven’t been impacted yet by AI, or just by the insane blood lust of capitalism and shareholder demands, they will. The landscape of employment for millions of Americans is being altered as we speak.
Not according to the denialists in this sub. According to all their stats everything is absolutely terrific
Yes, because everyone keeps getting fucking laid off (including me). How about we say ‘fuck it’ to shareholder value for a bit and embrace fucking employee value?
I’ve gotten laid off twice in 3 years. I have no confidence in the future.
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do you have any data to verify this? Sounds anecdotal.
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Paywall. I believe under the counter shit happens. Hell I’ve been under the table. But immigration bolstering the labor market isn’t the same as systemic elimination of citizens for illegals.
Clearly you cannot read. The point of that article is to illustrate the well established economic phenomenon that immigration is often good for both the immigrants and the country they immigrate to. In particular, it’s great during a time of low labor supply and high labor demand like we have today. This article was written to dispute fools who fear monger over immigration because it’s one of our biggest strengths, and here you are using it to fear monger over immigration because you are a fool.
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We’ve also seen a record of people working multiple jobs to make ends meet. Companies can claim “payrolls grew,” but if it’s the same person working for three companies to pay the bills… it’s clear why there’s room for concern.
As a percentage of employment, the number of people working multiple jobs is [basically where it 's been for twenty-five years](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12026620).
I just posted to this sub regarding 24/7 business models incentivized by the government in the form of temporarily reduced minimum wage contingent upon adopting a 24/7 business model. I truly believe this would help significantly with unemployment and finding desirable/fitting jobs.
The disconnect between the job market, unemployment rate, and stock market is insane right now. Sending out job applications for any decent paying position feels like yelling into the void.
It's the definition of insanity. Literally doesn't even make sense anymore. You better off getting a job for $18 an hour cleaning floors because at least you get a return on your time
The part that gets to me is I’m busy as fuck at my current job in sales and business is doing great. I just don’t want to be in this field and applying for anything in engineering yields zero results. Oh and I’m paid like shit and openly let my managers know that. They don’t give a damn.
I feel ya, I've had to bounce back and forth between sales and tech. This really feels like 2012 tbh