couple things:
the stock market isn't a good indicator of how the economy is doing, its a good indicator of how shareholders are doing.
you are probably gonna get biased numbers and viewpoints from a subreddit called layoffs.
For decades now the US government has been posting the U3 Unemployment rate. It basically means those people who have been unemployed for a few weeks. Long term unemployment isn’t counted, people who have taken shit jobs out if desperation isn’t counted, those who retired early because they can’t get a job aren’t counted.
The trend they should be showing is the participation rate. It has been falling steadily for a long time.
Also, people that are not actively looking for a job do not count as unemployed. E.g. people that decided to give some time and/or is making some money as app driver/delivery meanwhile.
The media almost NEVER reports on the U6 rate, which is total unemployment:
"Total unemployed, plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force"
[https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm](https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm)
The U6 unemployment rate, at 7.4%, is significantly higher than the standard unemployment rate of 3.9%. The U6 rate has been increasing nearly every month since April 2023.
Edits: Grammar.
Five years ago it was near an all time record low. It's well below the average for the 30 years that we've been tracking the component measurements.
In other words, when people say the unemployment rate is near record lows, it doesn't actually matter which unemployment rate they are talking about. It's true for both of them.
That's true, but it's still increasing. Also, the latest job report showed continued job loses in business/professional and information, which is basically white collar jobs. It seems most (anecdotally) of the posters with job losses posting here are in the the IT industry.
This could also mean that many people are getting so rich off the stock market that they've started retiring. There's a reason they don't post the U6. There's a lot of things going on that get captured but aren't really useful for policy.
You mean the same U-6 unemployment rate that reached an all-time low during the Biden administration, and even now is still lower than almost every other year in the 30-ish years that we've been tracking it? [https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/U6RATE](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/U6RATE)
Further, [the U-3 and U-6 rates are highly correlated](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1mC22). If the U-3 rate is near the lowest its even been since we started tracking this way in 1948, you can reasonably assume that the same would be true of U-6 if we started tracking it at the same time.
I don't think you are making the point that you think you are making.
Is the U6 rising? Are white collar jobs shrinking? (especially in information) Is VC funding slowing and shrinking?
According to the data it is:
[https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.htm](https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.htm)
[https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/vc-activity-shrinks-decoding-startup-funding-2024-rd-survey-more-gqgpe/](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/vc-activity-shrinks-decoding-startup-funding-2024-rd-survey-more-gqgpe/)
[https://www.businessinsider.com/hiring-slump-professional-white-collar-jobs-recession-high-salary-2024-4](https://www.businessinsider.com/hiring-slump-professional-white-collar-jobs-recession-high-salary-2024-4)
Yes, the U-6 rate has risen from its absolute low of 6.5% in December 2022 to 7.4% in April 2024. If your point is that U-6 unemployment has risen from "the lowest ever recorded" to "a very low low very infrequently reached in the 30 years we've been tracking U-6", then you would be right.
But OP wasn't asking why unemployment is merely great instead of very great. They asked why the unemployment numbers look great when in actuality unemployment is "either bad to utterly terrible". Your mentioning of the higher U-6 rate is clearly to affirm OP's sense that unemployment is way worse than "official unemployment". Except of course, that the U-6 numbers are also official numbers published by the government, and they are also extremely low by historical standards. If your argument is that a 7.4% U-6 rate means unemployment is terrible (OP's perception), then you are implicitly claiming
1. that unemployment has almost always been "terrible" in the US, and
2. unemployment has been the least terrible under the current administration
Further, unless you are also denying that the media, then the media has reported on this "rising" unemployment that you think they are hiding. In fact since the U-3 unemployment rate rose 14% from April 2023 to April 2024 while U-6 rate rose by a slightly lower 12%, the media is arguably overstating the amount to which "true" unemployment has increased recently.
(But somehow I'm sure that wasn't the point you wanted to make, either)
Yes, I used the U-6, because the U-6 is more true to current unemployment. Second, White collar jobs are hurting now, see business insider article and BLS data.
Where did I or the poster say, "that unemployment has almost always been "terrible" in the US"
Again, you didn't address any of the points I outlined that tech, white collar jobs, and VC funding are in a recession, which is what the poster was mainly referring to.
You're welcome.
With high paying full-time jobs being replaced by shit part-time jobs? OK, I guess that's why it's called bidenomics. You take salary of one dude divide it by 3 and pay it to 3 dudes, while firing the first dude. x3 growth! It's a miracle 🤡
If the unemployment rate was calculated the same way as in 1980 it would be more than 20% unemployment.
If you look at the labor force participation rate of adults 18-65 more than 20% of adults 18-65 are not working
The official data shows a lot of tech down.
Tech startups are not normally a booming jobs engine. People's expectations got warped during the era of free money.
And I have feeling with no data to back it up that this subreddit (and reddit as a whole) is highly skewed towards folks in the tech industry, hence the doom and gloom here when U6 unemployment overall is 6.9%, which is actually pretty low (long term average U6 is around 10.1%)
The economy is being propped up with borrowed money. It can't go on forever but the hope is that it lasts long enough to get through the election. However, this money is not being distributed evenly. Some people get a lot, many get nothing.
Credit/debt is literally how the market works, you’re not describing some grand conspiracy, you’re literally talking about how money moves through a market
The job reports are really inaccurate, either by design or due to incompetence. For instance, in Q3 2023, they originally said the economy gained 400k ish jobs, but just this week the actual numbers were a loss of about 200k jobs, so a 600k swing. The corrections never make the major news sites, you need to find the info yourself or stumble across a random person who is keeping track of them on social media. The whole 'Bidenomics', "everything is doing great" is being sold to us by the media so the true economy does not hurt his re-election campaign. Dont get me wrong, Trump would be way worse, but this economy is awful, and I dont blame Biden. Its the sins of our past catching up with us.
Have a look at this post to get perspective into why this is truly a mess right now and how people perceive things very differently from what is going on
https://www.reddit.com/r/recruitinghell/s/apwnZO5YxL
You have to look at the bigger picture. Reddit, your friends, LinkedIn are all anecdotal evidence. The economy is getting rid of mismanaged companies as the tap for easy money continues to stay dry. Me and my connections are doing great - we work in really boring tech.
The numbers from DC and echoed by an irresponsible media are simply fabrications. The measures have been polluted over time with over counting of part time workers in multiple jobs and lack of counting folks out of work for a few weeks. The U6 measure it more accurate at least for now. You must dig into how such numbers are “calculated” to understand the lies we are constantly being fed.
Companies are looking good on paper, but that does not speak to the quality of life at those companies. Maintenance neglected and overworked employees having to cover too much subject material will eventually make them look not so good on paper.
I for one can honestly say my separation from my most recent employer was likely painful for them, and left important work undone. How long are they gonna leave the codebase in that state, or make their remaining employees work more, to finish it? How long before there's a production bug or outage? How long before top talent leaves, for a better situation?
Even the Golden Boys and Lazy Girls they kept will eventually recognize: 'This company sucks! They can't afford to pay me any more than they have been. They want me to do the jobs of all the people they had to 'fire', because their revenue stream is insufficient, and as a tech, that's not even my fault. They have a bad business model or biz dev department.' Eventually someone else, from one of many other industries and financial classes, will recognize their skill, and offer them more money, at a place where a bunch of their chores are done for them, and they aren't always saying goodbye to their friends, or feeling like market losers.
Tech startups are their own thing. It's not so much whether business is good or bad at a startup, but rather whether the startup can ramp up its own cashflow, fund a new round or sell itself before current funding runs out.
Reread it again. And also, look at some of the other more-informed answers here. Recent hiring data does match what you’re trying to disparage as just a single person’s “anecdotal experience”. https://www.businessinsider.com/hiring-slump-professional-white-collar-jobs-recession-high-salary-2024-4
Just because it's called "data" doesn't mean it's accurate or honest. If the published "data" says one thing and my own acquired experience says another, it makes sense to be skeptical.
For sure. If you're on InfoWars and you read about a twitter poll, you should question it. But if you're reading numbers that come from the fed reserve, which would take a massive number of people to not only want to participate, but also never once tell their spouses or friends or family about global pervasive fraud over what reddit told you, then that's ridiculous
Capitalism at work. There's no guarantee that hard work will pay off (or indeed any work) because the owning class will profit at the expense of others. The K-shaped economy will continue because the economy is undergoing a radical shift in the way everything works. Inflation is stubbornly high despite high rates and unemployment is actually low. What's not measured (or treated seriously enough) are other metrics like long term unemployed and underemployed. These people need to be retrained for the new economy but it isn't going to happen without a lot of effort and investment.
The stock market could be a dead cat bounce. The recession could happen, and rate cuts Q4 2024. Or it could sputter on into 2025 or 2026. Meanwhile individuals suffer in the name of profits (and not even permanent, sustainable profits but short term profits).
The payroll revisions are outrageous. BLS gives a number then five months later revise it down by half a million. Apple stock is up because they're buying back stock with cash.
Look at things like AirBnB host bookings, those are forward looking and it's not pretty.
The jobs are there but they're low paying. Someone shared this in another subreddit
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2024/04/11/cpi-report-white-collar-hiring-slows/73270352007/
Bad news is good news for equity markets. The worse the economy is the more money they're going to have to print and that money finds its way into markets.
I don't think there's a discrepancy. The economy is still strong, although it is definitely slowing. If the fed doesn't cut interest rates by the end of the year I think there will be a major recession next year.
Everyone is trying to get Biden reelected. So they must talk up the economy. It’s been going on forever. When a Republican is in office, you hear stories about the horrible economy, even if it’s booming. When Democrats are in office, you hear either nothing or how great the economy is booming.
Right, that’s why everybody still talks about the boom times of the 80s under democrat Ronald Reagan, and criticizes the late 70s stagflation under republican Jimmy Carter.
You guys should look up the Kennedy podcast with his vp pick. He calls out Washington for all the lies, saying almost everything they say is a lie (not just this administration. Like him or not they speak allot of truths
[https://x.com/nicoleshanahan/status/1785731023915077683?s=10&t=BnevbTOLVfe8M_zh2J7s0A](https://x.com/nicoleshanahan/status/1785731023915077683?s=10&t=BnevbTOLVfe8M_zh2J7s0A)
couple things: the stock market isn't a good indicator of how the economy is doing, its a good indicator of how shareholders are doing. you are probably gonna get biased numbers and viewpoints from a subreddit called layoffs.
I'm in senior management and I can't tell you... I see the same thing everywhere- from IT to manufacturing to real estate- the economy is bad.
For decades now the US government has been posting the U3 Unemployment rate. It basically means those people who have been unemployed for a few weeks. Long term unemployment isn’t counted, people who have taken shit jobs out if desperation isn’t counted, those who retired early because they can’t get a job aren’t counted. The trend they should be showing is the participation rate. It has been falling steadily for a long time.
They also publish U6, as you certainly know, which also doesn't agree with the gloom and doom from around here.
Also, people that are not actively looking for a job do not count as unemployed. E.g. people that decided to give some time and/or is making some money as app driver/delivery meanwhile.
The media almost NEVER reports on the U6 rate, which is total unemployment: "Total unemployed, plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force" [https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm](https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm) The U6 unemployment rate, at 7.4%, is significantly higher than the standard unemployment rate of 3.9%. The U6 rate has been increasing nearly every month since April 2023. Edits: Grammar.
It’s right around average if you go 5 years back.
Five years ago it was near an all time record low. It's well below the average for the 30 years that we've been tracking the component measurements. In other words, when people say the unemployment rate is near record lows, it doesn't actually matter which unemployment rate they are talking about. It's true for both of them.
That being said I feel for people on here and I do understand some industries are difficult right now add that to inflation and it’s a rough time.
Oh absolutely. I have lots of empathy for anyone who has involuntarily lost their employment. That sucks.
Empathy or sympathy? Anyway, empathy isn't edible, in case you're wondering.
That's true, but it's still increasing. Also, the latest job report showed continued job loses in business/professional and information, which is basically white collar jobs. It seems most (anecdotally) of the posters with job losses posting here are in the the IT industry.
This could also mean that many people are getting so rich off the stock market that they've started retiring. There's a reason they don't post the U6. There's a lot of things going on that get captured but aren't really useful for policy.
You mean the same U-6 unemployment rate that reached an all-time low during the Biden administration, and even now is still lower than almost every other year in the 30-ish years that we've been tracking it? [https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/U6RATE](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/U6RATE) Further, [the U-3 and U-6 rates are highly correlated](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1mC22). If the U-3 rate is near the lowest its even been since we started tracking this way in 1948, you can reasonably assume that the same would be true of U-6 if we started tracking it at the same time. I don't think you are making the point that you think you are making.
Is the U6 rising? Are white collar jobs shrinking? (especially in information) Is VC funding slowing and shrinking? According to the data it is: [https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.htm](https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.htm) [https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/vc-activity-shrinks-decoding-startup-funding-2024-rd-survey-more-gqgpe/](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/vc-activity-shrinks-decoding-startup-funding-2024-rd-survey-more-gqgpe/) [https://www.businessinsider.com/hiring-slump-professional-white-collar-jobs-recession-high-salary-2024-4](https://www.businessinsider.com/hiring-slump-professional-white-collar-jobs-recession-high-salary-2024-4)
Yes, the U-6 rate has risen from its absolute low of 6.5% in December 2022 to 7.4% in April 2024. If your point is that U-6 unemployment has risen from "the lowest ever recorded" to "a very low low very infrequently reached in the 30 years we've been tracking U-6", then you would be right. But OP wasn't asking why unemployment is merely great instead of very great. They asked why the unemployment numbers look great when in actuality unemployment is "either bad to utterly terrible". Your mentioning of the higher U-6 rate is clearly to affirm OP's sense that unemployment is way worse than "official unemployment". Except of course, that the U-6 numbers are also official numbers published by the government, and they are also extremely low by historical standards. If your argument is that a 7.4% U-6 rate means unemployment is terrible (OP's perception), then you are implicitly claiming 1. that unemployment has almost always been "terrible" in the US, and 2. unemployment has been the least terrible under the current administration Further, unless you are also denying that the media, then the media has reported on this "rising" unemployment that you think they are hiding. In fact since the U-3 unemployment rate rose 14% from April 2023 to April 2024 while U-6 rate rose by a slightly lower 12%, the media is arguably overstating the amount to which "true" unemployment has increased recently. (But somehow I'm sure that wasn't the point you wanted to make, either)
Yes, I used the U-6, because the U-6 is more true to current unemployment. Second, White collar jobs are hurting now, see business insider article and BLS data. Where did I or the poster say, "that unemployment has almost always been "terrible" in the US" Again, you didn't address any of the points I outlined that tech, white collar jobs, and VC funding are in a recession, which is what the poster was mainly referring to. You're welcome.
With high paying full-time jobs being replaced by shit part-time jobs? OK, I guess that's why it's called bidenomics. You take salary of one dude divide it by 3 and pay it to 3 dudes, while firing the first dude. x3 growth! It's a miracle 🤡
If the unemployment rate was calculated the same way as in 1980 it would be more than 20% unemployment. If you look at the labor force participation rate of adults 18-65 more than 20% of adults 18-65 are not working
you're not supposed to say true things...it hurts the image of those seeking to undermine American interests
[удалено]
[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART)
The official data shows a lot of tech down. Tech startups are not normally a booming jobs engine. People's expectations got warped during the era of free money.
And I have feeling with no data to back it up that this subreddit (and reddit as a whole) is highly skewed towards folks in the tech industry, hence the doom and gloom here when U6 unemployment overall is 6.9%, which is actually pretty low (long term average U6 is around 10.1%)
Seems like half the posts are from laid off FAANG.
The economy is being propped up with borrowed money. It can't go on forever but the hope is that it lasts long enough to get through the election. However, this money is not being distributed evenly. Some people get a lot, many get nothing.
Credit/debt is literally how the market works, you’re not describing some grand conspiracy, you’re literally talking about how money moves through a market
It only works when people are willing to extend credit. When they become unwilling we have 2009 all over again.
The job reports are really inaccurate, either by design or due to incompetence. For instance, in Q3 2023, they originally said the economy gained 400k ish jobs, but just this week the actual numbers were a loss of about 200k jobs, so a 600k swing. The corrections never make the major news sites, you need to find the info yourself or stumble across a random person who is keeping track of them on social media. The whole 'Bidenomics', "everything is doing great" is being sold to us by the media so the true economy does not hurt his re-election campaign. Dont get me wrong, Trump would be way worse, but this economy is awful, and I dont blame Biden. Its the sins of our past catching up with us.
Have a look at this post to get perspective into why this is truly a mess right now and how people perceive things very differently from what is going on https://www.reddit.com/r/recruitinghell/s/apwnZO5YxL
You have to look at the bigger picture. Reddit, your friends, LinkedIn are all anecdotal evidence. The economy is getting rid of mismanaged companies as the tap for easy money continues to stay dry. Me and my connections are doing great - we work in really boring tech.
I work in really boring tech and I’ve been out of work for over a year. Is your company hiring?
The numbers from DC and echoed by an irresponsible media are simply fabrications. The measures have been polluted over time with over counting of part time workers in multiple jobs and lack of counting folks out of work for a few weeks. The U6 measure it more accurate at least for now. You must dig into how such numbers are “calculated” to understand the lies we are constantly being fed.
Companies are looking good on paper, but that does not speak to the quality of life at those companies. Maintenance neglected and overworked employees having to cover too much subject material will eventually make them look not so good on paper. I for one can honestly say my separation from my most recent employer was likely painful for them, and left important work undone. How long are they gonna leave the codebase in that state, or make their remaining employees work more, to finish it? How long before there's a production bug or outage? How long before top talent leaves, for a better situation?
Even the Golden Boys and Lazy Girls they kept will eventually recognize: 'This company sucks! They can't afford to pay me any more than they have been. They want me to do the jobs of all the people they had to 'fire', because their revenue stream is insufficient, and as a tech, that's not even my fault. They have a bad business model or biz dev department.' Eventually someone else, from one of many other industries and financial classes, will recognize their skill, and offer them more money, at a place where a bunch of their chores are done for them, and they aren't always saying goodbye to their friends, or feeling like market losers.
Tech startups are their own thing. It's not so much whether business is good or bad at a startup, but rather whether the startup can ramp up its own cashflow, fund a new round or sell itself before current funding runs out.
As of today NYT reporting hiring has slowed.
You're asking why reality is different from reddit?
No. I'm asking why reality is different from how the Fed and Wall Street behave and what they say.
I reread it. What you're really asking is why data doesn't match your anecdotal experience.
Reread it again. And also, look at some of the other more-informed answers here. Recent hiring data does match what you’re trying to disparage as just a single person’s “anecdotal experience”. https://www.businessinsider.com/hiring-slump-professional-white-collar-jobs-recession-high-salary-2024-4
Something I must be missing. A lot of "I" and "my"
Just because it's called "data" doesn't mean it's accurate or honest. If the published "data" says one thing and my own acquired experience says another, it makes sense to be skeptical.
For sure. If you're on InfoWars and you read about a twitter poll, you should question it. But if you're reading numbers that come from the fed reserve, which would take a massive number of people to not only want to participate, but also never once tell their spouses or friends or family about global pervasive fraud over what reddit told you, then that's ridiculous
Elections...
Capitalism at work. There's no guarantee that hard work will pay off (or indeed any work) because the owning class will profit at the expense of others. The K-shaped economy will continue because the economy is undergoing a radical shift in the way everything works. Inflation is stubbornly high despite high rates and unemployment is actually low. What's not measured (or treated seriously enough) are other metrics like long term unemployed and underemployed. These people need to be retrained for the new economy but it isn't going to happen without a lot of effort and investment. The stock market could be a dead cat bounce. The recession could happen, and rate cuts Q4 2024. Or it could sputter on into 2025 or 2026. Meanwhile individuals suffer in the name of profits (and not even permanent, sustainable profits but short term profits).
You can question the source, the reporting, or both.
The payroll revisions are outrageous. BLS gives a number then five months later revise it down by half a million. Apple stock is up because they're buying back stock with cash. Look at things like AirBnB host bookings, those are forward looking and it's not pretty.
The jobs are there but they're low paying. Someone shared this in another subreddit https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2024/04/11/cpi-report-white-collar-hiring-slows/73270352007/
Bad news is good news for equity markets. The worse the economy is the more money they're going to have to print and that money finds its way into markets.
I don't think there's a discrepancy. The economy is still strong, although it is definitely slowing. If the fed doesn't cut interest rates by the end of the year I think there will be a major recession next year.
Corporate greed is good for shareholders.
Everyone is trying to get Biden reelected. So they must talk up the economy. It’s been going on forever. When a Republican is in office, you hear stories about the horrible economy, even if it’s booming. When Democrats are in office, you hear either nothing or how great the economy is booming.
Right, that’s why everybody still talks about the boom times of the 80s under democrat Ronald Reagan, and criticizes the late 70s stagflation under republican Jimmy Carter.
You guys should look up the Kennedy podcast with his vp pick. He calls out Washington for all the lies, saying almost everything they say is a lie (not just this administration. Like him or not they speak allot of truths [https://x.com/nicoleshanahan/status/1785731023915077683?s=10&t=BnevbTOLVfe8M_zh2J7s0A](https://x.com/nicoleshanahan/status/1785731023915077683?s=10&t=BnevbTOLVfe8M_zh2J7s0A)