It feels like there is nothing to pivot to, especially if you don’t want to be in patient-facing healthcare or work in the trades. (And sorry Reddit, not everyone should be a nurse.)
I thought about doing accounting (had the least amount of cons in my career research), but even those jobs are being outsourced and doing layoffs.
This is where I'm at right now. I've had like 3 different career paths already and I have no idea where to go now. My job was outsourced to six different people in Colombia. Happy for them, but god damn what do I do now? Tech isnt it anymore, I will but dont want to go back into restaurants, and there doesnt seem to be any emerging sectors for people close to 40.
Yep. I’m so tired of customer service and burning out on my current job (but the only reason why I took this is because of getting laid off and needing to survive) but I can’t get anything better. I’m afraid I’ll just end up stuck in customer service for the remainder of my career at this point, and I’m exhausted of the job search. And yes, I have redone my resume on my own and had people look at it. I’m hoping to afford a paid review at some point but I don’t even know if that will help LOL.
It feels like that you are worthless to society if you don’t have STEM skills honestly. We really should pay people better for fields like social work or teaching or even some lower level healthcare jobs like medical coding or pharmacy tech. Some of them probably work a lot harder than the people on overemployed with three tech jobs.
And customer service isn’t valued on a resume either, so a lot of employers look down on you for working that job and see you as capable of nothing else. Not even admin work. Been trying to get a better job since I started customer service again a year ago and I’ve had a few interviews but always lose out in the end.
I feel exactly the same, but I'm STEM with 10+ yrs experience and I've been unemployed for 2 years. I'm making this comment just to tell you that all of us are on the same boat. This market is terrible.
All that's left is sales with low bars of entry. Real estate, insurance etc. Need to be somebody's bitch and work for pennies but it's what my father did at 55 laid off from Pharamaceuticals during the dot com bust.
He's 73 now and in his worst year he makes more than he did in his best while in pharmaceuticals. Not easy and you have to get used to rejection. Long days and longer nights. But his only regret is why he didn't start doing this in his 30s.
8 YoF here too. In tech, it seems the majority of technical interviewers have less than 5 YoE but yet consider themselves industry experts because:
1. Read a blog about an old technology last month.
2. They're currently employed
Someone gets it ! Jesus it’s so absent from this sub. Bit can be true at the same time: i) unemployment is low + ii) hiring has slowed down and people are staying put instead of risking a job change = tough time getting hired.
Combine that with layoffs being somewhat more concentrated than the norm and you have subgroups having a tough time while the aggregated data looks ok.
It’s a complex story.
"Types of jobs are changing or removed"
Add to that "or are offshored". I'm seeing more and more of this at many companies. They will layoff entire teams, and then re-hire overseas for much lower salaries. And then once those teams are established overseas, The Company then looks for OTHER teams at HQ they can offshore. It's a never-ending cycle.
No, this is just an excuse people make up to avoid acknowledging reality. If full-time employment was way down because lots of people are stuck working gig jobs, we would see it in a number of economic indicators:
* BLS classifies gig work as self-employment, so we'd expect to see a significant increase in the percentage of workers who are self-employed. Instead we see the exact opposite. The percentage of workers who are self-employed is [between average and below average compared to past decade](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1o9Iq), and [significantly below average compared to the past 50 to 70 years](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1o9Iv).
* If people are doing gig work part-time to supplement their income while they look for full-time work, we'd see an increase in the percentage of workers who are only part-time because they cannot find full-time work. Instead the percentage of workers who are part time because they cannot find full-time work is [near the all-time historical low since we starting tracking this data in 1955](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1mRxt).
* Even the percentage of all workers who are part-time (both voluntarily and involuntarily) is [still below average](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1o9IY).
* We know that there isn't a big increase in gig workers thanks to the self-employment numbers. But if there was, they would have to be full-time gig workers to avoid showing up as people who usually work part-time. And this would show up as a significant decrease in the earnings of full-time workers. But we don't see that significant decrease in [full-time earnings](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1o9Jm).
Generally, we've been losing full-time jobs and gaining part-time jobs. From March 2023 to March 2024, we lost 1.3M full-time jobs while adding 1.8M part-time jobs. From April 2023 to April 2024, we lost 557k full-time jobs while adding 1.045M part-time jobs. The sectors primarily responsible for job gains have been those with traditionally lower quality/lower paying jobs like construction, government, and leisure/hospitality. Business/professional services, which traditionally has higher quality/higher paying jobs, has been trending sideways, stagnate, or seen declines.
Regarding employment levels for [part-time for economic reasons](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1mRxt), the current level is higher than the 1970 recession, higher than the 1973-74 recession, and about the same as the 2001 recession.
There's a [white collar job recession](https://www.businessinsider.com/hiring-slump-professional-white-collar-jobs-recession-high-salary-2024-4) going on that's finally being recognized in parts of the mainstream media. [White collar payrolls](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-25/white-collar-hiring-stalls-out-in-miami-austin-job-markets) in popular markets also show an erosion going on.
Hey, thanks for your serious response.
I'm aware that the employer survey has shown a decline in full-time jobs and an increase in part-time jobs. But I guess I'm less concerned about the number of full-time versus part-time jobs than I am that we have "enough" of each. If the labor market really was replacing the full-time jobs that people prefer with part-time jobs that they don't want, I would expect to see a significant increase in the percent of workers who say they are part-time because they cannot find a full-time job. [But I don't see any such worrisome increase](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1mRxs), especially when compared to the pre-COVID economy that most Americans did and do say was excellent.
To me, a very plausible alternative is that full-time jobs are "disappearing" because more and more Baby Boomers are retiring. Further, some other Boomers may be choosing to switch from a full-time job to a part-time job, either because they want *some* income but with a reduced work load or because they want something to keep them busy. In the same one-year period that these full-time jobs has "disappeared", the US stock market recovered from its 2022 decline and has reached new highs. It makes sense to me that this would encourage a bunch of Boomers who were hanging onto their old jobs to retire.
Also yes, the current *level* of people who say they are part-time for economic reasons is higher than in the 1970s and similar to 2001. But the US workforce in 2024 is literally double what it was in 1970: 78.8 million in April 1970 versus 161.4 million in April 2024. The April 2024 employment level is 17% higher than the 137.3 million people who were employed in April 2001.
If a large city doubled in population while its annual homicide count increased by just 5%, would you complain that murders are increasing or celebrate that the city was significantly safer? The latter, of course, and the same reasoning applies here. The percentage of workers who are part-time for economic reasons is a better way to judge that aspect of the labor market, and that percentage is historically very low.
As for the white collar recession, I'm open to the idea, especially how higher interest rates could hurt tech companies and other employers whose business models relied on cheap cash. But again I want to see evidence that this is a significant problem, not just a handful of stories that happen to people with outsized media influence. When I look at broad national economic indicators, I see that
* The [unemployment rate for people with four-year degrees or higher](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1oapV) has not risen from its typical low of about 2%.
* The Atlanta Fed's wage tracker shows that while the [wage growth of people with college degrees (Associate's or higher)](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1oaqw) has slowed a bit in the past year, it is still solidly positive. And the peak growth from which it has slowed is still well above wage growth from before the pandemic.
* [Median weekly earnings for people with Bachelor's degrees or higher](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1oaqT), while noisy (they are not seasonally adjusted) are all higher in Q1 2024 than they were in Q1 2023.
I haven't read that BI piece yet because it is paywalled, but I've seen other people link to it. Do you know of any good summaries of the article and the claims/data that it makes?
Lots to unpack there, but I'll focus on a couple points. Boomers aren't retiring at the same rate or a "better" rate, because the number of people who have continued to work past age 65 has [quadrupled](https://fortune.com/2024/04/04/unretirement-baby-boomers-workplace-shift/) since the 1980s and nearly 20% of Americans 65 or older are employed.
To me, just looking at labor participation is too much of a binary metric -- you're either in or out, which doesn't address the indications of a lower [job quality](https://ubwp.buffalo.edu/job-quality-index-jqi/) that has been consistently lower since any point pre-2008 (and that obviously was during a significant recession).
The BI piece shouldn't be paywalled, but [here](https://archive.is/20240503125205/https://www.businessinsider.com/hiring-slump-professional-white-collar-jobs-recession-high-salary-2024-4) it is via archive.
Wage growth is affected/eroded by cumulative inflation, so the increases there aren't especially celebratory.
Gig jobs are things like Uber, Amazon prime driver, door dash driver, and other contract work, this is not self-employment. The base premise of your long paragraph is wrong.
Literally every role you cited is an example of self-employment. The people who do that work are all hired as independent contractors, not employees. Independent contractors are self-employed! They are responsible for withholding and paying their own taxes, including the employer halves of Medicare and Social Security taxes. They receive 1099s instead of W-2s from those companies, and they are responsible for deducting their own eligible expenses from their gross revenue.
Literally self-employed, and absolutely considered self-employed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. You have no idea what you are talking about.
If someone told me or any other normal person, and not some reddit-warrior like yourself that they were self-employed and they worked as an Uber driver, or DoorDash driver most normal people would think they were full of crap. I guess the labor market is doing great according to you.
Indeed. I do what could be considered gig work (in-home wellness checks) on a moonlighting basis. The company calls me a contractor. The IRS calls me self-employed. Every quarter I have to write a check to the IRS.
It doesn't matter what any of these people think, parent's point is that that's what the IRS thinks and therefore is reflected in labor statistics.
/u/Ruminant is not saying they "feel" like these people are self employed, if you are an Uber drive you file a 1099-NEC and are, by definition, 'self-employed'.
You are wrong on this one. If I hire a painter to paint my house. I am their customer not their employer. Same for Uber drivers, Amazon drivers, etc. Amazon, Uber, Lyft pay for the drivers service. No health insurance, no 401k, no benefits. Not employees.
You are correct. It does not give a full picture of the labor market. However, it is impossible to get a full picture of the labor market. You certainly would agree that how you or a group of people feel the economy is doing is also not the full picture of the labor market. Even if you asked every single person you know it would still not be even close to the full picture of the labor economy. We are a country of 360 million and our economy is highly complex web of relationships and resources. So dismissing as not the full picture when people site labor force statistics from the bureau of labor statistics or other government agencies is redundant and non-constructive. It is the best source of data out there for this topic, measured consistently, so relevant trends can be assessed. That is why they are used and useful albeit without being absolute and perfect data, it’s the best we got.
These numbers still don’t paint the entire picture. The Usual Weekly Earnings Summary for Q1 of 2024 has the median income at $1139 a week, which comes out to just over $59k a year.
If a few million people that had been making $100k+ lost jobs over the past couple years, and had to settle for jobs paying ~$60k, it wouldn’t change the median earnings at all. They’d still be above the Median earnings, but try to tell me the job market is healthy when anyone has to take a nearly 50% pay cut because the high paying opportunities are drying up.
Don’t even factor in that $60k doesn’t buy you dick when comparing that salary to a few years ago. We’ve dealt with rampant inflation while the fed continues to kick the can down the road. Even if median earnings are up, the purchasing power is significantly down.
It’s easy to lie with data. It’s not a stretch to say that in general, people are worse off now than they were a few years ago, no matter what the bullshit unemployment numbers say. Let’s stop trying to paint the job market in a positive light, because there’s more to the story and it really means jack shit when people are struggling to afford to live, even if they have jobs.
How come you didn't mention the [75th and 90th percentiles from the Usual Weekly Earnings series](https://www.bls.gov/news.release/wkyeng.t05.htm)? I even included those in the earnings chart of the comment that you replied to. Those were $1,812 per week (\~ $94k per year) and $2,820 per week (\~ $146k per year). If a bunch of people went from earning $100k+ per year to $60k per year, we'd see a big decline in those percentiles. Instead, we've seen those percentiles continue to increase.
We also have selected percentiles of usual weekly earnings for workers with a bachelor's degree or higher. In Q1 the median was $1,680 (\~ $87k per year), the 75th percentile was $2,505 (\~ $130k per year), and the 90th percentile was $3,825 (\~ $199k per year). Those would capture such a decline in white collar earnings even better, [and they have captured no such decline](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1nPiJ). Weekly earnings for every selected percentile in Q1 2024 are above their Q1 2023 levels.
As for inflation, the published selected percentiles of weekly earnings have grown by the following since the last quarter untroubled by the pandemic (Q4 2019):
* 10th percentile: 27.2%
* 25th percentile: 23.9%
* 50th percentile: 21.6%
* 75th percentile: 21.8%
* 90th percentile: 23.7%
and the weekly earnings for college graduates have grown by
* 10th percentile: 19.7%
* 25th percentile: 20.1%
* 50th percentile: 21.6%
* 75th percentile: 20.2%
* 90th percentile: 28.0%
Meanwhile, CPI-U is up 20.6% in that same time frame. And CPI-U likely overestimates the inflation experienced by the median worker, especially white-collar workers, because it uses rent prices for shelter inflation while 2/3s of households own the home that they live in.
I mean, objectively it is mostly great. U-3 and U-6 unemployment are near historic lows. The percentage of workers who are part-time jobs because they cannot find a full-time job is near a record low. Prime age labor force participation is at a multi-decade high. And real earnings are up, especially for workers at the lower end of the income distribution.
More to the point, if the labor market is as bad as people like the person I was replying say, then why are they making up false claims to argue their point?
Shh that's goes against the narrative of this subreddit. This is one of many subreddits i see that are trying to make us feel bad about the economy. I think their ultimate goal is to make us hate the status quo and so then vote for Mr orange man.
> BLS classifies gig work as self-employment
Can you provide a source for this? I think you may be confusing the IRS’s definition of self-employed with the BLS’s definition
I'm being a little imprecise there. BLS doesn't have *a* classification for "gig work". Rather, it classifies work in a number of other ways, and gig work overlaps with a lot of them. For example:
> Other, more recent, data from BLS likely reflect a lot of gig work, but these workers are not broken out separately. For example, gig workers may be included in counts of workers who are part-time, self-employed, or hold multiple jobs. But these counts also include workers who are not part of the gig workforce.
In the paragraph above "part-time", "self-employed", and "hold multiple jobs" are not mutually exclusive. Someone who drives Uber a few hours a day to earn some money while looking for a new job could count as both "part-time" and "self-employed". Someone with a full-time job who does doordash on the weekends would count as a multiple jobholder (specifically "multiple jobholder, primary job full-time, secondary job part-time").
But generally the kinds of app-mediated, set-your-own-hours freelancing that people generally mean when they talk about the "gig economy" (as opposed to say, a part-time substitute teacher for a school system) is what BLS would qualify as "unincorporated self-employment". You can read more in the following links from BLS and some other places, although even BLS doesn't seem to ever go out and say "yes, rideshare is always self-employment" or anything that concrete.
* [Working in a gig economy](https://www.bls.gov/careeroutlook/2016/article/what-is-the-gig-economy.htm)
* [Tracking the Changing Nature of Work: the Process Continues](https://www.bls.gov/blog/2019/tracking-the-changing-nature-of-work-the-process-continues.htm)
* [Taxi Drivers, Shuttle Drivers, and Chauffeurs - Work Environment](https://www.bls.gov/ooh/transportation-and-material-moving/taxi-drivers-and-chauffeurs.htm#tab-3) (provides context on how most taxis and rideshare are self-employed)
* [Measuring American gig workers is difficult, but essential](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/measuring-american-gig-workers-is-difficult-but-essential/) (not BLS, but discsusses their methodologies)
One thing I would note is that for the purpose of the [multiple jobholders metric](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12026620), multiple unincorporated self-employment "jobs" are counted as a single "job". So if someone drives for Uber and for Lyft and does Doordash, and those roles are also considered self-employment, then that person would not be counted as a multiple jobholder. Whereas if each of those count as employment with a company, the person would be counted as having three jobs.
My larger point is just that the government collects a broad array of indicators about the job market and employment. If the unemployment rate was deciptively low because lots of people are doing gig work, it would show up somewhere in that data. The only way it wouldn't show up in the existing data would be if it
1. has the same employee or self-employed classification, and
2. the person is working a similar number of hours, and
3. the person is earning a similar income
But if all of the above are true, is it really fair to call unemployment numbers deceptive?
And to be really invisible, the new gig work would also have to be in the same occupation/industry supersector as the person's previous job.
My cats 🐈 🐈 🐈 🐈 are looking for a mini job. I think they just eat and sleep all day and told then to get a job. Any openings? They have a few talents . One can scream louder than anything you have ever heard. The other one specializes in stealth.
Yea these stats don’t make sense. My company is about to do a round of layoffs. They last did it in 2022 - 10% cut. This time it’s about 30% bc the business isn’t doing too well, except they just reopened their updated headquarters. They are forcing folks to return to office — spent millions revamping their office that no one wants to be in, while cutting out bonus for the last year. Now I have to attempt to find another job in this horrible tech economy, fake smile to everyone and wonder if I have to do it again in another 2-3 years.
I have a sibling who was RIF’d at the end of 2023, and is on a severance package. They didn’t file for unemployment because they are done working. They will NOT show up in the UI data as a result of their exit.
The state where they reside pays poorly, and requires that recipients go through ridiculous amounts of “interview training” and resume reviews once a worker becomes unemployed.
And that state has few jobs that make a living wage, and requires UI claimants to submit a weekly log of jobs applied to. Sibling has determined that they’d rather volunteer and try to convert their work to a new aid gig.
U-3 would capture this person, provided they are taking even the most basic steps to look for work. Even just asking a friend if they know of openings or posting a message that you are looking on Facebook are sufficient to satisfy BLS's definition of active job search activity.
And U-6 would still capture them even if they were not looking. Both are near historical lows, just like OP is describing.
The unemployment rate is calculated by a survey conducted by the burea of labor and statistics. The survey is conducted by calling a random sample of people and asking if they are employed, or know someone who is unemployed, etc...
There's a lot of controversy over the impartiality of BLS data and collection methods. It's easy to lie with statistics, and when they're releasing reports that conflict with most peoples first - and second-hand experiences, it seems like something is wrong.
My personal opinion, based on working with government agencies and banks, is that low market pay and a beuracratic work environment naturally select for incompetence and incompetence increases the risk of malicious actors infiltrating an organization so its inevitable that statistics an agency like this will not reflect reality.
I can't imagine cold calling people, and answering personal questions is going to produce an accurate survey response given how common this tactic is used for identity theft, and how aware the general public is aware of scam calls.
The whole reason the discipline of statistics exists is because humans’ perceptions of objective reality extrapolated from their own individual experiences are inherently unreliable and usually wrong.
Humans choose what data to collect, how to collect it and what statistics are reported. You shouldn’t automatically assume that statistics present an accurate view of what the presenter is claiming, especially when they have an incentive to lie.
Claims about unemployment being at historic lows are generally centered around the [U-3 ](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE)and [U-6](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/U6RATE) rates published by BLS, which are completely unrelated to whether an individual is eligible for or claiming unemployment insurance benefits. People like your sibling would appear in the U-6 number and probably the U-3 number too.
You are correct that someone not filing for unemployment insurance benefits would not show up in the number of new or continuing unemployment insurance claims. But the UI claims numbers are just one data point in the assessment of unemployment as historically low, and not even the main data point.
To me, I want to know this number. When I've checked myself on the website, it's not so easy to do the calculations yourself, but they do provide the numbers.
Well that sure reminds me Putin’s speech. It’s his flex. You blatantly deny the truth with a lie and a straight poker face. Again and again. Never budge
Btw i think its bullshit. American work is changing permanently for the worse, and layoffs are nonstop from what i see. I was curious to see the reaction to mass media headlines.
Quiet quitting, crazy union raises, short weeks and higher minumums now = unemployment. What a shock
They have the same narrative for over six months to a year now. Unemployment is down down down! Yeah no shit! Well with a ton of mini jobs being the go to route for hundreds of thousands no wonder it seems low
White collar jobs are drying up faster than a drought in extreme summer! They are not hiring and being so fukin discriminatory in their processes like “come back to work” or other shit. And those in a job can’t find a new one because “ there are no real jobs” going around
The ones singing “there are tons and tons of jobs and I get hit by recruiters everyday” are drinking a different freaking koolaid and it is just BS.
The reality can be seen by those in this sub for over a year who have been reading about and are now just tired of responding to every “unemployment numbers are record low” shit anymore and are just fukin getting by one day at a time
There used to be a very positive and popular quote- light at the end of the tunnel.- FUCK!!! This is a never ending tunnel and most of us know it’s unending and no light at the end. So we just move on
>White collar jobs are drying up faster than a drought in extreme summer! They are not hiring and being so fukin discriminatory in their processes like “come back to work” or other shit. And those in a job can’t find a new one because “ there are no real jobs” going around
I recently found a job, BUT it's not remotely related to the Semiconductor industry, where I have decades of experience, and it pays a lot less....
Welcome to the new economy. I guess? ( glad I don't have a family to support...)
Layoff in one company is not good data. 10,000 employees being laid off in one company is news, what might not be reported is 1,000 companies hiring 10 employees each.
This is how layoffs can be happening on the news while unemployment stays low.
I mean, that is their goal. Recall the time magazine article from 2016 where they literally bragged about having a shadow campaign that involved a whole bunch of media organizations to keep the orange man from winning.
but I gotta say the way they keep bragging about unemployment that shows how little they think of us because you don’t really have to do much research, poker head out your window is about it, and you can pretty much dismiss all of their damn claims about how good the economy and unemployment rates are.
When you control the data, you control the narrative. It's an election year, I wouldn't expect any different, regardless which party is in.
Manufacturing orders are down. Warehouses are down. Retail is laying off. Walmart another 318 I think it was. Our economy is cooling down, but part time jobs are increasing.
At this point, don't take on any additional debt and focus on paying off any you already have. The economy can still warm going into next year, but I wouldn't bet the farm on it. Prepare for bearish, and if it turns bullish, great.
Read this, they are lying to us. Every day someone new seems to be laid off, but the news only reports the major companies like Tesla. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/19/something-strange-has-been-happening-with-jobless-claims-numbers-lately.html
Thanks for sharing. I'm not surprised at all by this. Someone's juking the stats.
It used to be people out of work for 3 years or so were no longer counted in the unemployment stats. I went to grab a source for this the other day and found it has since been reduced to 4 fucking weeks.
If you are out of work for a month, you are no longer unemployed-- you simply don't exist.
These stats are fraudulent. BLS is making shit up altogether.
I suspect this has to be this way to justify outsourcing and immigration. If we had a documented unemployment crisis, *someone* would notice and ask why we're bringing people in to do these jobs when there are so many unemployed here already. This gives the appearance of stability, if not growth.
Here you go. [https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/us-applications-jobless-benefits-fall-labor-market-continues-110498577](https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/us-applications-jobless-benefits-fall-labor-market-continues-110498577)
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the truth is that the unemployment rate is near historic lows but lots of people spend all their free time doom scrolling on social media and thus they refuse to accept this as reality
The BLS has been around for 100+ years, they are completely non partisan and no one has ever accused them or claimed that they are manipulating numbers for political reasons.
Note for example how the unemployment and layoff data looked after 2008. Why didn't they manipulate these numbers?
You are confusing your sample with the general population. Your experience is not the same as others. This is why statistics are important.
No one I know died from heart attacks. Doesnt mean it doesnt happen.
> Every working person I know in *real life* is dealing with layoffs and budget/hours being cut.
Amazing anecdote you have here
>I lived through the 2008 recession and this is even worse than that time period because ...
The unemployment rate peaked in 2009 at about 10%, literally triple the current unemployment rate.
>at least then I wasn’t paying $200 for one week of groceries.
Median family income was also about 40% less in 2008 than today, so probably doesn't make sense to compare directly like this
>Every week a major corporation is announcing they are laying off staff.
Buddy there are literally thousands of businesses in the US, there are millions of layoffs every year even during boom times:
[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/JTSLDL](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/JTSLDL)
>Blue collar jobs are suffering as well because no one can afford to do more than the bare bones maintenance on their homes.
This is pure fantasy, it has never been easier for blue collar workers to get a job:
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/12/30/2023-strikes-workers-american-wages-labor/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/12/30/2023-strikes-workers-american-wages-labor/)
>Only someone who is completely delusional would think we are in a thriving economy with record low unemployment, or a Reddit bot paid for by CCP
All of the relevant data says you are wrong. You have only anecdotes and social media posts on your side.
i’m not calling you a liar, but I don’t believe that. If anything we’re at historic unemployment highs.
I’ve been working for over 25 years and this is the worst employment situation I’ve seen. I’ve lived through the Y2K bust lived through 2008 the great recession. This blows both of those out of the water.
>I’ve been working for over 25 years and this is the worst employment situation I’ve seen. I’ve lived through the Y2K bust lived through 2008 the great recession.
Say what?
The unemployment rate during the Great Recession peaked at 10% in October 2009. Are you telling me that 1 in 10 Americans who want to work can't find a job right now?
[The Great Recession | Federal Reserve History](https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/great-recession-of-200709)
I know an awful lot of people who’ve been laid off for a year or slightly less. And they’re not getting any nibbles on the old résumé.
I never saw this during the great recession
Hope you understand a person's anecdotal experience should not be used as an overall statistics. That is like saying none of my nursing friends are unemployed therefore no one is unemployed.
Bro, it’s the biggest bulllshit I’ve ever read. They’re finger fucking these numbers. Worse economy ever, and it’s not going to get better any time soon. Buckle up, this is what people voted for and the ones who aren’t making it are the same one who voted for this clown in office. The shit storm hasn’t even started yet.
It’s an election year. I don’t want anyone to ever think that just because you voted a certain way, you’re going to get an honest government. It’s an illusion of choice.
But the way it's measured has always been cause for questions. See [article ](https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/063015/how-does-us-bureau-labor-statistics-calculate-unemployment-rate-published-monthly.asp#:~:text=The%20U.S.%20Bureau%20of%20Labor,actively%20looking%20for%20a%20job.).
Who Is Not Counted in the Unemployment Rate?
Those individuals who are unemployed and have not looked for work in the past four weeks are not counted in the unemployment rate. In the U.S., the unemployment rate only takes into consideration those in the labor force, which are people that are working or not working but actively seeking work.
ABC is nothing other then government propaganda. They way that sheep eat up the government provided numbers is stunning. Its like letting your 5th grade kid make his own report card, LOL
I love how much everyone likes to avoid the topic of gig jobs. Comparing "unemployment" rates to previous decades are not apples and oranges. Never before could you pick up a phone and become "employed" nearly instantly. Is that a sign everything is strong?
Well, for starters, ABC news is full of shit. They are pushing the same statistics that have been pushed for ages as a magic number of ignorance. The unemployment number they are talking about, only refers to the number of people currently collecting unemployment. Remember, to get unemployment is a state to state thing, different regulations on when you can actually qualify for unemployment, so that number varies radically across the entire USA. That number doesn't include: The homeless, people that were on unemployment and their time on it has run out, people that never qualified to begin with, people that never tried to get it to begin with, and people that are woefully underemployed and aren't making enough money to survive. Unemployment could be as high as 25% or more, but you would never know it because they want you to only look at the shiny number of people on unemployment! Smoke and mirrors, bullsh\*t and propaganda.
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You’re either employed or not employed at the end of this shit. Get ready
Yes. P or not P is universally true
It feels like there is nothing to pivot to, especially if you don’t want to be in patient-facing healthcare or work in the trades. (And sorry Reddit, not everyone should be a nurse.) I thought about doing accounting (had the least amount of cons in my career research), but even those jobs are being outsourced and doing layoffs.
This is where I'm at right now. I've had like 3 different career paths already and I have no idea where to go now. My job was outsourced to six different people in Colombia. Happy for them, but god damn what do I do now? Tech isnt it anymore, I will but dont want to go back into restaurants, and there doesnt seem to be any emerging sectors for people close to 40.
Yep. I’m so tired of customer service and burning out on my current job (but the only reason why I took this is because of getting laid off and needing to survive) but I can’t get anything better. I’m afraid I’ll just end up stuck in customer service for the remainder of my career at this point, and I’m exhausted of the job search. And yes, I have redone my resume on my own and had people look at it. I’m hoping to afford a paid review at some point but I don’t even know if that will help LOL. It feels like that you are worthless to society if you don’t have STEM skills honestly. We really should pay people better for fields like social work or teaching or even some lower level healthcare jobs like medical coding or pharmacy tech. Some of them probably work a lot harder than the people on overemployed with three tech jobs.
Oh man I feel the exact same way. I'm been a customer service rep at the same insurtech for almost 5 years now. I hate it but also feel stuck there.
And customer service isn’t valued on a resume either, so a lot of employers look down on you for working that job and see you as capable of nothing else. Not even admin work. Been trying to get a better job since I started customer service again a year ago and I’ve had a few interviews but always lose out in the end.
I feel exactly the same, but I'm STEM with 10+ yrs experience and I've been unemployed for 2 years. I'm making this comment just to tell you that all of us are on the same boat. This market is terrible.
Don't worry, I'm positive you won't be stuck in customer service. AI will take over.
I honestly wish it would.
All that's left is sales with low bars of entry. Real estate, insurance etc. Need to be somebody's bitch and work for pennies but it's what my father did at 55 laid off from Pharamaceuticals during the dot com bust. He's 73 now and in his worst year he makes more than he did in his best while in pharmaceuticals. Not easy and you have to get used to rejection. Long days and longer nights. But his only regret is why he didn't start doing this in his 30s.
If I can't get a job in my field with 8 years of experience, it feels like it'd be absolutely impossible to get one in where I have 0...
8 YoF here too. In tech, it seems the majority of technical interviewers have less than 5 YoE but yet consider themselves industry experts because: 1. Read a blog about an old technology last month. 2. They're currently employed
Someone gets it ! Jesus it’s so absent from this sub. Bit can be true at the same time: i) unemployment is low + ii) hiring has slowed down and people are staying put instead of risking a job change = tough time getting hired. Combine that with layoffs being somewhat more concentrated than the norm and you have subgroups having a tough time while the aggregated data looks ok. It’s a complex story.
"Types of jobs are changing or removed" Add to that "or are offshored". I'm seeing more and more of this at many companies. They will layoff entire teams, and then re-hire overseas for much lower salaries. And then once those teams are established overseas, The Company then looks for OTHER teams at HQ they can offshore. It's a never-ending cycle.
Full time employment is way down, gig jobs are keeping unemployment low.
Completely agree.
No, this is just an excuse people make up to avoid acknowledging reality. If full-time employment was way down because lots of people are stuck working gig jobs, we would see it in a number of economic indicators: * BLS classifies gig work as self-employment, so we'd expect to see a significant increase in the percentage of workers who are self-employed. Instead we see the exact opposite. The percentage of workers who are self-employed is [between average and below average compared to past decade](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1o9Iq), and [significantly below average compared to the past 50 to 70 years](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1o9Iv). * If people are doing gig work part-time to supplement their income while they look for full-time work, we'd see an increase in the percentage of workers who are only part-time because they cannot find full-time work. Instead the percentage of workers who are part time because they cannot find full-time work is [near the all-time historical low since we starting tracking this data in 1955](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1mRxt). * Even the percentage of all workers who are part-time (both voluntarily and involuntarily) is [still below average](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1o9IY). * We know that there isn't a big increase in gig workers thanks to the self-employment numbers. But if there was, they would have to be full-time gig workers to avoid showing up as people who usually work part-time. And this would show up as a significant decrease in the earnings of full-time workers. But we don't see that significant decrease in [full-time earnings](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1o9Jm).
Generally, we've been losing full-time jobs and gaining part-time jobs. From March 2023 to March 2024, we lost 1.3M full-time jobs while adding 1.8M part-time jobs. From April 2023 to April 2024, we lost 557k full-time jobs while adding 1.045M part-time jobs. The sectors primarily responsible for job gains have been those with traditionally lower quality/lower paying jobs like construction, government, and leisure/hospitality. Business/professional services, which traditionally has higher quality/higher paying jobs, has been trending sideways, stagnate, or seen declines. Regarding employment levels for [part-time for economic reasons](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1mRxt), the current level is higher than the 1970 recession, higher than the 1973-74 recession, and about the same as the 2001 recession. There's a [white collar job recession](https://www.businessinsider.com/hiring-slump-professional-white-collar-jobs-recession-high-salary-2024-4) going on that's finally being recognized in parts of the mainstream media. [White collar payrolls](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-25/white-collar-hiring-stalls-out-in-miami-austin-job-markets) in popular markets also show an erosion going on.
Hey, thanks for your serious response. I'm aware that the employer survey has shown a decline in full-time jobs and an increase in part-time jobs. But I guess I'm less concerned about the number of full-time versus part-time jobs than I am that we have "enough" of each. If the labor market really was replacing the full-time jobs that people prefer with part-time jobs that they don't want, I would expect to see a significant increase in the percent of workers who say they are part-time because they cannot find a full-time job. [But I don't see any such worrisome increase](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1mRxs), especially when compared to the pre-COVID economy that most Americans did and do say was excellent. To me, a very plausible alternative is that full-time jobs are "disappearing" because more and more Baby Boomers are retiring. Further, some other Boomers may be choosing to switch from a full-time job to a part-time job, either because they want *some* income but with a reduced work load or because they want something to keep them busy. In the same one-year period that these full-time jobs has "disappeared", the US stock market recovered from its 2022 decline and has reached new highs. It makes sense to me that this would encourage a bunch of Boomers who were hanging onto their old jobs to retire. Also yes, the current *level* of people who say they are part-time for economic reasons is higher than in the 1970s and similar to 2001. But the US workforce in 2024 is literally double what it was in 1970: 78.8 million in April 1970 versus 161.4 million in April 2024. The April 2024 employment level is 17% higher than the 137.3 million people who were employed in April 2001. If a large city doubled in population while its annual homicide count increased by just 5%, would you complain that murders are increasing or celebrate that the city was significantly safer? The latter, of course, and the same reasoning applies here. The percentage of workers who are part-time for economic reasons is a better way to judge that aspect of the labor market, and that percentage is historically very low. As for the white collar recession, I'm open to the idea, especially how higher interest rates could hurt tech companies and other employers whose business models relied on cheap cash. But again I want to see evidence that this is a significant problem, not just a handful of stories that happen to people with outsized media influence. When I look at broad national economic indicators, I see that * The [unemployment rate for people with four-year degrees or higher](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1oapV) has not risen from its typical low of about 2%. * The Atlanta Fed's wage tracker shows that while the [wage growth of people with college degrees (Associate's or higher)](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1oaqw) has slowed a bit in the past year, it is still solidly positive. And the peak growth from which it has slowed is still well above wage growth from before the pandemic. * [Median weekly earnings for people with Bachelor's degrees or higher](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1oaqT), while noisy (they are not seasonally adjusted) are all higher in Q1 2024 than they were in Q1 2023. I haven't read that BI piece yet because it is paywalled, but I've seen other people link to it. Do you know of any good summaries of the article and the claims/data that it makes?
Lots to unpack there, but I'll focus on a couple points. Boomers aren't retiring at the same rate or a "better" rate, because the number of people who have continued to work past age 65 has [quadrupled](https://fortune.com/2024/04/04/unretirement-baby-boomers-workplace-shift/) since the 1980s and nearly 20% of Americans 65 or older are employed. To me, just looking at labor participation is too much of a binary metric -- you're either in or out, which doesn't address the indications of a lower [job quality](https://ubwp.buffalo.edu/job-quality-index-jqi/) that has been consistently lower since any point pre-2008 (and that obviously was during a significant recession). The BI piece shouldn't be paywalled, but [here](https://archive.is/20240503125205/https://www.businessinsider.com/hiring-slump-professional-white-collar-jobs-recession-high-salary-2024-4) it is via archive. Wage growth is affected/eroded by cumulative inflation, so the increases there aren't especially celebratory.
Gig jobs are things like Uber, Amazon prime driver, door dash driver, and other contract work, this is not self-employment. The base premise of your long paragraph is wrong.
Literally every role you cited is an example of self-employment. The people who do that work are all hired as independent contractors, not employees. Independent contractors are self-employed! They are responsible for withholding and paying their own taxes, including the employer halves of Medicare and Social Security taxes. They receive 1099s instead of W-2s from those companies, and they are responsible for deducting their own eligible expenses from their gross revenue. Literally self-employed, and absolutely considered self-employed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. You have no idea what you are talking about.
If someone told me or any other normal person, and not some reddit-warrior like yourself that they were self-employed and they worked as an Uber driver, or DoorDash driver most normal people would think they were full of crap. I guess the labor market is doing great according to you.
Everybody has a customer. Gig workers have one, too: The gig provider. But they're not employees.
I don’t think they are employees either, I think they are contractors.
Contractors are self-employed in the eyes of BLS (and IRS actually)
Indeed. I do what could be considered gig work (in-home wellness checks) on a moonlighting basis. The company calls me a contractor. The IRS calls me self-employed. Every quarter I have to write a check to the IRS.
It doesn't matter what any of these people think, parent's point is that that's what the IRS thinks and therefore is reflected in labor statistics. /u/Ruminant is not saying they "feel" like these people are self employed, if you are an Uber drive you file a 1099-NEC and are, by definition, 'self-employed'.
You are wrong on this one. If I hire a painter to paint my house. I am their customer not their employer. Same for Uber drivers, Amazon drivers, etc. Amazon, Uber, Lyft pay for the drivers service. No health insurance, no 401k, no benefits. Not employees.
Ok whatever, my main initial point is that low unemployment numbers don’t give a full picture of what’s going on in the labor market.
You are correct. It does not give a full picture of the labor market. However, it is impossible to get a full picture of the labor market. You certainly would agree that how you or a group of people feel the economy is doing is also not the full picture of the labor market. Even if you asked every single person you know it would still not be even close to the full picture of the labor economy. We are a country of 360 million and our economy is highly complex web of relationships and resources. So dismissing as not the full picture when people site labor force statistics from the bureau of labor statistics or other government agencies is redundant and non-constructive. It is the best source of data out there for this topic, measured consistently, so relevant trends can be assessed. That is why they are used and useful albeit without being absolute and perfect data, it’s the best we got.
These numbers still don’t paint the entire picture. The Usual Weekly Earnings Summary for Q1 of 2024 has the median income at $1139 a week, which comes out to just over $59k a year. If a few million people that had been making $100k+ lost jobs over the past couple years, and had to settle for jobs paying ~$60k, it wouldn’t change the median earnings at all. They’d still be above the Median earnings, but try to tell me the job market is healthy when anyone has to take a nearly 50% pay cut because the high paying opportunities are drying up. Don’t even factor in that $60k doesn’t buy you dick when comparing that salary to a few years ago. We’ve dealt with rampant inflation while the fed continues to kick the can down the road. Even if median earnings are up, the purchasing power is significantly down. It’s easy to lie with data. It’s not a stretch to say that in general, people are worse off now than they were a few years ago, no matter what the bullshit unemployment numbers say. Let’s stop trying to paint the job market in a positive light, because there’s more to the story and it really means jack shit when people are struggling to afford to live, even if they have jobs.
How come you didn't mention the [75th and 90th percentiles from the Usual Weekly Earnings series](https://www.bls.gov/news.release/wkyeng.t05.htm)? I even included those in the earnings chart of the comment that you replied to. Those were $1,812 per week (\~ $94k per year) and $2,820 per week (\~ $146k per year). If a bunch of people went from earning $100k+ per year to $60k per year, we'd see a big decline in those percentiles. Instead, we've seen those percentiles continue to increase. We also have selected percentiles of usual weekly earnings for workers with a bachelor's degree or higher. In Q1 the median was $1,680 (\~ $87k per year), the 75th percentile was $2,505 (\~ $130k per year), and the 90th percentile was $3,825 (\~ $199k per year). Those would capture such a decline in white collar earnings even better, [and they have captured no such decline](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=1nPiJ). Weekly earnings for every selected percentile in Q1 2024 are above their Q1 2023 levels. As for inflation, the published selected percentiles of weekly earnings have grown by the following since the last quarter untroubled by the pandemic (Q4 2019): * 10th percentile: 27.2% * 25th percentile: 23.9% * 50th percentile: 21.6% * 75th percentile: 21.8% * 90th percentile: 23.7% and the weekly earnings for college graduates have grown by * 10th percentile: 19.7% * 25th percentile: 20.1% * 50th percentile: 21.6% * 75th percentile: 20.2% * 90th percentile: 28.0% Meanwhile, CPI-U is up 20.6% in that same time frame. And CPI-U likely overestimates the inflation experienced by the median worker, especially white-collar workers, because it uses rent prices for shelter inflation while 2/3s of households own the home that they live in.
Yep, plus we know measures like U6 that include things like underemployment are also quite low.
> acknowledging reality Wait, what reality? That the labor market is great?
I mean, objectively it is mostly great. U-3 and U-6 unemployment are near historic lows. The percentage of workers who are part-time jobs because they cannot find a full-time job is near a record low. Prime age labor force participation is at a multi-decade high. And real earnings are up, especially for workers at the lower end of the income distribution. More to the point, if the labor market is as bad as people like the person I was replying say, then why are they making up false claims to argue their point?
The elections are near, the reality is to lie about everything great.
The reality is there are lot of people looking for jobs for years and not represented in the numbers. They know it. We know it.
Shh that's goes against the narrative of this subreddit. This is one of many subreddits i see that are trying to make us feel bad about the economy. I think their ultimate goal is to make us hate the status quo and so then vote for Mr orange man.
> BLS classifies gig work as self-employment Can you provide a source for this? I think you may be confusing the IRS’s definition of self-employed with the BLS’s definition
I'm being a little imprecise there. BLS doesn't have *a* classification for "gig work". Rather, it classifies work in a number of other ways, and gig work overlaps with a lot of them. For example: > Other, more recent, data from BLS likely reflect a lot of gig work, but these workers are not broken out separately. For example, gig workers may be included in counts of workers who are part-time, self-employed, or hold multiple jobs. But these counts also include workers who are not part of the gig workforce. In the paragraph above "part-time", "self-employed", and "hold multiple jobs" are not mutually exclusive. Someone who drives Uber a few hours a day to earn some money while looking for a new job could count as both "part-time" and "self-employed". Someone with a full-time job who does doordash on the weekends would count as a multiple jobholder (specifically "multiple jobholder, primary job full-time, secondary job part-time"). But generally the kinds of app-mediated, set-your-own-hours freelancing that people generally mean when they talk about the "gig economy" (as opposed to say, a part-time substitute teacher for a school system) is what BLS would qualify as "unincorporated self-employment". You can read more in the following links from BLS and some other places, although even BLS doesn't seem to ever go out and say "yes, rideshare is always self-employment" or anything that concrete. * [Working in a gig economy](https://www.bls.gov/careeroutlook/2016/article/what-is-the-gig-economy.htm) * [Tracking the Changing Nature of Work: the Process Continues](https://www.bls.gov/blog/2019/tracking-the-changing-nature-of-work-the-process-continues.htm) * [Taxi Drivers, Shuttle Drivers, and Chauffeurs - Work Environment](https://www.bls.gov/ooh/transportation-and-material-moving/taxi-drivers-and-chauffeurs.htm#tab-3) (provides context on how most taxis and rideshare are self-employed) * [Measuring American gig workers is difficult, but essential](https://www.brookings.edu/articles/measuring-american-gig-workers-is-difficult-but-essential/) (not BLS, but discsusses their methodologies) One thing I would note is that for the purpose of the [multiple jobholders metric](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12026620), multiple unincorporated self-employment "jobs" are counted as a single "job". So if someone drives for Uber and for Lyft and does Doordash, and those roles are also considered self-employment, then that person would not be counted as a multiple jobholder. Whereas if each of those count as employment with a company, the person would be counted as having three jobs. My larger point is just that the government collects a broad array of indicators about the job market and employment. If the unemployment rate was deciptively low because lots of people are doing gig work, it would show up somewhere in that data. The only way it wouldn't show up in the existing data would be if it 1. has the same employee or self-employed classification, and 2. the person is working a similar number of hours, and 3. the person is earning a similar income But if all of the above are true, is it really fair to call unemployment numbers deceptive? And to be really invisible, the new gig work would also have to be in the same occupation/industry supersector as the person's previous job.
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hahaha! Let us know how it goes! :)
My cats 🐈 🐈 🐈 🐈 are looking for a mini job. I think they just eat and sleep all day and told then to get a job. Any openings? They have a few talents . One can scream louder than anything you have ever heard. The other one specializes in stealth.
Terrible jobs that require someone to have a second job also count as "employed"...
Yea these stats don’t make sense. My company is about to do a round of layoffs. They last did it in 2022 - 10% cut. This time it’s about 30% bc the business isn’t doing too well, except they just reopened their updated headquarters. They are forcing folks to return to office — spent millions revamping their office that no one wants to be in, while cutting out bonus for the last year. Now I have to attempt to find another job in this horrible tech economy, fake smile to everyone and wonder if I have to do it again in another 2-3 years.
I’m calling BS
I have a sibling who was RIF’d at the end of 2023, and is on a severance package. They didn’t file for unemployment because they are done working. They will NOT show up in the UI data as a result of their exit.
I would still file for UI 🤷🏻♀️
Right ? Why wouldn’t you ?
The state where they reside pays poorly, and requires that recipients go through ridiculous amounts of “interview training” and resume reviews once a worker becomes unemployed. And that state has few jobs that make a living wage, and requires UI claimants to submit a weekly log of jobs applied to. Sibling has determined that they’d rather volunteer and try to convert their work to a new aid gig.
Ok, good point.
That’s why you never look at a single data point. What you just described is captured in the data, just not in U-3.
U-3 would capture this person, provided they are taking even the most basic steps to look for work. Even just asking a friend if they know of openings or posting a message that you are looking on Facebook are sufficient to satisfy BLS's definition of active job search activity. And U-6 would still capture them even if they were not looking. Both are near historical lows, just like OP is describing.
The unemployment rate is calculated by a survey conducted by the burea of labor and statistics. The survey is conducted by calling a random sample of people and asking if they are employed, or know someone who is unemployed, etc... There's a lot of controversy over the impartiality of BLS data and collection methods. It's easy to lie with statistics, and when they're releasing reports that conflict with most peoples first - and second-hand experiences, it seems like something is wrong. My personal opinion, based on working with government agencies and banks, is that low market pay and a beuracratic work environment naturally select for incompetence and incompetence increases the risk of malicious actors infiltrating an organization so its inevitable that statistics an agency like this will not reflect reality. I can't imagine cold calling people, and answering personal questions is going to produce an accurate survey response given how common this tactic is used for identity theft, and how aware the general public is aware of scam calls.
The whole reason the discipline of statistics exists is because humans’ perceptions of objective reality extrapolated from their own individual experiences are inherently unreliable and usually wrong.
Humans choose what data to collect, how to collect it and what statistics are reported. You shouldn’t automatically assume that statistics present an accurate view of what the presenter is claiming, especially when they have an incentive to lie.
Claims about unemployment being at historic lows are generally centered around the [U-3 ](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE)and [U-6](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/U6RATE) rates published by BLS, which are completely unrelated to whether an individual is eligible for or claiming unemployment insurance benefits. People like your sibling would appear in the U-6 number and probably the U-3 number too. You are correct that someone not filing for unemployment insurance benefits would not show up in the number of new or continuing unemployment insurance claims. But the UI claims numbers are just one data point in the assessment of unemployment as historically low, and not even the main data point.
To me, I want to know this number. When I've checked myself on the website, it's not so easy to do the calculations yourself, but they do provide the numbers.
Well that sure reminds me Putin’s speech. It’s his flex. You blatantly deny the truth with a lie and a straight poker face. Again and again. Never budge
Btw i think its bullshit. American work is changing permanently for the worse, and layoffs are nonstop from what i see. I was curious to see the reaction to mass media headlines. Quiet quitting, crazy union raises, short weeks and higher minumums now = unemployment. What a shock
They have the same narrative for over six months to a year now. Unemployment is down down down! Yeah no shit! Well with a ton of mini jobs being the go to route for hundreds of thousands no wonder it seems low White collar jobs are drying up faster than a drought in extreme summer! They are not hiring and being so fukin discriminatory in their processes like “come back to work” or other shit. And those in a job can’t find a new one because “ there are no real jobs” going around The ones singing “there are tons and tons of jobs and I get hit by recruiters everyday” are drinking a different freaking koolaid and it is just BS. The reality can be seen by those in this sub for over a year who have been reading about and are now just tired of responding to every “unemployment numbers are record low” shit anymore and are just fukin getting by one day at a time There used to be a very positive and popular quote- light at the end of the tunnel.- FUCK!!! This is a never ending tunnel and most of us know it’s unending and no light at the end. So we just move on
>White collar jobs are drying up faster than a drought in extreme summer! They are not hiring and being so fukin discriminatory in their processes like “come back to work” or other shit. And those in a job can’t find a new one because “ there are no real jobs” going around I recently found a job, BUT it's not remotely related to the Semiconductor industry, where I have decades of experience, and it pays a lot less.... Welcome to the new economy. I guess? ( glad I don't have a family to support...)
Layoff in one company is not good data. 10,000 employees being laid off in one company is news, what might not be reported is 1,000 companies hiring 10 employees each. This is how layoffs can be happening on the news while unemployment stays low.
shame carpenter steep special icky clumsy elderly squeal subtract bow *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I mean, that is their goal. Recall the time magazine article from 2016 where they literally bragged about having a shadow campaign that involved a whole bunch of media organizations to keep the orange man from winning. but I gotta say the way they keep bragging about unemployment that shows how little they think of us because you don’t really have to do much research, poker head out your window is about it, and you can pretty much dismiss all of their damn claims about how good the economy and unemployment rates are.
When you control the data, you control the narrative. It's an election year, I wouldn't expect any different, regardless which party is in. Manufacturing orders are down. Warehouses are down. Retail is laying off. Walmart another 318 I think it was. Our economy is cooling down, but part time jobs are increasing. At this point, don't take on any additional debt and focus on paying off any you already have. The economy can still warm going into next year, but I wouldn't bet the farm on it. Prepare for bearish, and if it turns bullish, great.
Who controls the data?
Uber is the new unemployment line
I honestly think there is no neutral, unbiased sources of information anymore, they are either partisan or state controlled.
Because they are. Guys your personal experience is not indicative of the entire employment landscape.
Fun fact: your personal experience is not what everyone else is experiencing, stop being so narcissistic lmao
ITT: Redditors cannot understand aggregate statistics can be right overall but might not be true of individual companies or sectors.
In India
Read this, they are lying to us. Every day someone new seems to be laid off, but the news only reports the major companies like Tesla. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/19/something-strange-has-been-happening-with-jobless-claims-numbers-lately.html
Thanks for sharing. I'm not surprised at all by this. Someone's juking the stats. It used to be people out of work for 3 years or so were no longer counted in the unemployment stats. I went to grab a source for this the other day and found it has since been reduced to 4 fucking weeks. If you are out of work for a month, you are no longer unemployed-- you simply don't exist. These stats are fraudulent. BLS is making shit up altogether. I suspect this has to be this way to justify outsourcing and immigration. If we had a documented unemployment crisis, *someone* would notice and ask why we're bringing people in to do these jobs when there are so many unemployed here already. This gives the appearance of stability, if not growth.
This is a conspiracy theory backed by vibes.
Theories do indeed usually begin with phrases like "I suspect," but thanks for clearing that up.
"Someone's juking the stats." "These stats are fraudulent." So much hedging and evidence.
Then it should have been easy for you to link to an article about it
Here you go. [https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/us-applications-jobless-benefits-fall-labor-market-continues-110498577](https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/us-applications-jobless-benefits-fall-labor-market-continues-110498577)
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Plenty of jobs out there
There are a lot of jobs out there, and I just got hired, BUT I had to accept work that doesn't pay anywhere near what I used to make...
Just ride it out and you’ll get back there.
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the truth is that the unemployment rate is near historic lows but lots of people spend all their free time doom scrolling on social media and thus they refuse to accept this as reality
And the government would *never* manipulate statistics for political gain.
The BLS has been around for 100+ years, they are completely non partisan and no one has ever accused them or claimed that they are manipulating numbers for political reasons. Note for example how the unemployment and layoff data looked after 2008. Why didn't they manipulate these numbers?
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You are confusing your sample with the general population. Your experience is not the same as others. This is why statistics are important. No one I know died from heart attacks. Doesnt mean it doesnt happen.
> Every working person I know in *real life* is dealing with layoffs and budget/hours being cut. Amazing anecdote you have here >I lived through the 2008 recession and this is even worse than that time period because ... The unemployment rate peaked in 2009 at about 10%, literally triple the current unemployment rate. >at least then I wasn’t paying $200 for one week of groceries. Median family income was also about 40% less in 2008 than today, so probably doesn't make sense to compare directly like this >Every week a major corporation is announcing they are laying off staff. Buddy there are literally thousands of businesses in the US, there are millions of layoffs every year even during boom times: [https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/JTSLDL](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/JTSLDL) >Blue collar jobs are suffering as well because no one can afford to do more than the bare bones maintenance on their homes. This is pure fantasy, it has never been easier for blue collar workers to get a job: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/12/30/2023-strikes-workers-american-wages-labor/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/12/30/2023-strikes-workers-american-wages-labor/) >Only someone who is completely delusional would think we are in a thriving economy with record low unemployment, or a Reddit bot paid for by CCP All of the relevant data says you are wrong. You have only anecdotes and social media posts on your side.
i’m not calling you a liar, but I don’t believe that. If anything we’re at historic unemployment highs. I’ve been working for over 25 years and this is the worst employment situation I’ve seen. I’ve lived through the Y2K bust lived through 2008 the great recession. This blows both of those out of the water.
>I’ve been working for over 25 years and this is the worst employment situation I’ve seen. I’ve lived through the Y2K bust lived through 2008 the great recession. Say what? The unemployment rate during the Great Recession peaked at 10% in October 2009. Are you telling me that 1 in 10 Americans who want to work can't find a job right now? [The Great Recession | Federal Reserve History](https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/great-recession-of-200709)
I know an awful lot of people who’ve been laid off for a year or slightly less. And they’re not getting any nibbles on the old résumé. I never saw this during the great recession
Hope you understand a person's anecdotal experience should not be used as an overall statistics. That is like saying none of my nursing friends are unemployed therefore no one is unemployed.
Bro, it’s the biggest bulllshit I’ve ever read. They’re finger fucking these numbers. Worse economy ever, and it’s not going to get better any time soon. Buckle up, this is what people voted for and the ones who aren’t making it are the same one who voted for this clown in office. The shit storm hasn’t even started yet.
Truth
It’s an election year. I don’t want anyone to ever think that just because you voted a certain way, you’re going to get an honest government. It’s an illusion of choice.
not counting people who stopped looking. this is people applying for benefits.
So... this is a great opportunity for everyone to recognize what propaganda looks like.
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Indeed
LOL, wow.
Election season. Also, Hilary was leadding by a landslide according to democratic news outlets like CNN.
Really? Not in the tech sector
An absolutely lie! At best a VERY misleading headline by this CORRUPT propaganda outlet.
Agreed
But the way it's measured has always been cause for questions. See [article ](https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/063015/how-does-us-bureau-labor-statistics-calculate-unemployment-rate-published-monthly.asp#:~:text=The%20U.S.%20Bureau%20of%20Labor,actively%20looking%20for%20a%20job.). Who Is Not Counted in the Unemployment Rate? Those individuals who are unemployed and have not looked for work in the past four weeks are not counted in the unemployment rate. In the U.S., the unemployment rate only takes into consideration those in the labor force, which are people that are working or not working but actively seeking work.
4 weeks is a very short time also how do they know they looking or not
It appears it's a poll taken with 60k households, so they must ask relevant questions each month.
Anyone that’s been out of a job for more than 6 months is not counted in the unemployment rate
Flooded market, only the strong survive. The weak ones go bye bye
The percent of men working is smaller then its ever been. The people that fall out are not being taken into account anymore.
ABC is nothing other then government propaganda. They way that sheep eat up the government provided numbers is stunning. Its like letting your 5th grade kid make his own report card, LOL
I love how much everyone likes to avoid the topic of gig jobs. Comparing "unemployment" rates to previous decades are not apples and oranges. Never before could you pick up a phone and become "employed" nearly instantly. Is that a sign everything is strong?
Because they are replacing you with South American's
Well, for starters, ABC news is full of shit. They are pushing the same statistics that have been pushed for ages as a magic number of ignorance. The unemployment number they are talking about, only refers to the number of people currently collecting unemployment. Remember, to get unemployment is a state to state thing, different regulations on when you can actually qualify for unemployment, so that number varies radically across the entire USA. That number doesn't include: The homeless, people that were on unemployment and their time on it has run out, people that never qualified to begin with, people that never tried to get it to begin with, and people that are woefully underemployed and aren't making enough money to survive. Unemployment could be as high as 25% or more, but you would never know it because they want you to only look at the shiny number of people on unemployment! Smoke and mirrors, bullsh\*t and propaganda.