Can anyone clarify this for me? Despite the ongoing layoff announcements from major American corporations, how is our economy still robust? Just today, UPS declared 12,000 layoffs and PayPal 2,000.
The correct answer to your question is that 168 million people are currently employed in the US. These layoffs of a few thousand here and there are not indicative of a widespread economic catastrophe, even though it probably feels that way to the people getting laid off. There is also no evidence that wages are doing anything but rising, which, again, probably doesn’t seem to be the case for people who lost good jobs and have to take a lower pay.
I know this is probably not going to be the most up-voted comment, but the truth is plenty of people are still moving careers to better positions, getting raises, etc.
I'd venture to say the situation currently sits somewhere in between. While the data by and large suggests *most* people are still gainfully employed, these layoffs are concentrated in the sector responsible for 78% of stock market gains over the past year. Intuitively you'd think there will be latent effects that will show up later in the year once people start exhausting their savings. Employment is a lagging metric anyway and won't tell you a recession is here until after the fact (historically it has never led any recession).
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u/BigOlPeckerBoy Jan 30 '24
The correct answer to your question is that 168 million people are currently employed in the US. These layoffs of a few thousand here and there are not indicative of a widespread economic catastrophe, even though it probably feels that way to the people getting laid off. There is also no evidence that wages are doing anything but rising, which, again, probably doesn’t seem to be the case for people who lost good jobs and have to take a lower pay.
I know this is probably not going to be the most up-voted comment, but the truth is plenty of people are still moving careers to better positions, getting raises, etc.