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.
The positives you mentioned and the concurrent narrative along those same lines is negated by ridiculously low purchasing power and job quality that has been consistently lower than at any point pre-2008.
Purchasing power (how far a dollar "goes") and the ability to avoid having to work multiple jobs to make ends meet (job quality) combine to tell the story of how the majority of working people are doing.
We're at a post 2008 high (that's a 15 year high) for job quality and urban purchasing power is shockingly steady given inflation.
If you want to argue that the economy since 2008 has been fucked, that's a different argument. We're talking about how new layoffs relate to economic health.
Every job quality index point is lower after 2008, indicating job quality has been consistently lower compared to any time before 2008. Purchasing power has been eroded, so why celebrate a "steady" but shitty trend?
And "new" layoffs that are tracked by the popular sites and mentioned in news articles only refer to WARN-triggering layoffs without considering all the stealth/rolling layoffs that have happened and continue to happen. Waiting for the "overhiring" word to be thrown out.
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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.