I’m not sure whether to call this article a report, an analysis, or an opinion piece. In the Business section of the Washington Post Taylor Telford, Jaclyn Peiser and Federica Cocco have a piece saying the U. S. has its toughest job market in years.
It’s the toughest time in years to be searching for work in America.
New data last week showed a fourth month of tepid job growth and propelled joblessness to its highest level since late 2021, when the economy was still recovering from the effects of the covid-19 pandemic. Now, as companies wrestle with inflation, economic uncertainty and trade policy whiplash, many are shredding payrolls and shifting tasks to artificial intelligence while pulling in higher profits. And some executives are pointedly broadcasting sizable layoffs as wins, a sign they’re making workforces leaner and more efficient.
Hardly any corner of the economy is untouched by jobs cuts and slowdown: Employment in all goods-producing industries slumped in August, with the deepest losses coming from manufacturing and mining. The service sector was racked by steep layoffs in business and professional services and IT.
The graphic at the top of the page illustrates what they’re talking about. I’ve criticized the BLS Employment Situation in the past but I think what it’s reporting this month is directionally right if not right in detail. Note that although its numbers are slightly different from those reported by the payroll processing company Automatic Data Processing (ADP) (in which I have more confidence) they both point to a very tough jobs market. You need only to read posts on Glassdoor or LinkedIn to recognize that.
But wait! There’s more. Consider these charts of real total annual revenue 2019-2025 for some big outsourcing companies
My understanding is that TCS’s revenue has declined sharply in the current fiscal year-to-date. I can only guess what this level of stagnation or even decline is doing in India.
The U. S. labor market is even a little worse than suggested by what has been reported. Since so much of healthcare funding comes from tax dollars in one form or another, the entire sector is effectively underwritten by governments if not paid from tax dollars outright. Anything that bears the slightest risk is either stagnant or contracting. That’s not a good sign.
I should be interested in how the Millennial Generation and Generation Z are doing. Generation Alpha (2010/2025) is too young yet.
I started working again about a year ago. I work on the warehouse side of a big box retailer. Recently one of the more experienced workers left for a better opportunity after seven years. (He’s in his early thirties.) Since then I’ve been asking sone of the other younger ppl (like the guy that left, not like my decrepit self) if they’ve considered leaving for greener (as in more $$$$) pastures. They’ve all said yes, but that the jobs aren’t there. This isn’t a new thing for them, but has been going on for a few years. The economy has been shit for a while now. Hiring foreigners has been a big part of job growth in recent years. Take that away and the rot at the core is exposed.
And a fair number of the younger workers, well into their twenties, are still living at home and often have two jobs.
I should note that it was only luck that got me the job. They announced an open cattle call on Facebook for the holiday season last year. I showed up, interviewed well, got the job despite fears on their part about my age, and just worked my ass off until I made it to regular part-time. If I had to go thru the regular process I wouldn’t have stood a chance.
@Icepick
Glad to hear you got a job. It is probably not your dream job, but at least, you are working.
Except for the pay, I like it better than any of the ‘professional’ jobs I’ve had. I go to work, do my job, go home and don’t think about it much. It’s honest work.
My job at [redacted]? LOL our entire department was there just to take the blame when something no one had any control of inevitably came in bad. (That would be ROI on pension funds.) So we worked hard at making sure that when the shit hit the fan, we could take it and explain it away. “Honest” in one way, complete bs from any accurate assessment. But none of the VPs at any level wanted to take the blame for anything at all and were TERRIFIED of telling any of the C-level guys that the C-level guys didn’t know everything. ([famous CEO you’ve all heard of] doesn’t want to be told anything other than that his every idea is better than anything God HisOwnSelf could come up with and his execs feel the same way, and ANYTHING that doesn’t work out is DEFINITELY Someone’s Fault.) So our department was created. When I got the ax we were up to three salaried people, one manager, one and a half secretaries, and a director. All for a job that should have been done by finance guy spending about 20 hours on during any given year. LOL. And in 2008 the senior finance guys, at [CEO]’s insistence, were adamant that US GDP growth in 2008 was going to be 4.5%, and would be 5% for 2009 thru 2012. LMAO. What a bunch of goddamn crooks. I was the only person in the entire company that said anything to the contrary. Guess who got fired?
Anyway, I can’t speak to my company as a whole, but my part is honest. I like that.
That said, it is a misapplication of skill both for myself and the economy as a whole, but that, as we say, is above my pay grade!
Dave, you used to have a couple of numbers you would quote frequently. One was the number of US citizens with STEM degrees who weren’t working in STEM jobs, and the other was the number of ppl living in countries with lower GDP per capita numbers than Mexico. I was wondering if you still keep up with those? (Note, I am NOT asking for you to look them up again, I was just curious if you still kept those numbers at your mental fingertips.)
Demographics favor the health care industry. We are still going through the baby boomer retirements and old people are the primary consumers of health care. However, the research pipeline has been cut badly so we should expect a slowdown in the future. AS to everything else, it’s hard to plan for the future when the rules keep changing so quickly. Are your inputs going to cost 10% more, 25% or 50% more next week? It’s hard to predict as so many of the changes arent being done on the basis of predictable policy but rather on the whims of one person. I suspect the Fed will cut rates which may help a bit but that wont cut the uncertainty.
I can hear the criticism that there is always uncertainty, which is true, but we have never had it at this kind of macro level before. Besides the rapid whimsical changes we have been facing what if the next POTUS decides, like the present one, it is important to undo everything by his predecessor? Build a new factory thinking that you have a 25% advantage over your foreign competitor and then that goes away. Where does that leave you?
Steve
Steve
Suspect a Democrat President and Congress will favor reversing every thing Trump has done as well as a purge of the bureaucracy.
The latest revisions of the Biden era show that things have been shit for a while, as my co-workers have said. I would maintain that things have been shit since the start of The Great Recession. Adding vast numbers of foreign workers hasn’t helped at all.
Icepick:
Glad to hear you’re working.
As to your questions, no on the first but on the second most countries–probably a hundred have lower per capita GDPs than Mexico. Mexico isn’t a poor country; it’s a middle income country with a lot of poor people that’s nextdoor to one of the richest countries.
I do wonder what Mexico’s per capita GDP would be without remittances from the United States. I’ve read that remittances are about 5% of Mexico’s GDP but I’m not confident in that number.
Icepick: glad to hear you are well, and perhaps content. At least you’re no longer ellipses,
Icepick: This might be what you’re looking for:
https://cis.org/Camarota/New-Wage-Data-Show-No-STEM-Worker-Shortage