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The US Just Had the Most Q1 Layoffs in a Decade (axios.com)
The U.S. saw its highest level of layoffs in a first quarter since 2009, data from staffing firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas released this week showed. From a report: Employers cut 190,410 jobs in the first 3 months of the year -- 10.3% higher than the number of layoffs announced in the fourth quarter of 2018 and 35.6% higher than job cuts announced in the same quarter of 2018. It's the highest number of job cuts in a quarter since 2015. The financial industry saw the third highest number of layoffs and the year-to-date total was 239% higher than it was in 2018.
that our economy is 'setting records on virtually every front' and 'probably the best our country has ever done'!
The economy goes in cycles. We're overdue for a contraction.
Hahahahahahaha. I enjoyed reading that. I guess whining is allowed in that super-secret third chamber of congress.
This is strange. Didn't the President of the United States tell us he was creating more jobs than any President ever?
Lets see, you can choose to think about only number of jobs lost (although how many are truly lost, vs. just people being laid off...), while ignoring jobs created...
Of course if you do that, you don't actually know the total, do you?
Yep, more Fake News. What a surprise. *rolls eyes*.
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Why on earth would that warrant a downgrade of the thread?
The original article is an analysis of job cuts only, not an analysis of the overall health of the job market.
If you read the original article, it is an analysis solely of job cuts, and not of the overall health of the economy or of the job market.
In that regard, it is a completely valid analysis. Anything else anyone wants to read into it is on them.
Or... the headline and summary are misleading in order to give Trump Derangement Syndrome another outlet to express itself. “Companies appear to be streamlining and updating their processes, and workforce reductions are increasingly becoming a part of these decisions. Consumer behavior and advances in technology are driving many of these cuts,” said Andrew Challenger, Vice President of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. or The majority of cuts this year are due to “restructuring;” 49,868 cuts have been announced due to this reason. Bankruptcy claimed another 40,218 this year, a 33.8% increase over the first quarter of last year. Another 27,380 cuts were due to plant, unit, or store closings, 104.7% higher than the 13,374 cuts due to closings through this point last year. The article also talks about how the sectors laying off are also hiring more than they laid off, while trying to position the layoffs as being a potential symptom of an economic downturn (due to federal shenanigans), but the numbers, taken in context, simply don't support that conclusion. I'd liken it to dropping a penny and finding a dollar when you bend over to pick it up.
You have to compare statistics over the same period.
The article is about the first quarter 2019: that is, January through March. The job statistics for the first quarter are poor, mainly due to an absolutely terrible jobs report in February: https://www.bls.gov/web/empsit... First quarter 2019 is significantly down in employment compared to the 2018 average.
The guy saying "fake news *rolls eyes*", however did the old switcheroo: he is just talking about March. March did bounce back... although it would be hard to not bounce back after such a low report for February, and it's still not even as high even as the average for 2018.
What a lovely way of making assumptions about me. I DO see what's happening and I actually AGREE with you that the intent of the post was probably what you stated. But if one can't suggest that people learn to think for themselves and take analyses for exactly what they are and what they aren't, then perhaps Slashdot isn't the home of as many intelligent people as I thought.
That's certainly true. It's been over a decade since the last recession, so one is likely on the way in the next 6 to 12 months. Trump's tariffs, trade wars and general instability certainly haven't helped, but a recession probably would have happened anyway. The real problem though is that the tools government normally uses to help ease a recession (cutting taxes and lowering interest rates) have already been used by Trump early in his term in a vain attempt to boost his popularity. Taxes can't be cut any further and he stopped the fed from raising rates during the boom so there's no room to lower them during the bust. This is going to be another bad recession with another long, slow recovery.
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That doesn't necessarily mean that he can't make a valid point.
People who got a job: The economy is awesome! Trump is a genius!
People who lost a job: The economy sucks! Trump will fix this!
they're gearing up for a recession. Corporations are squirreling away money for buy backs to bump the stock price so the CEO doesn't take a hit to his income.
We should ban stock buy backs immediately. Pre-Reagan they were an illegal manipulation of the market. The damage they've done to the economy and to working class jobs can't be understated. The fact that Reagan got them past the American people like he did is a testament to how much he could get away with because folks loved him so damn much. We need to put a stop to that kind of politicking, where warm feelings replace sound policy.
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This is strange. Didn't the President of the United States tell us he was creating more jobs than any President ever? The best jobs, even?
#PresidentTweety's ONLY concern is surviving past the election of 2020. Trump has NO long-term plans and he would not care AT ALL if the country collapsed into total bankruptcy the day after the election.
I'm not optimistic about America's future. The Democratic Party primary process is quite similar to the GOP's, which in 2016 picked the least qualified and utterly worst candidate out of a large number of them. Now that Trump has proven "YUGE lies work", what's to stop the Democrats from nominating worse-than-Trump under the guise of anti-Trump?
The only good aspect I can see is that Trump is a doddering old fool, so he can't live long enough for Trumpism to devolve all the way into Stalinism. Notwithstanding, it wouldn't surprise me at all if Trump locked the door on "executive time" and died of a stroke before anyone worked up the courage to check on him. That's how Stalin died in 1953. Any day now for Trump?
Just venting, but I've already taken cover.
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More than that, we recently just hit the lowest jobless claims (i.e. new unemployment applications) since 1969.
However, the labor force participation rate is only about 63%, meaning nearly 40% of eligible Americans have no job and are not looking for a job, and so don't count towards the unemployment or jobless figures.
Finally, the highest labor force participation rate on record is only about 67%, and the lowest is 58%.
In other words, you can support any finding you want with statistics as long as you're willing to ignore enough data.
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