Every month when the US jobs report comes out, they’re talking about an increase in jobs or a great jobs report. But when I read the news, I keep hearing about these companies cutting 5%, 8%, etc. of their workforce.
Most of them seem to be “white collar” jobs, and I understand why they’re doing it, but the reports feel disconnected from reality. I personally know people that have been laid off. I’m not trying to e political, I’m just trying to understand what I’m missing? Where is the disconnect?
In: Economics
1) The civilian labor force is 167 million people. So when UPS announces that they are laying off 12,000 people — which is a huge layoff — it’s only 0.007% of the labor force.
2) Layoffs from large companies are usually headline news, because a company will generally have to issue a press release about it to their investors and the general public for compliance reasons. A company does not, however, have to report that they hired X people in a week/month/quarter gradually. If 20 companies hire 500 people over the course of a month, it doesn’t make the news.
3) Half of the jobs in this countries are at small businesses, where you will never hear about them either hiring or firing anybody at all. So it is perfectly reasonable that a tech company that went HAM during the pandemic and hired a ton of people will now need to lay some off, while at the same time small businesses (who can’t just hire 10,000 people) are still gradually bringing people on board.
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