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Corporate Profits Surge as Companies Cut Nearly 1 Million Jobs (cbsnews.com) 162

Posted by msmash from the leaner-meaner dept.
U.S. corporate profits have risen to record levels this year as companies eliminated nearly 1 million jobs. Chen Zhao of Alpine Macro calls the disconnect a "jobless boom." Companies typically cut workers when profits decline. Amazon laid off 30,000 employees despite strong earnings. Zhao attributes the pattern to AI adoption boosting productivity across industries while reducing demand for workers. Labor demand has fallen to zero growth or mild contraction.

The Federal Reserve lowered interest rates in September and October after Jerome Powell noted concerns about layoff announcements from large employers. The Department of Labor suspended monthly employment reports when the government shutdown began October 1. ADP reported private employers added 42,000 workers in October. The unemployment rate stood at 4.3% in August. The rate has remained stable because the labor pool is contracting due to baby boomer retirements and reduced immigration under Trump administration policies. Art Papas of Bullhorn disputes the AI explanation and argues companies are recalibrating after pandemic overhiring.
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Corporate Profits Surge as Companies Cut Nearly 1 Million Jobs More

Corporate Profits Surge as Companies Cut Nearly 1 Million Jobs

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  • The "expectations market" is in command (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ebunga ( 95613 ) on Friday November 07, 2025 @12:34PM (#65780582)

    It's the Welch-era GE all over again, but across all companies.

  • Not AI (Score:3)

    by JeffSh ( 71237 ) <jeffslashdot&m0m0,org> on Friday November 07, 2025 @12:36PM (#65780586)

    Just like COVID introduced an accelerated market change, so has the introduction of AI. Not because of any real changes in productivity patterns, rather, it just gives an excuse for the snap-back of the market realities. Underperformers are being cut after years of hanging on, not because of AI productivity improvements, just because there's been a hiring boom and years of not much turnover.

    • Technology has a history of eating jobs from the bottom, are you new here?

      • Re:Not AI (Score:5, Insightful)

        by JeffSh ( 71237 ) <jeffslashdot&m0m0,org> on Friday November 07, 2025 @12:57PM (#65780644)

        AI is bullshit and vastly overrated.

        • AI is bullshit and vastly overrated.

          Well, it's not really AI in any sense of the honest term; it's not a self aware machine. AI has become a marketing term for servers running a bunch of fancy scripts that produce dialogue that can pass for human speech fairly well. BUT... AI is a game changer economically because those fancy scripts are already killing jobs, jobs that won't be replaced by something else. So in that sense, AI isn't "bullshit". It's an extinction level event for entire classes of formerly human work. And the economic and socia

        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          by Kenneth Stephen ( 1950 )

          AI has problems for sure. Not a month goes by without news of yet another idiot lawyer getting sanctioned because of the hallucinations were presented as fact. However......have you tried coding with AI? I have. I'm 5x more productive than before, and I can solve problems now that I wouldn't have touched before. I still test my code. I still review it. But man, this thing is a game changer. I can see why people are paying big money for it. It absolutely is delivering.

          To give you a recent example - I know no

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Funny thing, "underperformers" have to eat too.

      • So we (collectively) owe them jobs?

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by gweihir ( 88907 )

          If you want a functioning society, everybody needs to be able to participate.

          But I do not think people like you understand that. You just want to be inhumane and cruel to groups you perceive as subhuman. And that makes you society-destroyers. Not that any of you is smart enough to understand that. Or moral enough to see that being inhumane is maybe not a thing good people do.

        • You pay for shit wether or you want to or not.
          You can do it the cheap way with BS jobs and social programs.
          Or you can do it the expensive way with law enforcement and a carceral system.

          I became a bleeding heart leftest when i actually bothered to look at the spreadsheet.

  • They are forcing people back down towards slavery. If you get paid barely enough to live then that counts as slavery in my opinion.
    • I think this is the fundamental breakdown of capitalism back into system of feudal Lords.

      I think the billionaire class have gotten tired of being dependent on consumers and employees. Just like everyone else has they've asked the question "if nobody has any money who's going to buy our products"

      But they didn't answer it the way working people and consumers do.

      If you work for a living the answer to that is they're going to have to give us more money so we can be good little consumers.

      But try

      • Re: I think it's more than slavery (Score:4, Insightful)

        by blue trane ( 110704 ) on Friday November 07, 2025 @01:27PM (#65780706) Homepage Journal

        Does Musk need people to buy his cybertruck or was just advertising it enough to boost Tesla stock so that he gets his market cap bonuses?

        If trillionaires make all their money from stocks going up and the stock market is independent of the real economy, why not encourage bubbles while printing a strong basic income?

        • Tesla stock is only up a cumulative 6% from the peak it achieved exactly 4 years ago. That is not even close to keeping up with inflation - 18% over the same time period. So if just getting attention from a market flop is a strategy for driving up the share price, I guess it isn't working very well.

        • If people don't buy stuff eventually the corporation collapses. The principals can make a profit before then, but repeat this enough times and the whole boat sinks as it happens to too many major employers at once. Hence too big to fail, which is of course the result of failure to enforce antitrust law.

      • The billionaire class. Yeah right. That's nothing but mumbo jumbo, as if the billionaires all wanted the same thing. Do you think Elon Musk and George Soros want the same thing?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dryeo ( 100693 )

          Of course they want the same thing, namely more money. How they accomplish that will vary.

          • Sure, they all want more money. Even people who aren't billionaires want that. But those who complain about the "billionaire class" complain about HOW they want to get money from all the rest of us, namely, by making us peasants or slaves. That's nonsensical.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by dryeo ( 100693 )

              I think that with most people, once they have more money then they know what to do with, aren't driven to get more money when there is a life to enjoy. And some of the billionaire class do seem to want to make us peasants or serfs. Slaves can be an expensive investment.

              • I think that with most people, once they have more money then they know what to do with, aren't driven to get more money when there is a life to enjoy

                You are certainly naive. Nobody stops wanting more money when they have "more than they know what to do with." What actually happens, is your expenses get bigger. Instead of a functional used car, they want a new car, and then they want a *nice* new car. Instead of wanting to go to the state park for a holiday, they want to go to Europe or Asia for a holiday. There is no such thing as "more money than you know what to do with." This is a mythical state of being.

                And some of the billionaire class do seem to want to make us peasants or serfs.

                I didn't deny this. What I said was, the "bill

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by dryeo ( 100693 )

                  I think that with most people, once they have more money then they know what to do with, aren't driven to get more money when there is a life to enjoy

                  You are certainly naive. Nobody stops wanting more money when they have "more than they know what to do with." What actually happens, is your expenses get bigger. Instead of a functional used car, they want a new car, and then they want a *nice* new car. Instead of wanting to go to the state park for a holiday, they want to go to Europe or Asia for a holiday. There is no such thing as "more money than you know what to do with." This is a mythical state of being.

                  I said driven to have more money, not would like more money. Many of the people I know who are well off are quite content with their finances, sure they would like more but aren't living to have more when there are other things in life besides work and struggle.

                  And some of the billionaire class do seem to want to make us peasants or serfs.

                  I didn't deny this. What I said was, the "billionaire class" is not homogenous. They have as many varying desires as people in any income level. Some are dedicated to helping humanity, some are greedy bastards. Some are democrat, some are republican. Some love Trump, some hate him.

                  My point is, it's not correct or logical to lump all "billionaires" together in a "billionaire class." By using this term, you paint a caricature that is as pejorative as labels people use for black people or gay people. Oh, but of course, it's *fashionable* to ridicule rich people, so it's OK to label them.

                  Well, to become a billionaire usually means a lack of morals and a certain type of personality bordering on sociopath. A group of people who have self selected.
                  I'm not talking about people who were born a certain colour or with weird hormones, it's m

                  • Well, to become a billionaire usually means a lack of morals and a certain type of personality bordering on sociopath

                    This statement is nothing more or less than a caricature. It's ugliness borne out of envy.

                    In programming, we generally subscribe to the 10x rule, that some people are just naturally 10x better programmers than average. I believe this rule applies to all skillsets: art, leadership, investing, sales, whatever: there are some people who just have a knack at whatever it is, and this I believe accounts for a large portion of the wealthy. Yes, there are many rich greedy bastards. But to suggest that rich people a

      • We've heard all of that before in Citigroup's "Plutonomy Memo" (right before the GFC): "We don't need ordinary consumers, we only sell luxury goods to ballers and McMansion dwellers, just look at the stock market, the ordinary consumer may be squeezed from all sides, but the line keeps going up!" Then the GFC happened, and the line stopped going up, because most of those "ballers" were poor people maxing out their credit cards. And the housing bubble collapsed too, since many of those McMansion dwellers had
        • For old-timers who need more info, Gen-Z has invented the concept of the "blown account", which is basically a Klarna account (or similar service) with lots of debt that you don't use anymore and just let the debt in it to exist. Much like leaving the debt on a maxed-out credit card to exist. Which is all fun and games until you run out of accounts to "blow" (much like running out of credit cards to max out) or until the debt inevitably goes to collection.

          Note: The term "blown account" should not be conf

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by registrations_suck ( 1075251 )

      You seem to lack an understanding of what slavery actually is, and how much better off someone who "gets paid barely enough to live" is compared to a slave.

      • Interesting thing, slavery actually wasn't that bad. At least that's what they taught my nephew in school this week. Talking here strictly about American slavery - African slavery was an entirely different matter. We had to barge in there, bring them to our slavery, in order to make them into happy little negroes.

        These days, we even pay them enough to live. Barely.

    • Nobody's forcing anybody. If you're not satisfied with your pay, hold out for more! If the company won't give you more, go find your desired rate of pay somewhere else! If you can't get more money for the job you're willing or able to do because somebody else will do it for cheaper, that's not the company's fault, that's the other guy's fault. Maybe the other guy doesn't need as much to live as you do. Does that make him a slave?

      What is a fair wage anyway? Should they have to pay you more if you have a fami

      • A living wage has long been standardized to mean being able to afford a two bedroom apartment, food, utilities, and transportation. If it were that easy to find a job to pay more then everyone would be millionaires.

        • Standardized by whom? And what authority do they have to say what my standard should be?

          When I graduated from college, I shared a studio apartment with a roommate, to make ends meet. There was *nothing* wrong or inappropriate or demeaning about that arrangement. We had everything we needed, including food, utilities, and transportation. Was I a slave because I didn't have a two bedroom apartment to myself? Not at all.

          My son, who has only a high school education, supported himself initially by working at a l

          • Here is an article on it: https://www.investopedia.com/t... [investopedia.com]

            • Your link says this:

              Some 60-plus definitions and descriptions of the term exist, according to the Global Living Wage Coalition.

              https://www.investopedia.com/t... [investopedia.com].

              That doesn't sound like consensus to me.

              The article states that a "living wage" for a family of four in the US is $104,000 per year. That definition is laughable. "If you don't make six figures, you're a slave!" That's absurd.

              • Because as I said, it is based on an apartment etc and that stuff is expensive. There isn't any state where people can afford an apartment on living wage. I get that the world hurt you and made you angry. But don't take it out on others by wishing your worst days on them.
                • On minimum* wage

                • Well lucky for Americans almost nobody makes minimum wage. Walmart employees start at $14/hr. With a roommate, you CAN afford an apartment on that pay. I know, my sons did it on less, just a couple of years ago. And neither of them stayed at those low wages for long.

                  But you're dodging the point. There is a LARGE gap between minimum wage, and your "living wage." It was the six-figure "living wage" that I said was absurd.

                  • Lol.. "with a roommate". That may be fine for students but not for adults. I guess if you have 50 roommates you could buy a mansion! How do you even have sex in an apartment with a roommate?

                    • You are still dodging the point. I guess you don't really believe your "living wage" is a legitimate threshold.

                      My sons were young adults when they had to get roommates. If you're still working an entry level job at 35, then I feel bad for your lack of privacy having to get roommates, but not all that bad. By 35, you should be at *least* in a senior position, if not managing teams. The threshold isn't high, all you have to do is be responsible and do your job well. If you can only qualify for a job that a te

                    • Ok so what if a kids parents both die when they are 17? What if their dad fondles them at night and their mom doesn't believe them so they have to leave home at 14. Is everyone being held to the same standard here?

        • Every 'living' wage job has to cover a two bedroom apartment? Really? Is that true in any market, like, for example, Manhattan?

          When did having roommates become an inhumane situation?

          • A person working in Manhattan doesn't have to live in Manhattan. But yes, living wage for jobs in Manhattan would be calculated on apartments within a reasonable commute and money to afford it.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by djinn6 ( 1868030 )

        Inflation is caused by the government's money printer. The government's money goes to the rich and well connected, shielding them from the effects of inflation. You on the other hand is not protected. In this way, the rich unfairly takes a larger slice of the pie than their contributions warrant.

        Moreover, you must eat and therefore must acquiesce to the lower wages offered. In a real free market (as defined by economists), you would have the option to say "no" for as long as you'd like.

        • Inflation has existed as long as money has existed. We have seen historical evidence of inflation as long ago as 330 BC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] It's simplistic to insist that inflation is an evil thing caused by shadowy government figures or "money printing."

          The government's money goes to the rich and well-connected...in communist and socialist governments. Under those systems, the only way to get rich, is to be friends with the communist party leaders. In the US, this is starting to become more

  • In other news (Score:3)

    by Slashythenkilly ( 7027842 ) on Friday November 07, 2025 @12:39PM (#65780602)
    Water is wet
  • Today its Americans that are the boiling frogs

  • So this is actual profit (Score:3, Interesting)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Friday November 07, 2025 @12:45PM (#65780624)
    Meaning the companies are making more money with less people.

    Some of that is automation and ai. Some of that is forcing workers into 996 and some of that is price gouging because we don't enforce and he trust why anymore.

    None of this is sustainable. Our consumer-driven capitalist economy is breaking down.

    Question for everybody, we're not going to do socialism we all know that because nobody is going to accept giving people money for nothing. You could try Ubi but we all know that's useless in the face of monopolies because monopolies will just jack up their prices and suck that money out of the consumers.

    So socialism isn't on the table and Ubi gets counteracted by systems we refuse to criminalize and ban.

    Is there a third solution I'm not seeing or are we just going to descend into a feudal dystopia?

    • Re:So this is actual profit (Score:5, Insightful)

      by supabeast! ( 84658 ) on Friday November 07, 2025 @12:55PM (#65780640)

      The third solution is a revolution. It’s going to get really crazy when people in the USA realize that there’s not enough food, a couple big Wall Street companies own all the housing, and there are 400 millions guns in private hands.

      • Even with 400 million guns, the citizenry would be no match for the military All the current regime needs to do is make sure that the military doesn't splinter when the revolution starts. This could be done by bifurcating the current military into something like Iran's revolutionary guard, and the rest of the military (The latter would have inferior weaponry, and basically be cannon fodder)

        So what if there's a revolution in the future where the regime is going to lose? Well, the "evil team" can handle this

        • All the current regime needs to do is make sure that the military doesn't splinter when the revolution starts.

          Not easy to do if the revolution has popular support and you have a citizen army. One question is to what extent the US military is a volunteer army as opposed to a professional army. But, unlike wars, revolutions aren't won by "blood and iron" alone.

          The country is divided and people are forced to choose sides. Those choices get made for all sorts of different reasons and will be fluid. The winner will be the side that holds together a core of people that is determined to win and/or has no alternative. Its

          • I agree, a long way from revolution, but 250 years ago there were a lot of American colonists that were not very political.

            It doesn't require everyone to be for a revolution, just enough.

            Sadly, a significant portion of the politically active citizens are being fed garbage and don't realize it. The latest faux ICE assault/kidnapping was for a woman in the country illegally that stabbed a coworker - her husband feigned a seizure and the parents used their child as a prop. Too many news outlets are complaining

            • Sadly, a significant portion of the politically active citizens are being fed garbage and don't realize it.

              Great example!

              officers were conducting a targeted operation to arrest Ojeda-Montoya for the alleged scissor stabbing and for throwing a trash can at her coworker in August

              ICE doesn't arrest people for crimes. They detain people for deportation. From the article:

              “Imagine FAKING a seizure to help a criminal escape justice,”

              Of course she wasn't escaping "justice". She had been arrested and her crime was being handled by the criminal justice system. So why the claim she was trying to escape justice for a crime she had already been charged with?

              "was he "faking"? I have no idea, but neither does the ICE spokesperson. Having witnessed seizures, the fact that he was perfectly normal moments later would not be unusual.

              Peopl

      • Most of those guns are irrelevant, as guns don't kill people by themselves, and a person can only realistically use two at a time, and can only use one at a time well.

        Plus, you know, the government has thermal vision, guided munitions, satellite overwatch...

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Pascoea ( 968200 )

          Plus, you know, the government has thermal vision, guided munitions, satellite overwatch.

          And training.

          The majority are hunters and sport shooters. About 2/3rds have had basic safety training, and the numbers drop precipitously from there for anything more advanced. Best number I can find is 10-20% have some form of defensive/tactical tactical training. Less than 5% have had ongoing/professional training. Someone's ability to successfully wield a deer rifle diminishes rapidly when the "prey" starts shooting back.

    • What if we at least try basic income with indexation to fight inflation? What have we got to lose, but outdated economic models?

    • Why isn't anyone talking about taxing the rich? Massachusetts passed a surtax (4%) on certain income over $1M in addition to the regular 5% tax in 2013. As far as I know, no millionaires left. From the 1940's to the 1980's the highest rate was around 90% decreasing to around 70% (then Reagan and Grover Norquist killed the idea of higher taxes on the ruling class and estate taxes that only affected estates over about $5M). This revenue provided for things like the Interstate Highway (1950's), helped build a

      • Why isn't anyone talking about taxing the rich?

        They are. You just can't hear them over the media noise.

        When Obama proposed a "middle class tax cut" that extended the Bush tax cuts, the media consistently reported that, unlike the Bush tax cuts, people making over 250,000 would not get a tax cut. In fact, people making $500,000 got a tax cut over $7,000 and people making the then median income of $50,000 got a $600 tax cut. Like the rest of us, the rich got a tax cut on their first $250,000. The argument was whether they would get an additional tax cut

    • Is there a third solution I'm not seeing or are we just going to descend into a feudal dystopia?

      Realistically? Make people farmland owners again, so they always have a job to fall back on (farming). That way, working for a corporation becomes optional. And stop allowing in illegal immigrants, who, being landless by default, will have to be substituted by the landed citizens one way or another.

      • In order to produce enough food to feed a nation let alone the amount of excess food that the United States needs to produce in order to keep the rest of the world even moderately stable you need to do large scale industrial farming.

        Small family farms are a pipe dream. They are also kind of pointless because as it stands we only need a few percentages of our population to grow all the food when it's done industrially. If you start trying to turn everybody in the farmers what you're going to have is a bu
        • I said make people farmland owners, not necessarily farmers. Make sure they own some farmable land, and they can fall back on it if they need it, that way, their existence doesn't rely on being hired by a corporation. There is lots of uncultivated federal land, I don't see why it can't happen. Industrial farmers are unaffected.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by spitzak ( 4019 )

        Why not give everybody a boat and tell them to spend all their days fishing?

        • Because there are so many fish in the sea. In fact, some nations are giving existing owners of fishing boats money to scrap their boats and leave the trade permanently. Also, new permits are given in a very limited manner. This is done to protect whatever is left of marine biodiversity.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by spitzak ( 4019 )

            I was trying to point out how ridiculous the GP's idea is. I was not making a serious suggestion.

            • I don't see why owning farmland is "ridiculous" even if you don't use said farmland. Nobody says everyone should be a farmer, I am saying they should have a fallback so they don't starve if they can't find a corporation to hire them. Remember, I replied to a person who asked how we prevent feudalism, that's a potential solution.

    • There are several, actually.

      But first let me note that we do give people "money for nothing" - how else do you explain all the billionaires? You're not seriously suggesting that any one single person is 1,000,000 more efficient or productive than the avenge? If not, wjy do they earn that much?

      Also, we've given away money for nothing e.g. during Covid, and also other forms of gigantic subsidies on other occasions - just not to poor peole, but to corporations, i.e. those that already have enough.

      Which brings

  • We can look forward to a modern form of Feudalism incoming, sprinkled with religious and political extremism to keep the plebs focused. No panem, no circenses, just ora e labora and paying taxes to make up for the megacorps losses.

    • I'd be fine with bread and circuses, but they seem to have a hard time with the bread.

  • 4.3% (Score:5, Interesting)

    by RobinH ( 124750 ) on Friday November 07, 2025 @01:00PM (#65780652) Homepage
    You guys get that 4.3% is low unemployment, right? Something like 90% of the last 30 years have had higher unemployment rate [stlouisfed.org] than that. It's the participation rate [stlouisfed.org] that's dropping, and that's almost entirely a demographic issue... there are more people retiring every year than graduating. The labor pool, as a percentage of the total population, is falling. This was all known well in advance and has been talked about to death. Those lower 4.3% of the population... the vast majority of them are really difficult to employ. A small percentage of people show up work late, or get drunk before they come to work, or whatever, and it's that group that finds it hard to stay employed.

    • This really isn't a difficult problem to solve.

      You pay fast food wages you get fast food quality work in return.

    • Re:4.3% (Score:4, Insightful)

      by HiThere ( 15173 ) <charleshixsn@NOsPam.earthlink.net> on Friday November 07, 2025 @02:34PM (#65780854)

      That's a real problem, but it ignores that the labor statistics are manipulated for political ends, so you can't trust them.

      It's not at all clear to me that we currently have low unemployment among those who would be seeking jobs if they thought they had a chance. (Once you've been unemployed for a while I believe they stop counting you. Admittedly, it's been over a decade since I looked into that.)

    • Unemployment rates only include those seeking employment. The 4.3% are not the "lower 4.3% of the population" whatever that is. They are anyone who is looking for a job and doesn't already have one. I am sure there are some people who are "unemployable" in that group, but most of those people stopped looking a long time ago.
    • The method we use to calculate unemployment stats was explicitly designed to hide the real unemployment.

      Unemployment is going to be closer to about 8 and 1/2 to 10%. That's the underemployed and people who gave up on looking.

      It also doesn't include people who don't are elderly and would be working if they could get jobs but who are basically unemployable and a doctor wrote a disability script for them so they could get enough benefits to not die in the streets. That's a dirty little secret of our ec

  • 1) Growth. Here you are growing and hiring. You have figured out how to make money and are doing it as fast as you can. Even if someone is bad at their job, they already know how to do it - so you simply let them keep it while everyone else is promoted. They have to really screw up to get fired. Business wise, every decision has to be profitable - but if you got a good product that can be easy to do because you have no real competition.

    2) Expansion. Here your business has thrived and succeeded, but it

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