US Layoffs Haven't Increased, and New Tech Industry Hiring Balances Firings (yahoo.com) 91
"The numbers show that layoffs in the U.S. are roughly at or below levels from before the pandemic," reports the Washington Post, "although they are higher than in 2022 when businesses snapped up workers as the economy roared back to life...
"A different measure that accounts for the growing U.S. workforce shows that layoffs affected about 1.2% of employed people in March, a number that has been steady for years outside of the pandemic..." In the technology industry, where Meta and other companies are regularly announcing job cuts, the layoff picture is complex. There has been a marked increase in layoffs in recent months in what the Labor Department calls the information industry, which includes employment of software developers and other tech workers. But Matthew Martin, senior U.S. economist at the research and consulting firm Oxford Economics, noted that hiring has also increased in that category, which includes media and entertainment. The combination of hiring minus layoffs in the information industry is effectively a wash, Martin said. Layoffs at Big Tech companies like Meta and other high-profile employers don't necessarily reflect what is happening in the country, Martin said, and draw far more attention than what may be slow and steady workforce growth. "There's a lot more headlines about job cuts than there are [about] expansion plans by businesses," he said.
In his view, technology companies may be pushing out some workers and replacing them with people who have different skills as they respond to the demands of AI. It's true that businesses in some industries are devoting enormous sums of money and attention to AI. It's changing how some people work and a minority of American businesses are rolling out AI tools. But it's also become a trend for bosses to blame layoffs on the productive capabilities of AI and its ability to replace workers, even when job cuts may have little to do with the technology. Sam Altman, CEO of ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, has taken note of the pattern that he and others call "AI washing," essentially a high-tech form of whitewashing... "You know something is happening all the time when they have a word for it," said Gautam Mukunda, who teaches leadership at the Yale School of Management...
AI-related employment changes are tiny so far, said Nathan Goldschlag, director of research at the Economic Innovation Group, a Washington think tank. He pointed to a recently published analysis of Census Bureau surveys, which found more than 95 percent of businesses that use AI said it hasn't changed their staff sizes — and AI-related employment increases were more common than decreases.
"A different measure that accounts for the growing U.S. workforce shows that layoffs affected about 1.2% of employed people in March, a number that has been steady for years outside of the pandemic..." In the technology industry, where Meta and other companies are regularly announcing job cuts, the layoff picture is complex. There has been a marked increase in layoffs in recent months in what the Labor Department calls the information industry, which includes employment of software developers and other tech workers. But Matthew Martin, senior U.S. economist at the research and consulting firm Oxford Economics, noted that hiring has also increased in that category, which includes media and entertainment. The combination of hiring minus layoffs in the information industry is effectively a wash, Martin said. Layoffs at Big Tech companies like Meta and other high-profile employers don't necessarily reflect what is happening in the country, Martin said, and draw far more attention than what may be slow and steady workforce growth. "There's a lot more headlines about job cuts than there are [about] expansion plans by businesses," he said.
In his view, technology companies may be pushing out some workers and replacing them with people who have different skills as they respond to the demands of AI. It's true that businesses in some industries are devoting enormous sums of money and attention to AI. It's changing how some people work and a minority of American businesses are rolling out AI tools. But it's also become a trend for bosses to blame layoffs on the productive capabilities of AI and its ability to replace workers, even when job cuts may have little to do with the technology. Sam Altman, CEO of ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, has taken note of the pattern that he and others call "AI washing," essentially a high-tech form of whitewashing... "You know something is happening all the time when they have a word for it," said Gautam Mukunda, who teaches leadership at the Yale School of Management...
AI-related employment changes are tiny so far, said Nathan Goldschlag, director of research at the Economic Innovation Group, a Washington think tank. He pointed to a recently published analysis of Census Bureau surveys, which found more than 95 percent of businesses that use AI said it hasn't changed their staff sizes — and AI-related employment increases were more common than decreases.
Real Question (Score:5, Insightful)
As what salary? I have a tire repair place really close, and it's all 20 something kids WITH DEGREES, working for $12/hr.
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Iran broke itself a long time ago
Trump didn't stop Iran from investing in its own future.
Uh, Trump tore up the treaty we had with them and unilaterally re-imposed harsh economic sanctions.
That's practically a textbook definition of "stopping them from investing in their own future"
(Meanwhile, he's in the process of repeating the NAFTA->USMCA process and "negotiating" a *worse* deal than what we had before, and branding it as a victory)
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So what's better, a bright and shiny treaty that makes everyone feel good that they aren't actually following, or a not as great treaty with actual enforcement teeth that has a chance of being followed?
You mean... like the former JCPOA with its sharp enforcement teeth? (that everyone other than Trump's ego agreed was actually working before he tore it up?)
Over the past half-decade (ie since the current "country" has existed), Iran has not been the aggressor in any of the conflicts it's been involved with, nor has it broken any treaty it has signed. Why do I bring this up? Because the other side -- namely US (and Israel's hand up Trump's posterior) has repeatedly been the [direct!] aggressor, and also d
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The US was fucking over Iran before he was even born. The Ayatollah came to power after the US took out their legitimate leadership. Then Reagan ran guns to them in exchange for a little election help at home. The current President would love to work out a similar deal with the Iranians, but he tends to kill whoever he's negotiating with, so the Iranians are no longer playing that game.
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Iran has 90 million Ayatollahs, and most of them believe they should have a nuclear weapon. You think America has 90 million bombs?
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how many of them can solve fizzbuzz on the whiteboard? Probably none because I literally hired all five 2026 graduates who can.
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People still fail that test? Incredible.
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What degrees do they have?
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Those are some high-value language skills. Hard to stay unemployed while knowing those.
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There are some actual statistics on this. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York tracks underemployment of college grads...college grads who are working in jobs that don't require the degrees they earned.
https://www.newyorkfed.org/res... [newyorkfed.org]
The rate in March 2026 was 41.5%, about average compared to the past 40 years.
Maybe your particular town doesn't offer a lot of skilled work? Maybe you live in a small town? It is certainly true that underemployment varies greatly by location.
yah this is bs (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: yah this is bs (Score:3)
Re: yah this is bs (Score:5, Informative)
And that right there is one of the dirty little tricks that the DOL's been using for the last several decades to keep the unemployment statistics artificially low: they don't count how many people are out of work or looking for jobs, they only count how many people are getting unemployment payments. And, if your unemployment benefits run out, you're considered to have left the workforce and are no longer counted even if you're still looking for a job.
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Unemployment statistics count people before, while and after they collect unemployment benefits. The thing you called a trick is only your imagination.
https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_ht... [bls.gov]
Re: yah this is bs (Score:5, Informative)
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Be careful, that kind of optimism isn't tolerated around here!
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>Thanks to my severance package, I can't collect unemployment right now
I don't know where you live, but in my state in the US, you absolutely can collect unemployment while you are on severance. I've done so twice with full disclosure to the unemployment agency. Maybe double-check your situation?
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Agreed. There's deliberate undercounting for the long-term unemployed, and a failure to account for the fact that firing seasoned workers with acquired skills isn't the same as hiring inexperienced yoofs who have no meaningful experience in producing robust, high quality products. Although, to be fair, corporations don't seem keen on producing those.
However, there's another factor to consider. The number of retirees is smaller than the number of people entering work for the first time. Due to Covid, a LOT s
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In unemployment figures don't show actual unemployment, but deliberately excludes groups for the purpose of keeping the figure low (and the UK was very explicit that this was the purpose when Thatcher's government sliced several million off the official figures, less sure if the US was as honest) then it's hard to call it anything else.
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"Information Industry" is worthless for this (Score:3, Interesting)
The fact that, for this discussion, they decided to explicitly include "media and entertainment" makes it pretty obvious any increase in hiring is only in that group. We've all seen the copious amount of stories documenting this. Actual tech workers - especially new graduates - are having a hard time finding jobs [cnn.com]. I also see and hear about this frequently in discussions with the students in our department.
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the discussions about job market numbers in the us have always baffled me. why does a country of 350 million people and a gdp of nearly 40 trillion not have proper labor stats and has to resort to surveys and other gimmicks?
it's not rocket science. where i live every single labor contract is recorded with social security, meaning you have a nearly perfect running picture of the job market by all sorts of measures: sector, job category, salary range, contract duration, gender, education level, etc., to the d
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Historically, it has to do with a religious belief that government is a tool of the devil. But in the past year it has more to do with the belief that accurate employment statistics might hurt the ruling party.
The goal now is to whittle down the Bureau of Labor Statistics to just one individual, probably using an AI ghostwriter, whose job it is to write a report with the requested numbers in it.
Jay Powell from the article (Score:5, Informative)
"What economists call a “low-hire, low-fire” job market is rough for job seekers, acknowledged Jerome H. Powell, who is set to depart as chair of the Federal Reserve.
“The labor market is in balance,” Powell said at a news conference last month. “But it’s an unusual and uncomfortable kind of a balance where people who don’t have jobs will have a hard time breaking in.”"
The job market for tech, reading the rest of the article, is just flat. That's the problem as Powell alludes to. It means that youngins cannot easily break in, and if you lose a job, you'll have trouble finding another. The economy is mainly picking up jobs in healthcare.
Layoffs and rehirings force workers (Score:5, Insightful)
to do the same job for less money.
It's about cutting wages, period.
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Pew Research says "For most U.S. workers, real wages have barely budged in decades."
https://www.pewresearch.org/sh... [pewresearch.org]
What this means is that, compared to inflation, people make about the same as what they made decades ago. Not more, but also, not less.
Maybe you live in a depressed area, that would explain your perception. Where I live, in Houston, jobs are plentiful and wages are good, plus the cost of housing is low. That's a pretty good combination.
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I live in Houston too. You must not have looked for a job or for housing recently.
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I haven't personally looked for housing lately, but my adult son just found a new apartment a couple of months ago. It's a nice, new complex, he got a 2 bedroom apartment for $1,400 a month. It was not at all hard.
If you're looking for a low-interest mortgage, then no, you're out of luck. The days of 3% mortgages are gone. On the other hand, when I bought my first house in 1999, the interest rate was also over 7%. So in the context of history, not so bad.
Yes, I have looked for a job recently, and although i
Citation? (Score:4, Insightful)
I examined the page linked in TFS very carefully, in two different browsers. I was unable to find any sources for the numbers given, nor a link supporting the contention that layoffs haven't increased.
It's possible that both of my browsers are blocking content, or that I just overlooked something - but I rather doubt that. So until I see specifics on where the stats came from, I'm ignoring the story.
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Here's a source: https://www.wsj.com/cio-journa... [wsj.com]
"Tech Unemployment Ticks Up to 3.8% in April Amid AI-Driven Layoffs"
So according to this WSJ article, unemployment in tech is up a bit, but 3.8% is still very, very low.
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"The labor market is in balance" Powell said (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:"The labor market is in balance" Powell said (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: "The labor market is in balance" Powell said (Score:2)
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Re: "The labor market is in balance" Powell said (Score:2)
Re: "The labor market is in balance" Powell said (Score:2)
Inflation did spike then go back to normal, how was that wrong?
Re: "The labor market is in balance" Powell said (Score:2)
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That's how it works in a coupled system.
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> when it was obvious to anyone with a brain that [inflation wasn't transitory]
You can't predict the future, don't lie. Factory shutdown decisions in Asia probably had the biggest impact on inflation, and if you are claiming you could read all their minds...
Re: "The labor market is in balance" Powell said (Score:2)
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Hadn't been a world pandemic since 1917, when trade was different.
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Pandemic consumer psychology was poorly mapped at the time.
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So all the well-educated economists just magically ignored that knowledge?
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You are cherry-picking opinions after the fact
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I mean you are cherry-picking experts' opinions of that time after you know the outcome. Let's say there were 100 experts with an opinion back then. Let's say 20 predicted it was not transitory. You now quote the 20, pretending the 80 didn't exist. A propaganda trick.
Employee draw poker (Score:2)
Discard 2, hire 2 more.
Ah, the age of precarious employment.
Did you know that in the USA you can be fired for any reason (good, bad, or no reason) As long as it isn't an illegal reason? (It's called Employment-At-Will and its the law of the land in every state except Montana)
How can you prosper in such an environment when you are on a constant incessant treadmill to improve your value to the company? Not to mention stacked ranking where you have to compete with your colleagues and if you are in the bottom 1
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Treadmill? That can be optimistic.
One place I worked for, I was hired to do DB and coding. Sped their database up by a factor of 60, and resolved tickets efficiently.
Another place I worked for, I was hired to do QA. Found numerous performance issues and dangerous security holes.
Didn't last in either, because politics are more important than people, and revenue is more important than wages. Once all the factors that seriously impacted profit were removed, keeping me would merely have meant a better product,
The US Helps Foreign Workers Take American Jobs (Score:3)
https://www.realclearinvestiga... [realcleari...ations.com]
"All told, a remarkable two-thirds of the Valley’s nearly 400,000 tech jobs are now held by those born abroad, according to a 2025 report from the think tank Joint Venture Silicon Valley."
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Maybe they're taking American jobs, but my bet is that if they didn't have access to world-class talent, the tech giants of today wouldn't be so giant (thus employing a lot fewer people). We'll see how well the economy does in 20-30 years by limiting legal immigration (the administrations latest gambit - forcing Green Card applicants to leave the country - will indeed reduce immigration - and probably the best will easily find alternatives elsewhere). With the talent going elsewhere, the next tech giants wi
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These are not "American jobs". These are jobs in America. The subtleties at work may be too much for you though.
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These are not "American jobs". These are jobs in America. The subtleties at work may be too much for you though.
The government's job is to address the needs of the nation, which includes those of the citizens. If it insists that people should have to work if they want to live, then they should be preserving jobs for their citizenry first.
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Sounds good, but happens to be an abysmally bad idea in a connected world. It essentially enforces isolationism. Also note that no modern country can educate enough of its own citizens for high-skilled jobs. Eventually this will be a global problem, but at this time you need to import people with those talents or lose it all.
That there are not enough low-skilled jobs is a separate issue.
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Yeah, the Valley is a tough place to try to get work right now. In other parts of the country, like Houston, Dallas, and Austin, prospects are much better.
Propaganda (Score:2)
Re: Propaganda (Score:3)
It's the Washington Post. Bezos owns it, and he has an agenda. Do not believe the headlines. When USAID cancellation killed 1 million people, most in Africa, Wapo went with "U.S. cut aid to Africa. The continent proved resilient.". They wouldn't know genocide if if it them in the face. Economic news ? Who are they kidding.
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I'll buy it. https://www.wsj.com/cio-journa... [wsj.com]
The tech job market isn't as white-hot as it was in 2021-2022, so it feels really bad right now. But 3.8% tech unemployment is still a very, very good rate. Maybe you live in California? In other places, the picture is much better.
Replacing workers with cheaper workers. (Score:2)
Its a wash alright. /s
You have to ask yourself... (Score:3)
how has employment for under 30 year olds plummeted if hiring levels are the same and immigrants are being removed from labor market?
How Is This Possible? (Score:3)
The same front page of Slashdot that contains this story also contains stories of Intuit laying off 3,000 and something called StanChart laying off 7,000.
So 10K layoffs, added to the countless other layoff, including from big companies like Meta and Microsoft, all being attributed to AI. But, WaPo reports no increase in layoffs? How is this possible?
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