Guy Berger
@EconBerger
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Workforce Economist in Residence at Guild; Senior Fellow at the Burning Glass Institute. Labor markets, macro, and (sorry) music! Tweets represent my own views.
San Francisco, CA
Joined February 2016
For anyone who is interested, a post on a mild disagreement I have with the great @DeanBaker13 . Based on the data we've seen so far (into late October), my sense is that hiring is falling slowly or even not at all. [Link in replies]
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I guess I’m trying to think of hypotheses for why we are seeing outsized layoff announcements since 2022 relative to the *actual* volume of layoffs, and thinking of explanations other than firm size mic
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The latest images (5-Nov) of the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS taken after its emergence from behind the sun (from Earth's perspective) show the object as a compact ball of light without a visible comet-type tail pointing away from the Sun. This absence of a tail is surprising
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Have financial markets become more favorable to individual firms’ layoff announcements than they were in the past?
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6/ The impact of federal worker claims on my UR-due-to-permanent-layoff nowcast is tiny
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5/ Federal worker initial claims have clearly peaked and are now falling (still crazy-elevated). Federal worker continuing claims still rising rapidly (and will continue to do so a while longer). Small in absolute terms - 1.5% of regular continuing claims.
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3/ Continuing claims (which exclude federal workers, like the initial claims data above) remain fairly innocuous. Just the same slow deterioration we saw during the shutdown. Unlike initial claims, CC reflect hiring as well as layoffs.
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2/ This really is a teeny tiny increase (low single digits). What folks are worried about given the high profile layoff announcements is something in the double digits. We'll see what happens in the coming weeks.
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Claims update: 1/ In the week ended 11/01, initial claims rose to 228K (if I'm doing my math right). That's a little higher than in both 2024 and 2023. Because of residual seasonality I expect them to drift lower during the remainder of the year - if not, that would be un-good
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My scattered thoughts on today’s job cut announcement data, all gathered in one place
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I am also going to work in “but even chihuahua bites hurt a little”
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3/ The other thing: if layoffs are increasing, hiring is probably going down too. And hiring has played a much bigger role in cooling so far. (In fact, we could take a turn for the worse even if layoffs remain stable)
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2/ I’d start with an important fact - at best, with recent (very low and stable) layoff levels, the unemployment rate has been flat. And more likely it is rising very slowly. Even a small sustained increase in layoffs (w/o a hiring offset) would speed the pace of deterioration
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1/ While I am deeply skeptical of the magnitudes of the % layoff increase suggested by job cut announcement data (which I guess makes me an optimist), I’ll wrap my discussion with a sour note: Even a small increase in layoffs would be bad for the state of the labor market.
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The overwhelming number of US layoffs come from firms not included in the job cut tally. We’re not worried about “Fortune 500 company that announced layoffs”, we’re worried about a long tail of companies that might be doing the same w/less fanfare (or not)
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Already anticipating a lot of bad “we should trust job cut announcements more than initial claims” arguments if the latter rise only a little
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Since were enduring another round of Challenger discourse, a reminder - It’s has some directional signal (when it goes up, so do superior layoff indicators) but the magnitudes are wildly off. Look at those y axes! (No access to computer so chart not updated)
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Folks, don’t say “the decline in professional & business services reflects white collar weakness”! It’s not an accurate depiction of the data.
@DKThomp Derek - I think there's some important nuance that interpretation is missing. 1/ P&B services include a *lot* of jobs we don't think of as white collar - for instance, administrative & waste services account for 40% of P&B services.
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I think this is right. Imho despite the short term effects the IEEPA tariffs are probably disinflationary, and if they go away (without offsetting tax increases or spending cuts) it will boost the labor market and inflation
This year we had a 1% of GDP fiscal tightening thanks to the tariffs. Next year, that swings to a 1% easing due to the tax cuts, assuming the tariffs stay in place. Take the tariffs away, throw in the possibility of rebates.. and 2026 is looking 🔥
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“Good news. Yes hiring is weak and you can’t find a job, but at least it’s probably not because of AI”
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