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Google confirms it just laid off around a thousand employees
(www.theverge.com)
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this post was submitted on 11 Jan 2024
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Technology
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If you're so sure you should run off and short the S&P 500.
The only thing I'm sure of is death and taxes.
I'm risking that statement because I'm seeing a good deal of events similar to what happened the last time we went through one (the world) and the big companies starting to let go people is like the canary in the mine.
Last global recession generally considered 2020 I believe i.e. covid. Before that 2008/9 sub-prime housing. I don't see either of those events happening now. Could you be more specific?
Good morning.
Let's call that example the canary in the mine but I'm seeing many similar situations where I live.
Being in a less than urban area, there is still a bit of industry around and some factories are cutting staff and a few have already shut down operations, especially in sectors more closely related with end user products (clothing, footwear, yarn, etc). Industries with ties to industrial use (metal working, construction materials, wood and derivates) are keeping afloat but only replacing workers that go into retirement or that for some reason or another just quit, and these industries, in my understanding, are keeping afloat because of the hard push into more sustainable and efficient houses, which is forcing a good deal of public investment into large renovation projects and funds.
Parallel to this, bakeries, coffee shops, small businesses that rely on consumption, are shutting down. For me, this implies there is less money floating around.
Paired with the hike in housing...
Thanks for your observations and I won't argue them. The problem with a word like recession is that we're in what I see as, the poor get poorer, the rich get richer. The middle class, what's left of it, is mainly moving toward being poor. That said, the "smart" economy people will say "we are not in a recession and in fact the economy is good." And it is good, very good in fact - for the privileged. Wealth inequality is the issue, at least in my view.
Exactly. This person is noticing a local recession and believes the entire world is like their small town. It isn't.
Recessions have causes and "housing expensive" is not a cause. In a recession everyone loses, not just "some factory workers" or "people who rent". This person is describing the effects of situational unemployment, which can hurt small towns reliant on only one industry.
Anecdotally, I know some people working in a paper mill who make essential materials for the world's sticker tags, you know, the things that get put on absolutely anything and everything that gets shipped or sold everywhere globally. This factory is one of a very few globally in this ultra-niche industry.
They said that the KYC they are doing now shows their clients globally overstating their manufacturing since the pandemic by a lot. Somehow, everyone has lost 20-40% of their turnover while producing the same financial results. I know this is multiple layers of trust me bro stuff, but still.
There is a lot of pressure and lies in the global economy right now, more than usual. I don't think we ever recovered from the "pandemic downturn", which actually was much more than just the pandemic, it was war, it was idiocy, it was much more things at the same time.
I guess what I'm saying is that the economy is not well, it has never been well since at least 2020, and people keep lying. The US was never in a recession if you listen to the White House, only if you listen to your eyes looking at the actual numbers.
And I'm saying this as someone who is not interested in more chaos, quite the opposite.
That's called inflation. And stickers aren't a good way to track the economy. Where do you put the sticker on a service or app?
This is mostly about manufacturing, and the global economy. I know most of the US economy is about services, but services depend on goods, and goods depend on manufacturing. How do you sell more apps if people buy fewer phones?
To be fair, all of this is anecdotal. It's just that I see continuous layoffs in service as well, like the article says. I'm hearing manufacturing is similarly depressive. There are and have been huge problems with trade and supply chains, it was the pandemic before, now it's the Yemen thing.
I guess I'm just saying the world economy is not doing well right now. I hope it will get better soon. Also, it's not just the Western world's economy. China is trying to stave off a real estate collapse. Russia is in a war that basically eliminated it as a world power. A lot of South America and Africa is in turmoil. Europe is trying to solve multiple refugee crises simultaneously, while also trying to not go full fascist.
I would just be happy if this did not escalate further. I'm tired.
Maybe you don't know this but you can install multiple apps on one phone. And there are a ton of services built into those apps. They don't all build their own payment processor, or security packages, or a ton of other backend things you never see. You just don't see all the b2b services that you use every day.
Then there's all the physical services. People always need haircuts and plumbers. Look at the actual numbers and you'll see that layoffs are quite low now:
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.t05.htm
Honestly, your thinking appears to be influenced by your personal feelings and not the actual facts. There's always problems in the world. Today's problems seem bigger but that's just recency bias. In the 90s there was literal war and genocide in Europe and around the world. The economy was fine.
Because FAANG is the entire economy? Please.
Step out of the SV bubble and you'll see the economy is fine. The fact that tech was dumb and overextended themselves during and shortly after COVID while relying on ZIRP to fund those expenditures doesn't mean everyone else did. Stir in changes to tax treatment around R&D that disproportionately impact tech and and no one should be surprised that industry might be getting hit while the rest of the economy ticks on just fine.
You are going to have to unfold all of those acronyms before we can move forward with this conversation.
I don't have the palest of ideas of what you are trying to convey.
ZIRP - zero interest rate policy. Very common term for anyone following macroeconomic policy since 2008.
Given the group we're in I hope I don't have to explain the rest.
Thank you.
But... Why do you assume I have instant knowledge of acronyms because I opted to insert a comment on a topic that teased my interest? Does it pressuposes anything about my person?
This esteemed Lemmy community of experts in technology news (that are mostly Muskrat memes, new phone apps and news about companies that may have had an app at some point).
I think you're somehow setting too high a bar for the average internet user. Don't worry, it's hard not to.
Nice abbreviations!