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The “Low Unemployment” fallacy of today, and why those numbers are artificially low
The official statistic being given today (Feb 6, 2024) is that the Unemployment number stands at 3.7%.
Which somehow doesn’t seem to jibe with what many of us in the tech field seem to be experiencing. If it were truly 3.7%, many of us who were let go starting in May 2022 would be in at least one role since then. And the competition for resources (people) among all the companies listed as laying people off would be fierce, with salaries escalating just like they did between Q4'20 and Q1'22.
But that isn’t the case.
And there are literally TONS of people who have been unemployed now for 6, 9, 12 months and more… all wondering when this demand for workers will start to affect their futures. After all, “if there are so many jobs out there where its an almost 2 jobs to each jobseeker ratio — where the fk is my 2 jobs?”
You just need to look at the 2nd shared image above — in just 6 weeks, 32k people were cut loose from their jobs.
How can companies which are reporting record profits and at minimum sustaned revenues justify letting go thousands of people?
Trust me, that is a question I personally have no answer for. I do have some ideas about factors at play, and some are scapegoat…