The labor market remains extremely favorable in the United States, despite the increase in interest rates and layoffs in tech.
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The new owner of Twitter, Elon Musk, is not the only one to slash in the workforce. The advertisements of layoffs are multiplying in tech, which had overeated in recent years a frantic race for talents. Microsoft slightly reduces its workforce, Amazon, which employs more than 1.5 million employees on the planet, announced a freeze. Snapchat, hit hard by decline in advertising revenue, is reducing its workforce by a fifth (1,300 jobs removed). Fintech Stripe will remove 1,000 jobs (15 % of its workforce), while Lyft, the competitor of Uber, is on the way to reducing the number of its employees by 700. In semiconductors, after having undergone two years of shortage, Qualcomm and Intel reduce their workforce.
Is this bad wind that blows on tech heralding a reversal of the labor market? No doubt, but it is too early to assert it, the layoffs remaining at very low level. The labor market remains extremely favorable in the United States, despite the increase in interest rates supposed to cool the economy. The first power of the world created, in October, 261,000 jobs, according to the Labor Department.
This is more than the 200,000 expected, but this figure is the lowest of the year – monthly creations have been 407,000 since January and 562,000 in 2021. With 153.3 million jobs , the country has found, since this summer, a level higher than that which prevailed with the COVVI-19, but the deceleration seems in progress: the unemployment rate is slightly raised, from 3.5 % to 3.7 % in October , while the number of unemployed increased by 306,000.
Another index, time wages increased by 4.7 % over a year, rhythm much lower than that of inflation (8.2 % in September, last known figure) and especially slowdown compared to the month of September, where the pace was almost 5 %. This figure suggests that it does not exist, for the moment, of spiral inflation-square, which would make the increase in prices even less controllable.
One of the major disappointments relates to the participation in the use of Americans, who slightly fell, 62.2 %, lower than it was before the pandemic. The labor reserves, to relieve the market, are not mobilized. This good figure is in the growth line, which reached 2.6 % at an annual rate in the third quarter, after deciding in the first and second quarters.
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