Incoming RECESSION?

TechGromit

TechGromit said:

E Double U said:

In The Netherlands there appears to be more vacancies than people to fill them. I just received a job offer last week and my current employer has trouble keeping people. Just so many opportunities available. 

It's the same with my employer, more job openings that we can fill with quality candidates. A few of my former co-workers left for more $, but I believe they are short sighted.  It's not all about the $ in your paycheck, it's good low cost medical benefits, yearly bonus, pension, stock options, 401k match, profit sharing, and very stable employment environment. 

Just a follow up to this point. Once of my co-workers who jump ship for more money at another smaller company, seven months later they laid off his entire department. He said when he was applying for positions, employers received hundreds of applications per job, (and he has a current CISSP cert)  where as it was under ten before. He did end up landing another job a few months later, don't know if he took a pay cut, but it's only a contract job that will last till the end of the year. He's seriously looking to get back in with my company. I say you can't put a price on job stability.

volfkhat

TechGromit said:

Just a follow up to this point. Once of my co-workers who jump ship for more money at another smaller company, seven months later they laid off his entire department. He said when he was applying for positions, employers received hundreds of applications per job, (and he has a current CISSP cert)  where as it was under ten before. He did end up landing another job a few months later, don't know if he took a pay cut, but it's only a contract job that will last till the end of the year. He's seriously looking to get back in with my company. I say you can't put a price on job stability.

 "job stability" can be an illusion.  

I actually prefer contracting 
I've more than doubled my salary since the Pandemic, and i like the variety that comes with it.

Plus it motivates me to keep my skills up-to-date 

DatabaseHead

It's here.  

HOPE

Housing - sales the lowest in 25 years (NAHB)  Recession Levels
Orders - way down in manufacturing (ISM) Recession Levels
Profits - Companies are showing record low profits, YOY (Earnings) 
Employment - next domino to fall.  (Claims)

I believe we are coming into a huge recession.  What's really startling is lendering.  70% of our GDP comes off of lending.  Cash reserves for families are at an all time low, meaning they can no longer borrow.  Coupled with that, you have the second biggest banking collapse in the US history so now stricter lending regulations in place and an overwhelming sentiment of not wanting to borrow / take loands.  

Look for companies who are insulated.  

volfkhat

SOFT LANDING ??

(or is WINTER still coming?)
  

shochan

You mean, incoming INFLATION & its staying WAY too long!

JDMurray

Inflation will naturally recede when consumers decide to stop buying goods and services at inflated prices. While consumers are willing pay ridiculously-high prices for food, energy, clothing, services, etc. prices will stay high. ("What the market will bear" is a tenet of the Free Market.) Getting the consumer use to new price-points is what big corporations periodically try to do; this time around they have the backing of the US Federal Reserve--the government agency whose primary purpose is to prevent inflation. Why is nobody in the Press yellin' at Yellen and Powell about inflation? An economic conspiracy?

volfkhat

it's 2024!!
FINALLY 

How are you guys holding up?

Is the RECESSION here for you all?

or are we still talking/waiting for it to arrive?


Any predictions for the new year?

JDMurray

If your definition of recession is "two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth" then nobody in the USA has seen that since the first half of 2022. I do favor moving towards recession conditions as a way to slow down the Biden Inflation Plan.

beads

IT created 287,000 jobs in 2022 while only creating 701 in 2023 according to WSJ last week. This is normal. IT tends to first over hire believing our own hype. Keep those workers too long, then panic, releasing much of the dead weight as quickly as possible. We see this once a decade and will likely continue to do so. I first heard this analogy back in the 1980s when we had "too many CS grads" when I graduated. This is nothing new.

- B/Eads

UnixGuy

beads said:

IT created 287,000 jobs in 2022 while only creating 701 in 2023 according to WSJ last week. This is normal. IT tends to first over hire believing our own hype. Keep those workers too long, then panic, releasing much of the dead weight as quickly as possible. We see this once a decade and will likely continue to do so. I first heard this analogy back in the 1980s when we had "too many CS grads" when I graduated. This is nothing new.

- B/Eads

I agree

I've been hearing that 'the economy is bad' , 'mass layoffs'.  since 2008

every. single. year.

JDMurray

Businesses were not getting rid of people during the COVID years (2020-2022) for fear of a shortage of job candidates in the future. Now that we are past that fear, businesses are getting rid of the "fat" and "deadwood" that collected over that time. Nothing puts money back on the books faster than reducing headcount; that's just the way business accounting works. I also think that X (nee Twitter) surviving after Elon laid-off 80% of its workforce showed the money that could be saved when a business rethinks what and how it does business.

JoJoCal19

JDMurray said:

Businesses were not getting rid of people during the COVID years (2020-2022) for fear of a shortage of job candidates in the future. Now that we are past that fear, businesses are getting rid of the "fat" and "deadwood" that collected over that time. Nothing puts money back on the books faster than reducing headcount; that's just the way business accounting works. I also think that X (nee Twitter) surviving after Elon laid-off 80% of its workforce showed the money that could be saved when a business rethinks what and how it does business.

This is an underappreciated point. People typically point to the aforementioned things with regards to layoffs, but I think this one is huge. Shareholders and boards of every company while not seeing under the hood, from the outside they see that Twitter nixed 80% (or whatever the ridiculous number was) of employees and it hasn't crashed. So of course they are looking at their respective companies and demanding massive cuts as they feel their companies would be just fine as well. 

beads

This site is a recent addition to my monthly checks and research. Layoffs dot For Your Information below. 2024 has already seen more than 34,000 layoffs and counting.

https://layoffs.fyi/

- B/Eads

JDMurray

They don't seem to list the job roles that are being laid-off. What percentage of each lay-off is cybersecurity people?

DatabaseHead

beads said:

This site is a recent addition to my monthly checks and research. Layoffs dot For Your Information below. 2024 has already seen more than 34,000 layoffs and counting.

https://layoffs.fyi/

- B/Eads

SAP 8000 since Jan 2024.  Wow.  

I've been aggressively saving cash directly into my money market for the last 18 months.  This is in addition to maxing my 401k.  And paying off all debt, except for my wife's student loan......   

volfkhat

DatabaseHead said:
SAP 8000 since Jan 2024.  Wow.  

I've been aggressively saving cash directly into my money market for the last 18 months.  This is in addition to maxing my 401k.  And paying off all debt, except for my
wife's student loan......   

I would honestly be happy for some extended time off lately 
but the Bank keeps extending my contract, and i keep sticking around.

Golden Handcuffs stink!
lol

UnixGuy

JDMurray said:

They don't seem to list the job roles that are being laid-off. What percentage of each lay-off is cybersecurity people?

This is an important point


my employer laid off 200ish people last year, they didn't say who was laid off, but i noticed a lot were in HR and 'branding', very few were in cyber