https://michaeltsnyder.substack.com/p/the-storm-before-the-storm?
I really don’t know anyone that would argue that the U.S. economy is in great shape right now. Inflation is out of control, large companies are conducting mass layoffs all over the nation, the housing bubble is starting to implode, and more homeless encampments are constantly popping up in our major cities as poverty spreads like wildfire. But this isn’t the main event. I am calling this “the storm before the storm”, because the truth is that this new economic crisis is still only in the very early chapters. Unfortunately, much more suffering is on the way, and our country is not going to be able to handle it.
Perhaps you don’t agree with me.
And that is okay.
Nobody agrees with me 100 percent about everything.
But hopefully we can all agree that things are clearly trending in the wrong direction. According to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, the number of job cuts that employers announced in May 2023 was 287 percent higher than the number of job cuts that employers announced in May 2022…
U.S.-based employers announced 80,089 cuts in May, a 20% increase from the 66,995 cuts announced one month prior. It is 287% higher than the 20,712 cuts announced in the same month in 2022, according to a report released Thursday from global outplacement and business and executive coaching firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc.
It would be one thing if the month of May was some sort of a statistical anomaly, but it wasn’t.
In fact, for the first five months of 2023 the number of job cuts is up a whopping 315 percent compared to the same five months last year.
Take a few moments to reflect on that number.
Other than during the lockdowns of 2020, we haven’t seen anything like this since 2009.
And those that are at the top of the economic food chain are leading the way.
For example, we just learned that Goldman Sachs is planning to conduct a third round of mass layoffs…
Goldman Sachs plans to make another round of job cuts — its third in less than a year — as dealmaking profits continue to tank, sources told The Post on Tuesday.
The David Solomon-led investment bank will cull an additional 250 workers on the heels of 3,200 being fired in January in what staff had dubbed “David’s Demolition Day,” an insider said.