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Ugh, I hate stats like this. WHAT'S THE BASELINE?! It could well be that 50% of CEOs are always "considering" cutting jobs in the next 6 months. I mean, I su

Ugh, I hate stats like this. WHAT'S THE BASELINE?! It could well be that 50% of CEOs are always "considering" cutting jobs in the next 6 months. I mean, I suspect that this number is higher than usual because, well, it does look like we're heading into a recession. But if I'm interpreting this number based on my perception of the recession, then this number is useless at the main point of this article: informing me on whether we're heading into a recession or not.

johncessna 4y ago
Shh, don't think, just react!
autokad 4y ago
> It could well be that 50% of CEOs are always "considering" cutting jobs in the next 6 months They are not. CEOs are generally optimistic. this is a very bad sign. 99.99999% of knowing what someone will do is what they say. people try to read way too much into other things, "what were they really thinking? how has that changed over time?" etc etc. sometimes you just have to snap out of it and LISTEN. and what you hear is very bad, and far from 'useless'. as far as whether we are heading into a recession or not, we are not. We are already in a recession. We've had 2 quarters of shrinking GDP. maybe we notch a positive quarter in between the next negative quarter, but its a recession. stop over thinking it.
- koolba 4y ago
  > We are already in a recession. We've had 2 quarters of shrinking GDP. maybe we notch a positive quarter in between the next negative quarter, but its a recession. stop over thinking it. That definition of recession is not codified. The official definition is that we’re in a recession only after an octogenarian declares it (retroactively of course).
  - sieabahlpark 4y ago
  - permo-w 4y ago
    as far as I know, a recession is codified as two consecutive quarters of negative growth
    - RC_ITR 4y ago
      Recessions are defined by NBER, a consortium of academic economists. Using the 2 quarters rule (something that has no official bearing) means that 2 of the last 3 recessions (2000 and 2020) weren't recessions.
      - permo-w 4y ago
        covid did not result in 2 consecutive quarters of negative growth? that seems improbable
        shagie 4y ago
        https://apps.bea.gov/iTable/index_nipa.cfm https://apps.bea.gov/iTable/index_nipa.cfm Begin using the data > Section 1 Domestic Product and Income > Table 1.1.5 Gross Domestic Product > Modify > First year 2016 (refresh table)
        rory 4y ago
        It did: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=UtHh https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=UtHh Only two though-- Q2 was so sharp that everything after that was recovery.
        mywittyname 4y ago
        Which points to why the whole "two consecutive quarters" rule is not, and should not be, definitive. The country could see a 50% collapse in a single quarter and see 2-3% growth each quarter for years, and not be in a recession by that definition. It wouldn't be unusual for a major economic calamity to occur within a single quarter. Both Covid lock downs and the collapse of AIG/LB happened within a matter of weeks.
- lamontcg 4y ago
  We haven't had any increase in unemployment yet, this isn't a recession. Two periods of negative GDP growth without a rise in unemployment is unprecedented, but that is largely the result of bullwhip effects of the pandemic which was unprecedented. The actual recession is going to be substantially worse. The people who argue that we're in a recession right now due to two quarters of negative GDP growth while discounting the fact that every other indicator of the economy has been pretty healthy up until recently just makes me think "tell me you were too young to remember 2008/2001/1992/1982/1980 without telling me you were too young to remember". IDK it is probably pointless to argue about this with people who will double-down on the strict definition that they think they know. Wait for another 12-24 months and let me know if it feels and order of magnitude worse or not. (Agreed, though, that CEOs are generally almost naive optimists and that when they're all pessimistic about the economy it can almost become a self-fulfilling prophecy)
- poulsbohemian 4y ago
  You aren't wrong, but CEOs are also herd animals. Someone starts talking about a new initiative or a new idea, suddenly they are all talking about it to keep up with the Joneses. So when enough start talking about cuts or scaling back hiring, they all have to address it or they fear looking out of touch. Cuts can also help pad quarterly numbers, regardless of the real health of the company, so it can help those execs keep their job just a bit longer so long as it looks like they are demonstrating leadership.
causi 4y ago
Orphan statistics are the bane of my existence.
- jxramos 4y ago
  I call them dead end statistics, they don't lead you anywhere immediately standing on their own.
balderdash 4y ago
Also think a key question is whether there will still be NET hiring, if I’m planning on hiring 10 people over the next year, and am thinking about letting 5 go, that is very different than thinking about letting 5 go and not planning on hiring anyone
rr888 4y ago
I'm "considering" dating a supermodel. (Though the similarity isn't as likely to happen)
anonporridge 4y ago
The news doesn't exist to give you an accurate model of reality. It primarily exists to give you a believable model that promotes behavior of the masses towards the interests of the owners of the company or nation state that controls it.
- rnk 4y ago
  From that perspective, does anything exist to give you an accurate model of reality? Education? It's only to the control the masses and also makes money for book sellers? Science, just makes money for grant writers and equipment sellers? All that is somewhat true but doesn't really encompass the actual reality, which is plenty of journalists are interested in communicating what is happening, even while some are just pushing their vision or making money. Same is true of scientists, teachers, etc.
- bandushrew 4y ago
  Your comment doesn't exist to give me an account model of reality. It primarily exists to give me a believable model that promotes your beliefs. That kind of statement is literally true for everything.
tootie 4y ago
I consider firing everyone after every meeting.
- f1shy 4y ago
  You are actually very civil. I know people that consider punching everyone in the face after a meeting :)
f1shy 4y ago
The whole article seems full of it. > Nine in ten CEOs in the U.S. (91%) believe a recession will arrive in the coming 12 months, while 86% of CEOs globally feel the same way - So what? Most CEOs I know cannot foresee what they will eat tomorrow. No offence, but being CEO makes you no better at predicting the future as the janitor. "They have, more info, experience" yada yada... I knew just too many incompetent CEOs. Also, what does it mean, cutting jobs... how many? why? which ones? Seems like content, but completely empty.
- throwoutway 4y ago
  Most large corp CEOs are briefed by analysts, and they’re all probably telling them their “predictions” Here is an interesting thought experiment: if McKinsey wanted to force a recession, could they invoke one by telling all the CEOs the worst possible news and making terrible recommendations?
  - medion 4y ago
    Isn’t this what raising rates is? It’s likely more psychological than anything.
  - mensetmanusman 4y ago
    Yes they could. The economy is partly psychological. Once the everyday needs are met, spending on the stretch items can be delayed psychologically to reduce GDP.
  - rapjr9 4y ago
    This really sounds to me like CEO's preemptively torching their companies, thus creating a recession. Good luck getting all those employees familiar with the product and culture back now that they feel betrayed. Get ready to train some new less skilled employees in the future at great cost. Way to destroy shareholder value by reducing profit, lowering product quality, and not being able to ship on time! This is like trying to time investments in the markets. Unless you can manipulate the markets it is impossible to do. Wait until _your_ sector of the market is in trouble and _then_ consider whether cutting jobs makes sense, otherwise you may be shooting yourself in the foot by creating the problems you fear as you follow the herd off the cliff.
kodah 4y ago
Honestly I don't think you'll get good faith considerations on whether we're heading into a recession. Anecdotally, I'm trying to buy a house in Portland. I stopped being so aggressive as I watched prices start falling by tens of thousands. I got a call from Rocket Mortgage the other day where they tried to convince me that market prices won't change and I should buy now at a rate of 6.5%. This is an incredible departure from reality and similar to what I hear from real estate agents. This is a company that I know previously to be quite ethical, yet here they are doing dirty tricks. Market falls can be a threat to companies, but by engaging with propaganda trolls can influence the market and make money. Read any mortgage or real estate propaganda and you'll see they're all using the same words, false comparisons, etc. Maybe the true signal of a recession is the defiance of admitting there is a recession.
- ch4s3 4y ago
  Rocket Mortgage is literally terrible about high pressure selling tactics like that.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    I was able to find much better deals than riding the Rocket, all I had to do was email and (gasp) talk to someone on the phone. Quite easily handled.
    - kube-system 4y ago
      During my last mortgage search, my personal experience is that mortgage rates were positively correlated with the number of commercials I've seen for their services. I ended up asking my real estate agent for suggestions and she suggested a local hole in the wall originator that gave me significantly better rates than anyone else.
      - bombcar 4y ago
        Unless you have something strange, all mortgages get sold into the same pool at basically the same prices, so increased marketing spend has to be made up somewhere.
KerrAvon 4y ago
It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. We're going to be in a recession because CEOs decided six months ago that we're doing a recession soon and it turns out that if you lay off enough people and stop hiring across the economy because you think there's a recession coming, you get a recession!
ren_engineer 4y ago
>informing me on whether we're heading into a recession or not look at consumer debt levels and how several major banks in Europe are ready to blow up, not a sign of a healthy economy. Unemployment rates are a lagging indicator for recessions, companies don't start laying people off until revenue takes a hit. The Fed has outright said they are going to keep raising rates until people start losing jobs so inflation declines.
grepLeigh 4y ago
This is a great call-out and reminder that headlines are written to move ad inventory.
xnx 4y ago
Amen. "Compared to what?" is one of the most useful questions you can ask of any statistic.
ryathal 4y ago
Alternately. 50% of CEO were over reliant on cheap debt and need to reduce headcount to stay afloat as interest rates rise. Another more conspiratorial take. Since wage growth finally started again for the average worker, talks of recession are an attempt to crush that growth.

johncessna 4y ago

Shh, don't think, just react!

autokad 4y ago

> It could well be that 50% of CEOs are always "considering" cutting jobs in the next 6 months They are not. CEOs are generally optimistic. this is a very bad sign. 99.99999% of knowing what someone will do is what they say. people try to read way too much into other things, "what were they really thinking? how has that changed over time?" etc etc. sometimes you just have to snap out of it and LISTEN. and what you hear is very bad, and far from 'useless'. as far as whether we are heading into a recession or not, we are not. We are already in a recession. We've had 2 quarters of shrinking GDP. maybe we notch a positive quarter in between the next negative quarter, but its a recession. stop over thinking it.

koolba 4y ago
> We are already in a recession. We've had 2 quarters of shrinking GDP. maybe we notch a positive quarter in between the next negative quarter, but its a recession. stop over thinking it. That definition of recession is not codified. The official definition is that we’re in a recession only after an octogenarian declares it (retroactively of course).
- sieabahlpark 4y ago
- permo-w 4y ago
  as far as I know, a recession is codified as two consecutive quarters of negative growth
  - RC_ITR 4y ago
    Recessions are defined by NBER, a consortium of academic economists. Using the 2 quarters rule (something that has no official bearing) means that 2 of the last 3 recessions (2000 and 2020) weren't recessions.
    - permo-w 4y ago
      covid did not result in 2 consecutive quarters of negative growth? that seems improbable
      - shagie 4y ago
        https://apps.bea.gov/iTable/index_nipa.cfm https://apps.bea.gov/iTable/index_nipa.cfm Begin using the data > Section 1 Domestic Product and Income > Table 1.1.5 Gross Domestic Product > Modify > First year 2016 (refresh table)
      - rory 4y ago
        It did: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=UtHh https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=UtHh Only two though-- Q2 was so sharp that everything after that was recovery.
        mywittyname 4y ago
        Which points to why the whole "two consecutive quarters" rule is not, and should not be, definitive. The country could see a 50% collapse in a single quarter and see 2-3% growth each quarter for years, and not be in a recession by that definition. It wouldn't be unusual for a major economic calamity to occur within a single quarter. Both Covid lock downs and the collapse of AIG/LB happened within a matter of weeks.
lamontcg 4y ago
We haven't had any increase in unemployment yet, this isn't a recession. Two periods of negative GDP growth without a rise in unemployment is unprecedented, but that is largely the result of bullwhip effects of the pandemic which was unprecedented. The actual recession is going to be substantially worse. The people who argue that we're in a recession right now due to two quarters of negative GDP growth while discounting the fact that every other indicator of the economy has been pretty healthy up until recently just makes me think "tell me you were too young to remember 2008/2001/1992/1982/1980 without telling me you were too young to remember". IDK it is probably pointless to argue about this with people who will double-down on the strict definition that they think they know. Wait for another 12-24 months and let me know if it feels and order of magnitude worse or not. (Agreed, though, that CEOs are generally almost naive optimists and that when they're all pessimistic about the economy it can almost become a self-fulfilling prophecy)
poulsbohemian 4y ago
You aren't wrong, but CEOs are also herd animals. Someone starts talking about a new initiative or a new idea, suddenly they are all talking about it to keep up with the Joneses. So when enough start talking about cuts or scaling back hiring, they all have to address it or they fear looking out of touch. Cuts can also help pad quarterly numbers, regardless of the real health of the company, so it can help those execs keep their job just a bit longer so long as it looks like they are demonstrating leadership.

causi 4y ago

Orphan statistics are the bane of my existence.

jxramos 4y ago
I call them dead end statistics, they don't lead you anywhere immediately standing on their own.

balderdash 4y ago

Also think a key question is whether there will still be NET hiring, if I’m planning on hiring 10 people over the next year, and am thinking about letting 5 go, that is very different than thinking about letting 5 go and not planning on hiring anyone

rr888 4y ago

I'm "considering" dating a supermodel. (Though the similarity isn't as likely to happen)

anonporridge 4y ago

The news doesn't exist to give you an accurate model of reality. It primarily exists to give you a believable model that promotes behavior of the masses towards the interests of the owners of the company or nation state that controls it.

rnk 4y ago
From that perspective, does anything exist to give you an accurate model of reality? Education? It's only to the control the masses and also makes money for book sellers? Science, just makes money for grant writers and equipment sellers? All that is somewhat true but doesn't really encompass the actual reality, which is plenty of journalists are interested in communicating what is happening, even while some are just pushing their vision or making money. Same is true of scientists, teachers, etc.
bandushrew 4y ago
Your comment doesn't exist to give me an account model of reality. It primarily exists to give me a believable model that promotes your beliefs. That kind of statement is literally true for everything.

tootie 4y ago

I consider firing everyone after every meeting.

f1shy 4y ago
You are actually very civil. I know people that consider punching everyone in the face after a meeting :)

f1shy 4y ago

The whole article seems full of it. > Nine in ten CEOs in the U.S. (91%) believe a recession will arrive in the coming 12 months, while 86% of CEOs globally feel the same way - So what? Most CEOs I know cannot foresee what they will eat tomorrow. No offence, but being CEO makes you no better at predicting the future as the janitor. "They have, more info, experience" yada yada... I knew just too many incompetent CEOs. Also, what does it mean, cutting jobs... how many? why? which ones? Seems like content, but completely empty.

throwoutway 4y ago
Most large corp CEOs are briefed by analysts, and they’re all probably telling them their “predictions” Here is an interesting thought experiment: if McKinsey wanted to force a recession, could they invoke one by telling all the CEOs the worst possible news and making terrible recommendations?
- medion 4y ago
  Isn’t this what raising rates is? It’s likely more psychological than anything.
- mensetmanusman 4y ago
  Yes they could. The economy is partly psychological. Once the everyday needs are met, spending on the stretch items can be delayed psychologically to reduce GDP.
- rapjr9 4y ago
  This really sounds to me like CEO's preemptively torching their companies, thus creating a recession. Good luck getting all those employees familiar with the product and culture back now that they feel betrayed. Get ready to train some new less skilled employees in the future at great cost. Way to destroy shareholder value by reducing profit, lowering product quality, and not being able to ship on time! This is like trying to time investments in the markets. Unless you can manipulate the markets it is impossible to do. Wait until _your_ sector of the market is in trouble and _then_ consider whether cutting jobs makes sense, otherwise you may be shooting yourself in the foot by creating the problems you fear as you follow the herd off the cliff.

kodah 4y ago

Honestly I don't think you'll get good faith considerations on whether we're heading into a recession. Anecdotally, I'm trying to buy a house in Portland. I stopped being so aggressive as I watched prices start falling by tens of thousands. I got a call from Rocket Mortgage the other day where they tried to convince me that market prices won't change and I should buy now at a rate of 6.5%. This is an incredible departure from reality and similar to what I hear from real estate agents. This is a company that I know previously to be quite ethical, yet here they are doing dirty tricks. Market falls can be a threat to companies, but by engaging with propaganda trolls can influence the market and make money. Read any mortgage or real estate propaganda and you'll see they're all using the same words, false comparisons, etc. Maybe the true signal of a recession is the defiance of admitting there is a recession.

ch4s3 4y ago
Rocket Mortgage is literally terrible about high pressure selling tactics like that.
- bombcar 4y ago
  I was able to find much better deals than riding the Rocket, all I had to do was email and (gasp) talk to someone on the phone. Quite easily handled.
  - kube-system 4y ago
    During my last mortgage search, my personal experience is that mortgage rates were positively correlated with the number of commercials I've seen for their services. I ended up asking my real estate agent for suggestions and she suggested a local hole in the wall originator that gave me significantly better rates than anyone else.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      Unless you have something strange, all mortgages get sold into the same pool at basically the same prices, so increased marketing spend has to be made up somewhere.

KerrAvon 4y ago

It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. We're going to be in a recession because CEOs decided six months ago that we're doing a recession soon and it turns out that if you lay off enough people and stop hiring across the economy because you think there's a recession coming, you get a recession!

ren_engineer 4y ago

>informing me on whether we're heading into a recession or not look at consumer debt levels and how several major banks in Europe are ready to blow up, not a sign of a healthy economy. Unemployment rates are a lagging indicator for recessions, companies don't start laying people off until revenue takes a hit. The Fed has outright said they are going to keep raising rates until people start losing jobs so inflation declines.

grepLeigh 4y ago

This is a great call-out and reminder that headlines are written to move ad inventory.

xnx 4y ago

Amen. "Compared to what?" is one of the most useful questions you can ask of any statistic.

ryathal 4y ago

Alternately. 50% of CEO were over reliant on cheap debt and need to reduce headcount to stay afloat as interest rates rise. Another more conspiratorial take. Since wage growth finally started again for the average worker, talks of recession are an attempt to crush that growth.