3 ms·

Unemployment rate is a measure of slack in the labor market, nothing more. It says nothing about an individual’s experience. 5% unemployment means there’s a ro

Unemployment rate is a measure of slack in the labor market, nothing more. It says nothing about an individual’s experience. 5% unemployment means there’s a rotating set of job seekers that comprise 5% of the labor force. It absolutely does not mean that 5% of the labor force is perpetually jobless and unemployable. I hope those lamenting these layoffs were also against the extreme fiscal excess which made them necessary in the end. The road to hell is often paved with good intentions

Firmwarrior 4y ago
Ah, Trump will be back in office slashing rates in 2025, shouldn't be too hard to scrape by til then
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > ... slashing rates in 2025, shouldn't be too hard to scrape by til then If rates aren’t being slashed long before then, then either: (1) the brief burst of layoffs were an aberration and the job market will have otherwise stayed strong, so scraping by isn’t an issue. (2) despite a weakening job market, inflation has been so persistent that fighting it remains a higher Fed priority than stimulus, and a politically motivated loosening of monetary policy would be a recipe for slingshotting into hyperinflation.
- notfromhere 4y ago
  The president doesn’t control interest rates. Trump tried bullying the Fed into lowering rates and didn’t work
dragonwriter 4y ago
> Unemployment rate is a measure of slack in the labor market, nothing more. It says nothing about an individual’s experience. Unemployment rate is simply the ratio of two patterns of individual experience (not employed and actively looking vs that plus currently employed), published after the fact. > 5% unemployment means there’s a rotating set of job seekers that comprise 5% of the labor force. 5% unemployment means that (at the time covered by the report) for every 100 people either not employed and actively looking for work or working, 5 fell into the former category. It absolutely doesn’t tell you how much of that group is “rotating”.
- adam_arthur 4y ago
  The 5% rotates by definition if anybody is hired or fired, as will always be the case. 5% unemployment is never going to represent 5% of the workforce being perpetually unemployed, as many sob stories try to implicitly portray it as. If an individual is perpetually unemployable, then it doesn’t matter if unemployment is 5% or 1%, they aren’t getting hired anyway
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > The 5% rotates by definition if anybody is hired or fired, as will always be the case. No, it doesn’t rotate “by definition”, and the rate isn’t a constant, it is a point-in-time estimate. If there is both hiring and firing going on that isn’t at the edges of the work force some portion of the 5% is transitorily unemployed, but that could be a very large or very small portion, or anything in between.

Firmwarrior 4y ago

Ah, Trump will be back in office slashing rates in 2025, shouldn't be too hard to scrape by til then

dragonwriter 4y ago
> ... slashing rates in 2025, shouldn't be too hard to scrape by til then If rates aren’t being slashed long before then, then either: (1) the brief burst of layoffs were an aberration and the job market will have otherwise stayed strong, so scraping by isn’t an issue. (2) despite a weakening job market, inflation has been so persistent that fighting it remains a higher Fed priority than stimulus, and a politically motivated loosening of monetary policy would be a recipe for slingshotting into hyperinflation.
notfromhere 4y ago
The president doesn’t control interest rates. Trump tried bullying the Fed into lowering rates and didn’t work

dragonwriter 4y ago

> Unemployment rate is a measure of slack in the labor market, nothing more. It says nothing about an individual’s experience. Unemployment rate is simply the ratio of two patterns of individual experience (not employed and actively looking vs that plus currently employed), published after the fact. > 5% unemployment means there’s a rotating set of job seekers that comprise 5% of the labor force. 5% unemployment means that (at the time covered by the report) for every 100 people either not employed and actively looking for work or working, 5 fell into the former category. It absolutely doesn’t tell you how much of that group is “rotating”.

adam_arthur 4y ago
The 5% rotates by definition if anybody is hired or fired, as will always be the case. 5% unemployment is never going to represent 5% of the workforce being perpetually unemployed, as many sob stories try to implicitly portray it as. If an individual is perpetually unemployable, then it doesn’t matter if unemployment is 5% or 1%, they aren’t getting hired anyway
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > The 5% rotates by definition if anybody is hired or fired, as will always be the case. No, it doesn’t rotate “by definition”, and the rate isn’t a constant, it is a point-in-time estimate. If there is both hiring and firing going on that isn’t at the edges of the work force some portion of the 5% is transitorily unemployed, but that could be a very large or very small portion, or anything in between.