So, if the big companies hire 40-50k new employees each over the past 2 years, and then fire 10-20k, leaving a net 30-40k employee gain for the past 2 years...

So, if the big companies hire 40-50k new employees each over the past 2 years, and then fire 10-20k, leaving a net 30-40k employee gain for the past 2 years... that means recession? People have no context for these layoffs. This is not a "recession layoff". This has nothing in common with 2009, which I suppose many of you are too young to remember. In 2009, we lost a million jobs to layoffs in one month. You'd turn on the news and see 200k jobs disappear in front of your face, so you'd turn it off. The big tech companies laying off 1/5 of the pandemic boom hires is not a recession to me. Alphabet staff: 2018 98771 2019 118899 2020 135301 2021 156500 2022 186779 2023 174000?*