The Causey Consulting Podcast

Bonus Episode: More Job Market Clown World Insanity 🀑

January 23, 2023
The Causey Consulting Podcast
Bonus Episode: More Job Market Clown World Insanity 🀑
Show Notes Transcript

We've nosedived right into Idiocracy. Bad news is good news. Slowcessions. Soft landings. The labor market will stay red hot and you can job hop for more money forever . . . πŸ˜΅β€πŸ’«

The flow chart looks something like this:
Deny there are problems and tell people that layoffs are not coming. ➑️ Even as layoffs start, turn a blind eye. Have "economists" tell the public that mass layoffs are not coming in Q4 of 2022. ➑️ While layoff announcements litter the news, keep squawking about The Great Resignation and tell people it is STILL a workers' market! ➑️ Tell people that even if it takes a few months to find employment again, it's OK. That's still really good. πŸ€¦πŸ»β€β™€οΈ

IMO, it is so very important to rough out a job loss survival plan. I hope you never need it, but I think it's better to be prepared than scared. If you freelance or operate a business, have you created a Plan B on how to generate revenue in a serious downturn?

Links I mention:

https://causeyconsultingllc.com/2023/01/18/a-workers-market-really/

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/dont-settle-workers-market-newest-110000824.html

https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/dont-feel-too-bad-for-laid-off-tech-workers-more-than-half-end-up-earning-more-in-their-next-job.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/20/despite-google-amazon-microsoft-layoffs-its-a-good-time-to-get-a-job.html

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fed-interest-rate-hikes-unemployment-increase-layoffs-inflation/

https://theintercept.com/2022/07/29/bank-of-america-worker-conditions-worse/


Need more? Email me: https://causeyconsultingllc.com/contact-causey/ 

Welcome to the Causey Consulting Podcast. You can find us online anytime at CauseyConsultingLLC.com. And now, here's your host, Sara Causey. Hello, Hello, thanks for tuning in. I don't really know what analogy would be the most proper to use at this point. Are we fiddling while Rome burns? Are we having the band play while the Titanic sinks? I'm not really sure. I keep in my mind going back to the movie Idiocracy. Because maybe that's the most apropos analogy that we could make. I'm just perpetually amazed by the job market, Bs and clown world insanity. Day after day, week after week that we continue to see. I published a blog post on January 18, called a workers market. Really, because over on Yahoo Finance, we found you need to get a raise. It's a workers market, as job numbers show the great resignation is still going strong amid recession fears. What when I look at LinkedIn, and people are talking about being unemployed for months, and struggling to even get a nibble. I interact with people out in the job market on a daily basis. And passive candidates are really not even interested very much. Every opportunity has to be weighed and measured carefully. I myself am not encountering people with that FOMO and the Yolo that we saw in 2021. The same whipping up of emotions that happened in the housing market happened in the job market to more people really viewed themselves as free agents. And it wasn't terribly difficult at that point in time to get people on an email or on a phone call and say, Hey, would you want to learn more about this opportunity? Not saying you're going to take it, but just would you be willing to learn more about it? A majority of people were open minded about that now. Oh, no. Completely different reality. So I don't know what dimension. These people are in these so called journalists and so called experts and commentators that are telling you, it's still a workers market, the great resignation is still going strong and people are still hippity hopping across the job market. And just getting more money and more money and more money and life is good. I don't see that. I'll read from that Yahoo Finance article for you now. It's been more than a year since the American workplace turned upside down, with employees quitting on mass in search of more fulfilling jobs and flexible work arrangements. But with inflation, barely cooling. Is it though? And fears of a recession in the new year? Fears of a recession? Aren't we already there? stragglers have found yet another reason to jump ship. It's a workers market says Andrew flowers labor economist at job advertisement firm job advertisement firm app cast. And this bargaining power it means that with high inflation, this is the time to either ask for a raise or to potentially find a better offer somewhere else. The latest US Bureau of Labor Statistics Report shows another 4.2 million Americans quit their jobs in November, which is up slightly from October and still among the highest levels in decades. The number of job openings edged up slightly to 10 point 3 million in November compared to 10 point 3 million in October. Maybe I don't see so well anymore. But 10 point 3,000,010 point 3 million those are the exact same number. With the rising cost of food, gas and everything else giving all Americans a pay cut. Workers who haven't yet made a move have every reason and every opportunity to act soon. So says Yahoo Finance. Yeah, I don't know about that. I always tell you the same thing. I just sit here and opine for your entertainment only I pull the research together and I encourage you to make up your own mind. Not going to tell anybody what to do. You may be in a situation where you need to make a job change right now. You may be In a situation where a recruiter or somebody in corporate HR is calling you, or emailing you about an opportunity that is truly better than the one that you have. I'm not gonna sit here and tell you to jump ship or not to jump ship, you have to make that decision for yourself. The onus is on you Caveat emptor, you have to do what's best for yourself and your family, not for corporate America, not for some third party recruiter that's fiending for a commission at the end of the deal, you have to do what's best for you. And maybe making a change is what's best. I don't know, I can't answer that question for you. In terms of what I'm seeing day in and day out, no, I'm not seeing people hippity hopping. And I don't feel that they feel that they have every reason and every opportunity to act soon. You see more and more layoffs being announced every day. And then you read the horror stories, people on Facebook or on LinkedIn saying I still haven't found anything. Still looking, still getting ghosted, still being strung along and it's like, in my opinion, it is so important to trust your own gut instincts and your own critical thinking your own judgment. If what you are being told in mass media does not comport with what you are seeing in real time in your community. You have to figure out the best way to make sense of that. who's right and who's wrong. who's lying, who's pushing an agenda, who's putting a very specific narrative out there. I can't tell you what to do or what to think. I really encourage you to use critical thinking. I've said before, I feel like whatever this is recession, depression, stagflation, it's going to separate out people who paid attention and from people who didn't. I also think it's going to suss out people with good critical thinking skills, who are able to look around them way and measure data on their own and say, You know what, I think that some of these media outlets are completely and utterly full of shit. I think I'm going to think for myself, I think I'm going to look around at what's happening in real time, and decide if what I'm being told in a magazine or on a website or on the nightly news, I'm going to decide for myself if that really makes sense in relation to what I'm seeing. I'm not seeing this so called Red Hot labor market, this so called workers market where you need to just march into the boss's office and demand arrays today, because inflation. I'm not telling you not to do that. Maybe you have every reason in the world, you have artfully made your case. And you have every reason in the world to ask for a merit based pay bump, and inflation related cost of living related pay bump. I don't know. I think when we're speaking in these very general, very broad brushstrokes, we have to be very careful. CNBC has even published your chart to tell you that all of these so called Red Hot jobs that are just available and available and available are in leisure and hospitality, and healthcare. So here's my thing, if somebody is laid off, and it finance, real estate, banking, more than likely they don't have the qualifications to apply to be a registered nurse or an emergency room doctor. So a job in health care for a nurse, a doctor and assistant, a PA, whatever, that's not going to help them. Most of them probably cannot survive on an $18 an hour hospitality job or a $15 an hour job at fast food. Let's be real. If somebody was making 75 100k at their job, would $18 an hour, be enough to sustain them, especially if you're talking about part time, where they want to keep you under the minimum there so that they don't have to pay you any benefits. They're not required to provide you with health care if you want it. So maybe you're working 18 bucks an hour for 25 hours a week is not going to be enough if you've been making 100k at a tech job. Get real. Also on ink.com Last week, we found don't feel too bad for laid off tech workers more than half end up earning more in their next job. The byline reads a new analysis finds laid off tech workers are finding new jobs in record time and often boosting their salaries to can you believe this? First off, don't tell me how to feel if I want to feel sorry for somebody or feel bad about the situation that they're gonna have every right to do that. Secondly, what in the actual eff are you even talking about? When we get into the article we find now is actually a great time to find a well paying In tech job, I'm giving so much side eye right now. The results of the analysis done by workforce data provider reveal yo labs were recently reported by Insider. The analysis found that among laid off tech workers 72% have found new jobs within three months. Even more surprising, a little over half of them have landed roles that actually paying more than what they were earning in the jobs they lost in quote. Okay, so I guess we're just all supposed to seal clap and act like it was so great that they got laid off. Huh. All continue to read laid off workers are actually more likely to find a new job quickly now than at the height of the tech hiring frenzy of July 2021. When only 67% managed to win new gigs within three months. However, there is variation within the broad category of tech workers according to reveals to those with hard technical skills, like coders fare better than those with more general competencies like communications and HR specialists and quote, as I said, in the blog, people with rare in demand skill sets are always going to have more options. Whether it's a downturn or a boom cycle, it's not going to matter if, like I said about health care. If you are trained, and you have all of the education to be an emergency room doctor, you're going to have more options around the country to be an emergency room doctor. The same thing is true in tech. If you have a skill set that's rare. And in demand, it makes sense that you would have more options, whether we're in a recession, or we're in a boom, I get that. I'm not arguing that point. I just I find it somewhat deceptive to act as though Well, within three months, you know, that ain't bad. It is if you live paycheck to paycheck, as most Americans do. A three month gap and employment is tough. How are you going to survive that? Remember, in the episode I recorded called living on the brink. We learned the statistic from one of those documentaries, that a majority of Britons who are working if they lost their job, they could make it financially for about 19 days. So that's less than a full three week time period. But you're telling me that we're all supposed to just work, work, work, work, work, and be so happy that these people landed new jobs within three months? I don't buy it. I don't buy it. Are there people out there who maybe they had a high paying job and they were conservative, they lived beneath their means they put money in savings? Or maybe they got a really nice severance package. Perhaps that 90 day period might not have been so bad, they might have been totally fine. I just don't think that that's the majority of people and it's certainly not the case for everybody. I think we need to quit LARPing and playing some kind of game that with all of these layoffs, okay, like pay no attention to that data. You're supposed to believe that everything is still hunky dory. I'm picturing like Humphrey Bogart in a trench coat. Like in a 1940s milieu, where he gets a pink slip. He goes out he lights a cigarette, he kind of stares around at the environment walks into a competitor company probably with the cigarette still burning because that's how they did it back then. And gets a better job all in the same day. What? That I find it No, just No, just No, I'm not seeing people in 2023. Hiring and interviewing that way. I have been on both the third party contingency based staffing as well as the freelance consultant staffing side of the stick. When you have some client that says I want to move urgently. We're ready to roll. Let's do this. Well, their definition of moving urgently and being ready to roll might be very different from someone who needs a J O B ASAP. You may be thinking shit, I can start tomorrow. Let's do this. And they may be thinking well, you could start next month. Corporate America sometimes has its own weird definitions of timelines. Now in the blog, I'm not going to get into all of this here. But in the blog, I do talk about the funding that went into revealing a lapse. I think it is so important. I'm not going to expand on why we have to be very careful what we say nowadays. I'm not going to expand on why but I think it's important to look at the sources behind the sources is some kind of mass media platform with let's say a very interesting background paying for results are they paying for certain stories to get hyped up? Are they worth looking into? You know, I talked before about that video with Russell Brand and Vandana Shiva, where she says, you know, it'd be worth your time to take a look at these food and agriculture companies. Some of these leaders, some of these companies like they've been around a while, might do you some good take a look at what they were doing in World War Two, and who they were aligned with. I would say the same thing about some of these banks, some of these finance companies, and some of these mass media outlets. This information may not be waving a big banner at you like, Hey, look at me, but it is findable. It is. All right. So on Friday, on CNBC, we also heard despite a wave of layoff announcements, it's still a good time to get a job career experts say, oh, so on the same day that we learned about alphabet, having a big layoff, we're also being told you know what, it's all going to be all right. And the TLDR key points we find, despite mass layoffs at major tech companies this week, the overall job market remains strong. Experts say that makes this a good time to be looking for a new position, even if unexpectedly, here are a few key considerations before kicking off a search. Yeah, I mean, to me, in my opinion, one of the key considerations is a you better have a job loss Survival Plan wargame down ahead of time, and be You better be real flippin careful about who you're listening to. So underneath the TLDR key points, there's actually a video and the title of the video says layoffs in tech and banks will have a ripple effect. And other industries, says Jason Grier, which is it? Is it that the big tech layoffs are no big deal. And so who really kind of cares about it? Or is it that layoffs in tech and banking are going to have a ripple effect across the whole economy? Do you see what I'm saying? It's like, all in the same article. We're getting bull crap, in my opinion. And over on the side panel, where they have they're trending now, the number one trending story is Google to lay off 12,000 people. I'm just I'm here with my head in my hands. I'm like, I go back again, to what I've said before, if we were at the Markerboard, creating a dystopian movie or a satirical novel about all this, we couldn't do a better job in fiction than what we're seeing out here in reality. I'll read whether by choice or necessity, many workers will change jobs in the months ahead. Well, I believe that not necessarily by choice, but probably by necessity. I know I'm a broken record here, but I'm gonna say it again, please have a job loss Survival Plan roughed out or if you freelance you own and operate your own business, have some kind of plan B, C, D, E, F, G, okay, don't get naive. Some companies, particularly tech giants have been announcing deep cuts to their workforces, as they face ongoing challenges due to rising interest rates and inflation. Most recently, Google said that it will lay off 12,000 people, Amazon announced a fresh wave of job cuts affecting over 18,000 people. And Microsoft said it plans to layoff 10,000 workers amid fears of an oncoming recession, the oncoming recession, the recession that somehow is not hitting us yet. Right. At the same time. I can't even hardly read this. Sometimes it makes me want to vomit. At the same time, government data shows that the US labor market is still strong with a record low unemployment rate of 3.5%. Who believes that? long pause, I'm just I'm trying to work it out in my mind. You know, is it the average person that is paying attention to Harry and Megan, they're thinking about Kim and Kanye? They want to look at all of these tabloid articles about what was Lisa Marie doing before she died? Look at all this money she spent I mean, who are these people that think we still have this record low unemployment rate of 3.5% in the midst of these tech companies, hemorrhaging people? Who are they? I don't get it. Many industries continue to do very well. According to Barbara Symfonie, president of career solvers in New York, the tech layoffs don't necessarily reflect on the broader job market, she said. Right. But yet, wait a minute. Why wait just a minute, Governor. We were told that these workforces face ongoing challenges due to rising interest rates and inflation. And we were also told Microsoft said it plans to layoff 10,000 workers amid fears of an oncoming recession. But then this person is asking us to believe that the tech layoffs don't necessarily reflect on the broader job market. Does that make sense to you? It doesn't make sense to me at all. But Holger, and the Federal Reserve has demonstrated it can raise rates without jeopardizing the robust labor market so far. Randy Frederick, Managing Director of trading and derivatives cheeses, trading and derivatives Well, haven't we heard about derivatives before? Remember, remember, oh, eight member that party? The more things change, the more they stay the same. All right. Randy Frederick, Managing Director of trading and derivatives for Charles Schwab recently told CNBC. If you can engineer a decline in inflation without crashing the jobs market, that's the Goldilocks soft landing. He said a couple of things there. I myself would not bet the farm on this idea that we're going to have a Goldilocks soft landing. I don't think it's going to be a soft landing period, let alone a Goldilocks, this is just right. Look at what a great job the Fed did. Wow. We I don't think that that's going to happen. I think the mass layoffs that we hear about literally every day now are evidence that there's no soft landing coming. And I also think it really points to what was said in this other paragraph here about oh, the Federal Reserve has demonstrated so far that it can raise rates without jeopardizing the robust labor market. They want to jeopardize it told you that before going to keep on tooting that horn. Over on CBS News, I'll drop the link to the article yet again. They were very clear, very clear in saying they want to see unemployment go up. They want to see your wages stagnate, they feel like the labor market ran too hot. You flew too close to the sun, Icarus. And now it's time to cool everything off again. We're getting this narrative that it's going to be okay. It's going to normalize, it's going to stabilize. It's as though the pendulum went really far in one direction during the Great resignation. But they want you to think that the pendulum is gonna land somewhere in the middle, where there's an equitable balance of power between employers and employees. And I'm out here telling you, I don't freakin believe it. No way. Sorry. I don't. I can't tell you what to think. I can't tell you what to do. But I will say from my perspective, Hmm, no, I don't see the pendulum swinging directly to the middle and staying in something that's fair and balanced. No. Here's something else. I'm going to keep harping on that leaked memo from Bank of America that appeared on the intercept last summer. I'll drop a link to it yet again. So you can read it, if you choose to. And also for some of you who are new joining the program, maybe you haven't heard me harping on all of these things before. Welcome. And I'm glad that you're here. But Bank of America very clearly said in that leaked memo that they want the balance of power to go back to corporate America. If you think that's just one isolated opinion. I have some oceanfront property here in the landlocked Midwest that I'd love to sell to you for top dollar. Let's be real here. Continuing in this article, in general, the first quarter of the year is always a good time to look because fiscal budgets have been replenished, so Fani said, overall, a whopping 96% of workers are looking for a new job and 2023 largely in search of better pay, according to a recent report by job site monster.com. This is phenomenally high. Even compared with the numbers at the height of the great resignation, said Vicki Salimi career expert at Monster, nearly half or 40% of job seekers said they need a higher income due to inflation and rising expenses monster found. Others said they have no room to grow in their current role or that they are in a toxic workplace and quote, do I think that there are plenty of people who want better pay? Do I think there are plenty of people who are stuck with no upward mobility their workplace is toxic their bosses and complete a whole of course dobro pathology of America more and more to the point Welcome to corporate America. But do I really think just just me personally giving you my opinion? Do I think that 96% Of all the workers in America are going to look for a new job this year. You're no. Do you? Does that seem reasonable to you? When that hits your critical thinking ear? Does it sound I don't know, insanely high? Are they expecting that 96% of workers are going to need to look for a new job? And what is this? I mean, even somebody who's representing the company is saying this is phenomenally high yet do you think it's so phenomenally high? That it just doesn't seem reasonable to me. I could be wrong. This is just my opinion. But I would really want to hear about that statistic. Job switching is widely considered the best way to improve your career prospects and pay. In fact, the difference in wage growth for job switchers relative to those who stay in their current role is at a record high. The latest data shows job switchers have seen a 7.7% wage growth as of November while workers who have stayed in their jobs have seen a 5.5% increase according to Daniel xao. I hope I'm saying that right. Lady economist at Glassdoor signing data from the Atlanta Federal Reserve in quote. Yeah, again, I you know, how is this hitting, you're here 7.7% wage growth if you left and a five and a half percent wage growth if you stayed. That's not keeping pace with inflation, even what we're told out in the hot air hopium mass media that inflation is what's supposed to be like eight and a half 9%, which we know from going to the grocery store, or a department store. We know that that That's absurd. But even the people who made the leap, if they got a 7.7% Raise, it's not going to be enough to keep pace with inflation. The devil is in the details. Okay. And sometimes in life, we have to really weigh out the risk. What is the risk if I leave? What is the risk if I stay? Not every company does this but there are companies that go by the last one hired first one fired protocol they lay off based on tenure. Now maybe they don't do that in a first round layoff sometimes first round layoffs are really used to purge the dissidents. But if there's nobody in the company, let's say you have a smaller company, everybody kind of goes along to get along. And there's nobody that is a particular problem for management, let's say, then very often they go to tenure. So what's the risk if you stay? What's the risk if you leave? To me, this is inadequate wage growth no matter what. It's not keeping pace with inflation, it's not keeping pace with the cost of living. I go back again, to that episode, I recorded about living on the brink of these people having to make heat or eat decisions, going to food banks for the first time in their lives, people who are working, working poor, and they are nurses, and teachers. But yet, we're supposed to believe that we have this red hot labor market, and that wages are so high. They are so blessedly high that we have to close them off. Hmm, yeah, I'm sure that these people that are going to food banks struggling you like the guy that was in one of those documentaries who said that his wife spent an hour gluing the daughter's school shoes back together because they didn't have 20 pounds to go to the store and just buy the kid a new pair of school shoes. That had not been a problem for them in the past 20 pounds have not been the difference between eating or not eating heating the home or not heating the home, but it is now I'm sure these people would just love to know all these things about how wage growth is just exploded and oh people hippity hopped across the market and just made tons and tons of money. 7.7% is not going to cut it when it comes to this kind of inflation if you think otherwise, I mean, that's cool. I guess I just can't get there. I can't make the numbers work. key considerations when looking for a new job. For those kicking off a job search Tiffani advises clients to consider how all aspects of a new position measure up. Really look at it holistically. She said you may be getting paid more but it's important to vet that opportunity. Other factors to consider include opportunities for advancement, flexibility and a healthy work life balance. Do your research selenia advised find out what the benefits are find out what the culture is like. Workers can have both a higher salary and a positive healthy work environment and quote well that's just all common sense stuff. I think anybody that's ever job searched before I mean if unless you're brand new to the process doesn't you have literally no idea what you're doing? That's all pretty common sensical. Does any of this make sense to you? Do you feel like despite a wave of layoff announcements, that it's still a good time to have a great resignation? Do you feel like everybody 96% of people? Yeah, I'm sorry that you 6% of people in a freaking recession. You know, here we are having visions upon visions upon visions of 2008. We're like, right in that, oh, 708 pocket. And you asked me to believe that 96% of people in this country are just like, Scrat man. Let's go find a new job. Why not? YOLO? Oh, God, you have to laugh to not cry. If you can make sense of this labor market clown world weird hot air hopium nonsense BS that we're getting. That's great. I can't make the numbers work. To me. This is funny math. It's a poppy Bush back in 1980 saying voodoo economics. But you know what, Listen, I gotta be careful what I say and how I say it. But that that kind of thing to me is proof positive. They know what they're doing. This stuff doesn't happen by accident, you know? Oh, well look, inflation, recession, boom, bust growth, contraction. Oh my god. It's like the economy just does this and has a mind of its own. We just don't even know how this keeps happening. And it's like, really? You don't know how it keeps happening. Of course, they know these power brokers and fat cats and bazillionaire there's, you know, the same kind of people that go off to Switzerland and make the rules for all the rest of us peons and plebs. They know what's going on. They know they totally know. And I Okay, my opinion, it could be wrong. All these disclaimers, I don't tell you what to do. I don't tell you what to think. In my opinion, all of this lolling and Hush little baby and Bs figures about low unemployment. It's like the Pied Piper of Hamelin like you are being lured to the edge of the cliff, in my opinion. They're going to try to keep you hushed up and pacify. They don't want you to formulate a job loss survival plan. They don't want you to be ready, they don't want you to prep, they don't want you to think ahead to use good foresight and for thought, to live beneath your means. It's better for them, if you are a mindless consumer, if you just say To hell with financial planning, I'd rather just charge the charge card until it's maxed out. And I'm not talking about medical bills and necessities, I'm talking about people buying junk. The same kind of people that are very worried about celebrity gossip, and they can tell you about some nonsense show that they have binge watched on Netflix. But when it comes to something significant that's going on in the economy or going on at a local government level that could really impact their daily living, that could really impinge on their personal freedoms and liberties. They're completely clueless. You know, you don't have to be one of those people. You don't have to be one of the mice that goes over the cliff. With the pied piper, you don't have to listen to this stuff. If you look around in your community, and this company is laying off, and that company is letting go and people are really cutting back and they're scared, I would give that so much more credence than any of these hot air hopium articles that are telling you, oh, well, the Fed My God, they can just keep raising those rates and just keep on and just keep on and just keep on and there's not going to be any dire consequences to it. Until one day when you're finally allowed to know that the unemployment rate is not any 3.5 or 3.7%. By the time that we get some kind of notification of oops a daisy were really in a crap storm. I don't even want to think about how bad it's going to be at that point. I really think they will just go and go and go and go and go with this narrative. Until it is so obvious that even the most oblivious halfway, lobotomized person is able to see the crap storm that we're in. I hope I'm wrong on that. I pray to be wrong on this. Nobody wants to go through another great recession global financial crisis. It sucked the last time around. If we have to go and do it again, it'll suck this time too. You can be prepared, not scared. Do what you need to do to take care of yourself and your family. Use good critical thinking. If you need to talk to a financial planner or credit counselor and clean up your financial profile, talk with a professional, get some good salient professional advice. In the meantime, stay safe, stay sane. Use your brain and I will see you in the next episode. Thanks for tuning in. If you enjoyed this episode, please take a quick second to subscribe to this podcast and share it with your friends. We'll see you next time.