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US Job Openings Decline to Lowest Level in More Than a Year

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Re: US Job Openings Decline to Lowest Level in More Than a Year

#191

Post by javiramos »

FuriouslyAdrift wrote: post #175
dwpdwpdwpdwpdwp wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work for an global company in the industrial automation space. Not only is there is a major effort underway to offshore jobs and manufacturing from the US, but our customers around the world are pulling way back on capital expenditures, citing US policy uncertainties as a primary reason.

I work for a regional manufacturing company in the US and we have been booming since COVID (nearly doubling every year) and have not seen a slow down. Manufacturing firms seem to be doing really well, here (midwest US).

What industry?

Re: US Job Openings Decline to Lowest Level in More Than a Year

#192

Post by bpt3 »

daemonologist wrote: post #155
bpt3 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That chart seems to demonstrate that there was a lot of inflation in the early 2020s, which I assume is not your point.

Here's one for share of net worth: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WFRBSTP1300 (Note: I am not GP, and am not necessarily saying you can draw conclusions from this one chart, just that the change in net worth cannot be attributed solely to inflation.)

You can argue it was primarily due to inflation (changes in the economy can never be attributed solely to any one thing).

The upper 0.1% largely owns things that are relatively safe from inflation (like expensive real estate in areas where increases in value have exceeded the rate of inflation for decades) while the lower 50 - 80% does not.

It's effectively impossible to prove definitively, but I find it hard to believe it's a coincidence that the share of wealth held by asset-heavy individuals shot up at the exact same time the money supply increased significantly, especially given that lower class wages were actually increasing faster than inflation and upper class wages at the same time.

Re: US Job Openings Decline to Lowest Level in More Than a Year

#193

Post by UncleOxidant »

ojbyrne wrote: post #32
mbgerring wrote: post #18

It makes sense that you wouldn't hire in such an uncertain environment. We have a President using emergency powers to affect sweeping, unpredictable, consequential changes to the economy that can dramatically alter unit economics overnight and completely tank a previously viable business. Within this calendar year, the President's ability to do this may be upended by pending court cases, an election, or both. Followi…

Actually its easy if you're a multinational. You invest outside the United States.

I'm not a multinational, but that's what I've been doing since February.

Re: US Job Openings Decline to Lowest Level in More Than a Year

#194

Post by weitendorf »

meindnoch wrote: post #152

Makes sense. I know of multiple companies that reduced their headcount by a factor of 10 after Opus 4.5. Their new business model is basically: CEO + CTO + CFO + hundreds of Opus 4.5 agents.

I'm a big agent proponent myself but I don't think these kinds of companies actually exist yet. It's gotta either be some CTO who learned the word "orchestration" or "agent harness" and decided to play around with that stuff, or pure fantasy from the usual suspects of VC-twitter trying to build FOMO/signal themselves as part of the "in crowd"/drive engagement with hyperbole.

Re: US Job Openings Decline to Lowest Level in More Than a Year

#195

Post by nis0s »

mbgerring wrote: post #18

It makes sense that you wouldn't hire in such an uncertain environment. We have a President using emergency powers to affect sweeping, unpredictable, consequential changes to the economy that can dramatically alter unit economics overnight and completely tank a previously viable business. Within this calendar year, the President's ability to do this may be upended by pending court cases, an election, or both. Followi…

US companies have long been reliant on free flowing investment monies subsidized by the USG. Tightening those purse strings has reduced the level of jobs openings, including tightening of SBIRs and other non-research grant programs that small to medium sized companies use. Small business loans are also tight or non-existent. So, of course jobs will be limited.

The macro-level economic policies really only affect large corporations, unless a business is impacted by the tariffs. In general, hiring is fucked by immigration visas in large companies, which are still going strong and sneaking around the anti-immigration barriers. In some way, hiring non-U.S. workers for work funded by the USG is unacceptable, and economic theft.

If USG opens up funding more, then things will normalize, including for immigrant or non-U.S. contract workers in other places. As always, it’s the economy that’s the problem, but which part of it is always hard to pin down when other parts of it make up for it.

Re: US Job Openings Decline to Lowest Level in More Than a Year

#196

Post by sakopov »

mbgerring wrote: post #18

It makes sense that you wouldn't hire in such an uncertain environment. We have a President using emergency powers to affect sweeping, unpredictable, consequential changes to the economy that can dramatically alter unit economics overnight and completely tank a previously viable business. Within this calendar year, the President's ability to do this may be upended by pending court cases, an election, or both. Followi…

Hiring slowed to a crawl back in 2023. A nice smack in the face after the "Great Resignation" period.

Re: US Job Openings Decline to Lowest Level in More Than a Year

#197

Post by bakies »

nis0s wrote: post #195
mbgerring wrote: post #18

It makes sense that you wouldn't hire in such an uncertain environment. We have a President using emergency powers to affect sweeping, unpredictable, consequential changes to the economy that can dramatically alter unit economics overnight and completely tank a previously viable business. Within this calendar year, the President's ability to do this may be upended by pending court cases, an election, or both. Followi…

US companies have long been reliant on free flowing investment monies subsidized by the USG. Tightening those purse strings has reduced the level of jobs openings, including tightening of SBIRs and other non-research grant programs that small to medium sized companies use. Small business loans are also tight or non-existent. So, of course jobs will be limited. The macro-level economic policies really only affect larg…

This is just Trump, not the USG as a whole. Congress approved a budget and Trump refuses to give the money out. People have to fight in court to get the money they're owed.

Re: US Job Openings Decline to Lowest Level in More Than a Year

#198

Post by germinalphrase »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #43
bt1a wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

transportation, warehousing, and utilities being a headlining loser here is the most striking.... perhaps?

Heavy Truck Sales Collapsed in Q4; Down 32.5% Year-over-Year in December - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46514490 - January 2026 (heavy trucks sales collapse is a recession indicator)

Craig Fuller - the CEO of Freightwave - has been indicating that their freight data clearly suggests the US economy is in much worse shape than official reporting.

Re: US Job Openings Decline to Lowest Level in More Than a Year

#199

Post by zelon88 »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #67
pjc50 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

shrug enjoy paying more taxes for your consumption, I guess.

Yes, I do want to pay more to bolster my country's domestic workforce vs subsidizing corporate shareholders and offshore workers, while also having that come out of corporate profits. shrug

Could you please name one non-food product in America that a typical consumer could buy that doesn't subsidize corporate shareholders? Name one thing the average American can buy that contributes to gainful employment at the expense of corporate profit.

Where I'm sitting, the only manufacturing that exists in the USA is, for subassemblies or components that are purchased by larger companies on a contract basis, and manufactured by lower-middle class citizens. Boeing and GE is an example. And the reason Boeing buys domestically is only because they have to in order to limit their liability, reduce labor costs, and protect their IP. If the America you're looking for existed, Boeing would happily pay twice as much for labor to make components in house. If that America existed your television would be made here too, by people who weren't being subsidized themselves by Food Stamps.

There are no consumer commodity manufacturers in the USA who provide gainful employment without significant consideration towards corporate profit. There is basically nothing at Wal-Mart that you can buy that is made in the USA by people who are living in financial comfort. That's just not how late stage capitalism works.

Re: US Job Openings Decline to Lowest Level in More Than a Year

#200

Post by trinix912 »

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #51
bluedino wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't every president do that, just to do different industries?

It's the rate of change. Things like NAFTA took many years to implement, and were debated and developed in the open. Everyone understood what would happen to the economy and that there would be a decade of transition. Nobody announces the largest tariffs since the 1930s overnight, and selectively increases or dismantles them from week to week. Just look at this line graph: https://www.usfunds.com/resource/americas-ta…

> A huge part of our power was that we were safe and predictable and that's gone forever.

That is a big deal. The US has for a long time been seen as a stable economy that's easy to trade with because policy changes would take a long time to come into effect by which everyone had had the time to adjust.

Compared to the various stuff that was happening in Europe in the previous decades (at least here in the east) the US were a stable safe heaven where you could trust things wouldn't drastically change overnight.

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