US Job Openings Decline to Lowest Level in More Than a Year • Hacker News Board

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

#321

Post by lotrjohn » Thu, Jan 08, 2026, 2:08 AM UTC

NickC25 wrote: post #304

bpt3 wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am slightly older than you, and literally don't know a person who isn't employed and doing well (including plenty your age and younger), though I am aware they exist. It's almost like anecdotal reports are meaningless, and we should rely on well sourced data to determine how things like the economy are doing. Spoiler alert: there is no indication we are in a death spiral, though in my opinion Trump seems to be doin…

I founded a company partially because I spent 2 years on the job hunt and got absolutely nothing. So yeah, here's one example of someone who isn't doing well - me. I was doing terribly. Honestly, I still am. I've just been fortunate enough to have conceived a product some people in my city want. Will the business scale and succeed? I hope so, because I'm fucked if it goes south. And yes, anecdotal data sucks. But I'd…

Genuine question: how did you conduct your job search? What steps did you take during those two years? Do you have a degree?

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

#322

Post by rich_sasha » Thu, Jan 08, 2026, 2:45 AM UTC

gruez wrote: post #181

rich_sasha wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The total tax intake is fairly unambiguous. Personal tax bill for the vast majority of people is also quite clear. But when you get to the top 0.1% or whatever it is, things like "income" and "tax" get ambiguous. I suppose a lot of the ultra rich don't have much earnings, at best cap gains, and even that can be offset, boxed and off-shored ad nauseam. Maybe instead of looking at the ultra rich we could look at what G…

>But when you get to the top 0.1% or whatever it is, things like "income" and "tax" get ambiguous. I suppose a lot of the ultra rich don't have much earnings, at best cap gains, and even that can be offset, boxed and off-shored ad nauseam. But the denominator isn't "income", it's GDP. That's far harder to "offset, boxed and off-shored ad nauseam".

Sure - but not at an individual level. If you're asking, how much tax are the rich paying now vs before, as a % basis, you need an individual numerator and denominator.

Maybe the total tax take now is 17% of GDP, same as before, but when measured correctly, the overall tax rate for the super-rich has gone down, and for the plebs gone up.

To even identify who the super-rich are in this exercise, you may need to be careful with the definition of "rich". If eg you go for highest income earners, you might find upper middle class people instead, with the super-rich having no supposed income as such.

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

#323

Post by selimthegrim » Thu, Jan 08, 2026, 3:40 AM UTC

lotrjohn wrote: post #321

NickC25 wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I founded a company partially because I spent 2 years on the job hunt and got absolutely nothing. So yeah, here's one example of someone who isn't doing well - me. I was doing terribly. Honestly, I still am. I've just been fortunate enough to have conceived a product some people in my city want. Will the business scale and succeed? I hope so, because I'm fucked if it goes south. And yes, anecdotal data sucks. But I'd…

Genuine question: how did you conduct your job search? What steps did you take during those two years? Do you have a degree?

I want to back this guy up because I was in the same hole.

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

#324

Post by bpt3 » Thu, Jan 08, 2026, 4:26 AM UTC

NickC25 wrote: post #304

bpt3 wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am slightly older than you, and literally don't know a person who isn't employed and doing well (including plenty your age and younger), though I am aware they exist. It's almost like anecdotal reports are meaningless, and we should rely on well sourced data to determine how things like the economy are doing. Spoiler alert: there is no indication we are in a death spiral, though in my opinion Trump seems to be doin…

I founded a company partially because I spent 2 years on the job hunt and got absolutely nothing. So yeah, here's one example of someone who isn't doing well - me. I was doing terribly. Honestly, I still am. I've just been fortunate enough to have conceived a product some people in my city want. Will the business scale and succeed? I hope so, because I'm fucked if it goes south. And yes, anecdotal data sucks. But I'd…

Sounds like you're on to something, hope that's what turns things around for you.

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

#325

Post by dilyevsky » Thu, Jan 08, 2026, 4:37 AM UTC

mbgerring wrote: post #313

dilyevsky wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we had a much larger disruption to logistics just a few years ago if you recall =) and hiring really took off then. so i don't think this argument really holds any water

Money was free then, and hiring took off in software, which people were relying on a lot more during the pandemic. All of my friends who are performers or work in events were wrecked financially. The industry still hasn’t really recovered.

It wasn’t just software, far from it. Hospitality, construction, local/state government, healthcare jobs all soared in 2021

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

#326

Post by klooney » Thu, Jan 08, 2026, 5:24 AM UTC

oceansky wrote: post #101

adriand wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my clients is a midsized logistics brokerage based in LA. Right now is RFP season, where they bid on freight contracts with various existing and potential customers. These contracts are typically one year long. A bid you submit now might be for a contract that goes Sept-Sept. This is difficult even under normal circumstances because you have to predict what carrier (trucker) rates will be in the future. You al…

Why is the revocation taking place? Is it related to the federal government?

There's been a big up about undocumented Sikh commercial drivers with CDL licenses, primarily because there have been some spectacular fatal crashes on video.

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

#327

Post by gehwartzen » Thu, Jan 08, 2026, 5:29 AM UTC

hshdhdhj4444 wrote: post #117

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.

Yup, unfortunately my own job is at risk as our company has, if not explicitly at least in action, essentially ended technical hiring in the U.S. They’re basically downsizing the technical sides through attrition while hiring heavily abroad.

Exactly what’s happening at my company

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

#328

Post by tills13 » Thu, Jan 08, 2026, 5:34 AM UTC

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #310

charliebwrites wrote: post #4

My hot take: We’re already in a recession. We just use AI to justify doing all the same recession behaviors while making it sound like innovation - not hiring this year > AI is making us productive! - no wage growth > AI means we don’t need to raise salaries - layoffs > with AI we can do more with less people - spending less on offsites, work perks etc > we really need that budget for AI - not spending money on that…

Q3 GDP was +4.3% We will know Q4 in a bit, but the projection is +2.7% Hardly a recession

Remove AI data center spending from that.

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

#329

Post by elevation » Thu, Jan 08, 2026, 6:05 AM UTC

Glawen wrote: post #293

yndoendo wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is all dependent on the company owners. A multi-million dollar company I help start, in the Midwest USA, had manufacturing, customer service, R&D, and shipping all in the same state. After being bought by Texas VCs, everything moved out of the area. They don't want to run and build a business, they want to make X millions in Y years. To do this, manufacturing moved to South Korea, customer service to some Asian…

> Jobs are not being lost because of unskilled people, they are being lost to help the rich get richer. Indeed, imagine you're part of the wealthy elite. What you want is to be able to move your cash around the world, chasing cash growth. You also want yourself to be able to travel wherever you wish with your Gulfstream. Why would they care about local midwest job growth ? Solutions exist, but it's too communist.

You don't have to be communist, you just have to be selective about the capitalists you engage with.

An business mentor of mine bootstrapped a highly profitable enterprise software company, growing it to 400 employees. When it was time to sell/retire, he vetted buyers not just for the money they could offer, but for the impact they would have on his team and community. He accepted an offer from a conservatively-run competitor and proudly told me that 5 years later, 90% of the original staff were still happily employed with the new owner.

These arrangements are simply not an option if you're beholden to VC, or entertain offers from Private Equity. You cannot preserve what you do not own.

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

#330

Post by Tanoc » Thu, Jan 08, 2026, 6:21 AM UTC

femiagbabiaka wrote: post #85

OGEnthusiast wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US needs an offshoring tax. If you want to sell to Americans you also need to hire Americans.

Trump has made the idea of mafioso politics popular -- where you hold everyone hostage until they do what you want -- but that doesn't actually mean that it's good policy.

He has also shown that it isn't a functional policy either. Much of what he's done has backfired almost immediately after it was implemented, but much like a gremlin in a wiring loom by the time the sparks appear he's already moved on to tear out something else important. Mafioso politics only work when your concentrated power is wielded against fragmented power that will move too slowly to mitigate you. Even if there are a multitude of small groups if they turn against you even without unanimous action you're spending too much time and effort jumping from thing to thing to ever actually achieve your intended goals. The end result is a parade of violent whack-a-mole as force is used against the myriad number of small revolts that happen, exhausting the resources of the enforcement infrastructure and normalizing the expectation of violence.

Of course the four morons of the broken winds don't see this as a failure, but merely an excuse to normalize that violence until it reaches the extent that they will face little to no consequence when they push it to the logical extreme and attempt to exterminate the many opposing groups rather than simply subjugate them.