Economists have different opinions on the health of the U.S. economy. This is because of things like rising inflation, a red-hot job market, and a negative gross domestic product.
Economists have different opinions on the health of the U.S. economy. This is because of things like rising inflation, a red-hot job market, and a negative gross domestic product.
“Recently, a lot of people have been saying that we’re in a recession. We’ve had two quarters where GDP has gone down, which often happens when the economy is in a bad spot. But the rate of job growth is very strong. “The unemployment rate is at a level that hasn’t been seen in 50 years,” Claudia Sahm, founder of Sahm Consulting and a former economist at the Federal Reserve Board, told CNBC.
A big worry for Americans is whether or not there will be layoffs soon.
“More people will lose their jobs. So Mark Zandi, the chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, told CNBC, “So you should be careful about that.”
A survey from Stifel found that more business leaders are expecting a recession.
Big companies like Best Buy, Ford Motor, HBO Max, Peloton, Shopify, Walmart, and Wayfair have already said they will lay off workers.
In the meantime, a survey from PwC shows that 50% of companies plan to cut their staff in the next six to twelve months.
This is happening at a time when the job market couldn’t look any better. In July 2022, there were 11.2 million open jobs, which showed that there were not enough people to fill them.
Julia Pollak, chief economist at ZipRecruiter, told CNBC, “I think it’s very important to look at the number of job openings. The question is how steeply and quickly they will drop if they go back to 7 million [job openings], which is where they were before the pandemic.”
Also, the “Great Resignation” is having an effect on the job market. 6.4 million people got new jobs in July, and 4.2 million people left their jobs.
Zandi said, “The Federal Reserve is raising interest rates now to slow down the job market, which will lead to more layoffs.”
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said earlier this month at a question-and-answer session at the Cato Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, that it will be hard to “return to an environment of stable prices without giving up the economic gains of the past two years.”
