Can have serious consequences for headcount and salaries if we are entering a bear market. I also hope this article doesn't age well but it is definitely worrying.
This is literally the policy aim of the Fed right now. Unemployment is at historical lows with inflation running rampant. The ostensible aim of interest rate hikes is slowing inflation, but the byproduct is a cooling in the broader markets and economy, which in turn, affects the labor market.
Yeah the idea is to burn labors and wages to the ground and finish off get middle class.
That's certainly an idea.
Certainly seems to be what they are trying to do.
Agreed. The question is how bad the effect will be, no way to foresee it.
Nobody wants to say the quiet part out loud but... It's bad politics in the United States to have a strong labor market for too long: you have lots of anxiety among small and large businesses and you have inflation pressure. So they're going to manufacture unemployment to cool everything down.
Another more optimistic way of looking at it is the idea that as we transition into a higher interest rate environment, there will be short term pain as unprofitable businesses downsize / go under, their workers are let go, but they eventually make their way into healthy/sound companies that now have the scope to grow and contribute to real macroeconomic growth rather than just the nominal smoke and mirrors of the recent economy.
I hope you're correct. Those businesses closing will cool off the job market and people will be left behind. Lots of people never recovered from the 2008 crash.