I think these moves are possible if we're not in a recession. If Amazon underperformed over the year, and its earnings are lower than estimated, they could be simply cutting costs in Q4 to offset the lowered earnings. The cause of that underperformance is really what would tell you if we're headed for a recession and Amazon has their fingers in so many pies it'd be hard to attribute laying off 1/150th of their workforce to the overall economy I think.

That this is happening at a number of big tech companies isn't a surprise I don't think. The biggest layoffs this year so far have been at companies that made large scale changes (Meta, Twitter) or over-hired over the course of the pandemic when that level of business turned out not to be permanent (Stripe, Shopify).

It's possible that this is industry-specific. Tech companies exploded during the pandemic if they had anything to do with stuff you do indoors, and this is the real "post-pandemic" year (talking economically).

Other industries which took it on the chin during the pandemic are recovering well this year, notably anything travel-related seems to be doing incredibly well and some companies are on track for banner years.

That said, I suspect we're going to see a few quarters of stagnant growth (0% to 0.3%) or mild contraction (0% to -0.3%), maybe not enough in a row to declare recession.

Travel is going to crash hard again once the pent-up demand for post-pandemic vacations is fulfilled. Lots of Fortune 500 companies, many of them quite profitable, have implemented travel restrictions within the last quarter for budget reasons.

US GDP was up 2.6% annualized in 2022Q3 (https://www.bea.gov/data/gdp/gross-domestic-product) and unemployment was 3.7% in Oct2022.

Worth making two observations on that GDP figure:

More importantly: that's a real (inflation backed out) not nominal (inflation ignored) figure

Less importantly: that's an advance estimate, not a final figure.

It's now safe to admit we have been in one and don't have to play the strict interpretation and can carry on with the colloquial interpretation which had been good enough since ever.

Sometimes a recession is also a self-fulfilling prophecy...

Probably we are in for a prolonged stagnation, but even after 11,000 layoffs last week, Meta’s employment level is on par with early 2022, hardly a massive reduction historically.

What do they do with 70,000 employees? It's hard to envision.

This sounds like the realtors that say “interest rates are still historically low”

They are. What that means is open to debate, and how you should act based on the current interest rates depends a lot. But simply as a historical matter, current interest rates are lower than the majority of history.

https://www.macrotrends.net/2015/fed-funds-rate-historical-c...

It’s a 0.7% layoff. Not even a whole percentage point.

A useless sentiment when you are 1 of the 10,000+ about to lose their job before the holidays in a recession.

We're in a downtown for the tech industry most other industries are fine

Tech eats the world. When tech goes down, its competitors go bankrupt.

Aren't all the big index funds tied to a couple tech giants and a smattering of other companies?

I get we've been cooking the books and printing money during COVID, but shouldn't there be a raw productivity explosion in the US economy with COVID restrictions lifting? Suppressed consumption, increased output, etc?

This does seem like some weird massive manipulation of the economy by the elites to grab more wealth and control. Or it's just some collective revenge against the various antiwork / worker empowerment / etc that came out of COVID to put the proles back in their place.

Or maybe its just that a lot of investment dollars are drying up from overseas with inflation.

Total consumption did not change with Covid, it just went from one part of the economy to another. Kind of like squeezing a balloon - same amount of air, just in a different part of the vessel.

As for the massive amount of manipulation, that was done in plain sight. The fed had injected $$$ and low interest rates into the economy since 2009 and finally the spigot stopped.

Did COVID suppress consumption or just redirect it? Less restaurant meals and more PS5s, and now the pendulum swings the other way as people socialize in person again.

Good question, I suppose. I work in the grocery industry and COVID was absolutely incredible for business -- my yearly bonus doubled. Wouldn't have wanted to own a bowling alley or a movie theatre, though.

That said, we never corrected to the degree the tech industry seems to be now. I'm glad I never followed through with those Facebook recruiters ...

There is no conspiracy, just muddling along as humans do.

Exactly. Also many said 'engineers are not affected!'. I'm sorry to say they are.

The delusion and denial about how this is not a tech crash in 2022 is really quite hilarious and I do not believe that it is over just yet.

3.5% unemployment is not a recession.

A couple of industries like tech are having some bubbles popped, and some places like the UK are having a recession, but the US is not in a recession. You all are just too used to 15 years of tech boom so anything different looks like a recession.