US unemployment rate falls to 3.4% as labor market stuns

[rcjordan]

whaaaa?  There's a screw loose on this somewhere. Peak child already impacting?  All the poor seniors died of covid? Nobody wants a job?

January jobs report: Payrolls surge by 517,000, unemployment rate falls to 3.4%

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/january-jobs-report-labor-market-economy-february-3-2023-125436675.html

[rcjordan]

After mulling it over, I think a likely answer is that a large number of workers were holding out from returning to work or while searching for a better job.  Then the tech industry started the wholesale layoffs and the scent of recession is in the air.  They decided they'd better take what they can get.

[rcjordan]

(Debbie and) Jim Cramer says strong January jobs report shows the economy can handle more rate hikes - CNBC

[ergophobe]

In hospitality and probably lots of other areas, there is still a shortage of people willing to work for the wages being offered. So there is a lot of room still for hiring.

Did you read that Matt Yglesias article I posted where he argues that layoffs in big tech and journalism get headlines more because they control the headlines than because they are important indicators of what is actually happening in the economy (and most importantly, that big tech employment boomed for years and has only had a slight retrenchment that is still above 2019 levels).

[BoL]

>layoffs in big tech and journalism get headlines more because they control the headlines

This seems true on HN and the sorts when the Twitter layoffs were happening. A whole load of extra noise as if they were gatekeeping something more than their jobs. Felt sort of offended seeing it.