U.S. Chamber of Commerce: 3 Million Fewer Americans are Working Today Compared to February 2020

by Brian Shilhavy
Editor, Health Impact News

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce published statistics last week that show there are 3 million fewer Americans working today than there were in February of 2020, before the “pandemic.”

They reported that the latest data shows that we have over 10 million job openings in the U.S.—but only 5.7 million unemployed workers.

They also reported that the labor force participation rate is 62.6% today, down from 63.3% in February 2020. That means there are 1.8 million missing workers today.

What happened to all these missing workers?

The Chamber of Commerce admits that “there’s not just one reason that workers are sitting out, but several factors have come together to cause the ongoing shortage.”

However, one of those reasons they did not consider or report about, were deaths and disabilities due to the Operation Warp Speed mass vaccination program of COVID-19 shots that began at the end of 2020, and were widely mandated as a condition for employment throughout 2021.

Edward Dowd and his Phinance Technologies has supplied that data for us, which I reported on last week. Dowd’s data shows that deaths and disabilities skyrocketed as the experimental COVID shots were injected into Americans. See:

The Data Missing from Wall Street Economists: Skyrocketing Disabilities and Injuries in U.S. Workforce After COVID-19 “Vaccines”

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce surveyed unemployed Americans in 2021 and 2022 to find out why they had not returned to the workforce. Only one third of those surveyed stated that they wanted to return to work full time, and almost half of those surveyed stated that they would not return to work unless they could work from home.

Why?

According to their survey, the top two reasons given were they were too ill to return to work, or that they needed to stay home to take care of children or others in their family.

Over a quarter (28%) of respondents say they’ve been ill, and their health has taken priority over them looking for work. Additionally, 27% say the need to be home and care for children or others has made it difficult or impossible to search for full time employment. (Source.)

If there are so many jobs available, why are we seeing record layoffs?

Another report that was published last week was The Challenger Report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc.

Their report stated that U.S.-based employers announced 89,703 job cuts in March, up 15% from the 77,770 announced in February, and an increase of 319% from the 21,387 cuts announced in the same month in 2022.

The report stated that there were 270,416 total job cuts in the first quarter of 2023, a 396% increase from the 55,696 cuts announced in the first quarter of 2022.

“We know companies are approaching 2023 with caution, though the economy is still creating jobs. With rate hikes continuing and companies’ reigning in costs, the large-scale layoffs we are seeing will likely continue,” said Andrew Challenger, Senior Vice President of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. (Source.)

How can this be? How can there be record job cuts during the same time period we are seeing more job listings than those unemployed?

I think the main answer here is by looking at the sector of the U.S. economy that is laying off the most workers: Technology.

This is a topic I have reported on frequently since last year: The Big Tech Crash that started in 2022. The economy has not seen this many layoffs in the technology sector since the dot.com crash of 2001-2002.

Indeed, Technology companies have announced 102,391 cuts so far this year, up 38,487% from the 267 cuts the sector announced in the first quarter of 2022.

It is already up 5% from the annual total of 97,171 in 2022. It is on pace to surpass the highest annual total for the sector announced in 2001.

The only years during which Tech announced more job cuts than the current year are in 2001, when 168,395 cuts were announced, and 2002, when 131,294 Tech cuts were recorded. (Source.)

The Technology sector has created an economic bubble that today is much larger than the tech bubble that crashed in 2001-2002.

As I reported last week, an explosive article published in the Wall Street Journal showed just how much wasteful spending goes on in Big Tech firms. See:

Big Tech Fail: Not Enough Computers in the U.S. to Develop New AI Software

Excerpt:

A former Meta recruiter who has ‘reinvented herself as a career coach’ says she was paid $190,000 per year to do nothing, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Tampa, Florida-based Madelyn Machado, 33, said that during a typical day she would log on around 11 a.m. when her West Coast colleagues would show up for work, sit in meetings from Noon until 3:30 p.m., and then check LinkedIn for an hour before logging off.

Ms. Machado, who held a position as a recruiter, says that after joining the company in September 2021, she spent much of her time in meetings that didn’t accomplish anything, and that the parent of Facebook and Instagram had too many recruiters and not enough work for them to do. -WSJ

“We just don’t hire anybody and, like, we still get paid,” she said in a TikTok video, relaying what she says other recruiters told her, adding that the company didn’t expect her to hire anyone in her first year, given that she was still learning the ropes.

“I do think a lot of these companies wanted there to be work, but there wasn’t enough,” she said of her six months at the company, which she says fired her for posting career advice on TikTok (and probably all that shit talking).

Machado isn’t alone

Over the past few weeks, other former tech workers have posted similar experiences – saying they collected paychecks from large tech companies without much work.

Such confessions—which have drawn plenty of criticism online—aren’t surprising, executives and industry professionals say. Tech companies that boomed during the pandemic were flush with cash, they say, and snapped up workers to build a deep bench and hoard talent from competitors, even if those workers weren’t being fully utilized. -WSJ

“They were hiring ahead of demand” according to Dartmough business school professor, Vijay Govindarajan, who says that a shortage of tech talent at the time contributed to an inflated sense of urgency that fueled recent hiring sprees.

“You want to hire ahead of others” when there’s a shortage of talent, he said, adding that there was similar overhiring during the early 2000s.

Former Facebook and Salesforce tech worker Derrick McMillen, 32, says that during his time at Salesforce he felt like 20% of employees were doing 80% of the work, while the rest did on-site yoga and took long lunches.

“There’s this fluffy image of everyone’s just so nice,” he said. “But when the culture doesn’t let you tell people they’re underperforming, you end up with a team of slackers.”

Read the full article.

To fully understand the sheer volume of wasted money spent on technology, consider what Elon Musk said yesterday in an interview with the BBC regarding how many people he fired after taking over Twitter.

Elon Musk said that Twitter has around 1,500 employees, down from around 7,500 before he bought the social network for $44 billion in late October.

Musk also said Twitter’s total user time was at an all-time high at 8 million user minutes a day and that “not all but most” advertisers have returned to Twitter. (Source.)

Just let that sink in. Twitter use has increased since Musk bought it, and he is running the company with 6000 fewer employees, a reduction of 80%!

Big Tech has not learned its lesson yet, however, as speculative money in the $billions continues to pour into Chat AI development, even though none of these Chat bots are earning revenue yet. Many of these layoffs in the tech sector are just picking up new jobs in AI development.

And what are all of these computer geeks who sit in front of a computer all day and have been drinking from the gravy train of high income jobs that don’t actually produce anything going to do when the full crash of the Big Tech bubble happens?

I have not really seen any major economist in the U.S. even address this bubble, but the Chinese Government is. See:

Unlike the U.S., China Issues Warning about Dangerous ChatGPT AI Financial Bubble

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Published on April 12, 2023