It was a busy week for layoffs in corporate America. Tech giants Microsoft and Alphabet both announced they would fire tens of thousands of workers (about 5% of each company’s global workforce).Meanwhile, online furniture retailer Wayfair said today it would shed 10% of its workforce (roughly 1,750 employees). Between the lines: On the one hand, layoff announcements (including by Goldman Sachs) seem to signal trouble ahead for the labor market. On the other hand, key indicators point to a job market that’s chugging along.For one, the unemployment rate is at a historically low 3.5% as of December — suggesting a still-tight labor market.There are also very few people filing for unemployment on a weekly basis (just 190,000 last week), with no notable uptick. That may have something to do with generous severance packages. Alphabet, for one, will pay at least 16 weeks of severance, plus six months of health benefits, in the U.S.Yes, but: There is evidence that the labor market is cooling, beyond the ongoing layoff announcements across tech and e-commerce firms that have seen demand come back to earth. Federal Reserve vice chair Lael Brainard pointed to some of this evidence in a speech delivered Thursday.Perhaps the most
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A tale of two job markets – Axios
