The number of Americans filing for jobless benefits rose by 22,000 to 242,000 for the week ending Feb. 22, the Labor Department said Thursday. Analysts projected that 220,000 new applications would be filed.
Weekly applications for jobless benefits are considered a proxy for layoffs.
The four-week average, which evens out some of the week-to-week volatility, climbed by 8,500 to 224,000.
Some analysts say they expect layoffs ordered by the Department of Government Efficiency to show up in the report in the coming weeks.
They are certainly part of it but there’s a very long chain of organizations, many of which aren’t obvious to most people, supported by the US Federal Government. Those organizations are swiftly going into preservation mode and seeking to spend as little money as possible by laying off staff and downsizing or cancelling projects. Every one of those layoffs and project changes has negative effects downstream on other businesses, contractors, and services.
The idiots who voted for the current administration have no idea what’s coming and how badly its going to hurt them.
I mentioned in another thread how my saved job searches lean heavily into government-contract firms, just due to skillset. I’ve never had a government job, never particularly wanted one. But not only are those precious few openings going away, but currently held positions are going to be eliminated. And the even fewer private sector jobs are going to be even more hotly contested.
It’s like watching a 5 year old assess a decades-old game of Jenga and unilaterally deciding that we don’t need that piece on the second layer.
All that ‘‘money to other countries’’ is generally spent on American companies, the food is coming from American farms