Posted on 09/09/2022 8:31:37 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Concerns about the state of the economy come with worries about job security. In fact, half of companies are expecting to cut staff according to a PwC survey of more than 700 executives. The same survey found many executives are also planning hiring freezes and even rescinding job offers. But many companies have already trimmed their workforce. Here are the sectors facing layoffs in this week’s Five For Friday.
#5: Mortgage and real estate
The housing market has cooled after the COVID-19 pandemic-induced smorgasbord over the last few years. And as the Federal Reserve raises its interest rate, causing home loan rates to climb, overall mortgage demand has fallen to its lowest point in two decades. Mortgage lender LoanDepot has let go of 2,800 employees this year and announced another 2,000 layoffs are on the way. Real estate firm Redfin also announced it would cut 8% of its staff this year amid falling demand. Meanwhile, big banks JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Wells Fargo have shed hundreds of mortgage broker positions.
#4: Fintech
Fintech was really having a moment the past couple of years and where there is a boom, there will likely be a bust. Retail trading platform Robinhood, which has faced some controversy in recent years, laid off 23% of its staff in August. The company’s CEO Vlad Tenev blamed low trading volume, spiking inflation and the ongoing crypto winter as the reasons for the cut. On the cryptocurrency side, Coinbase let go of 18% of its team while the Winklevoss twins-founded Gemini released 7% of its staff after cutting 10% earlier this year.
#3: Retail and ecommerce
Consumer spending was flat for July, and without growth, retailers are tightening their belts. Bed Bath & Beyond announced last week it is closing 150 stores and laying off 20% of its 32,000 employees. Wayfair, which thrived at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, is cutting 870 jobs. Ecommerce platform Shopify will also slash 10% of its workforce as the sector loses steam.
#2: Streaming
Over the last few years, major distributors and networks have been racing to launch their own streaming services as linear television faces demise. With more players in the game, there is much more competition. After Netflix lost subscribers for the first time, the streaming giant let go of 475 employees. And Warner Bros. Discovery is in the process of cleaning house: After shutting down CNN+, they cut 70 positions at HBO Max and even dropped a number of top executives at the Oprah Winfrey Network.
#1: Tech and Social Media
More than 28,000 tech workers have been laid off this year, according to analysis from Crunchbase. Microsoft said it would lay off around 1% of its 180,000 employees due to concerns about growth in the fourth quarter of this year. Meanwhile, Google CEO Sundar Pichai recently warned of potential layoffs. On the social media front, Snap Inc. got rid of 20% of its team, Facebook is reportedly letting go of contractors at random using an algorithm and TikTok has been shedding employees amid worldwide restructuring.
Some of these companies self-immolated on the Altar of woke.
In a previous reply a few articles upstream, I noted that the “stag” portion of stagflation was likely to hit with grievous effect after Christmas.
streaming, retail, social media ~
face it, they had their day in the sun, the world is bored with them now ...🥱
IMHO the EU economy will suffer a severe recession in the next six-eight months. China’s economy is also very strained. Elites from Europe and Asia are transferring assets and capital into reliable American holdings. The price of prime farmland will in the US and to a lesser extent Canada will rise considerably. The transfer of capital into the US will lessen the recession in the US.
P
WAYFAIR is going down just like Bed Bath and Beyond, after dumping My Pillows
Fintech? I had to Google it.
“the EU economy”
The Europeans could vaporize gasoline in power plants and use it in place of far more expensive and impossible to get enough of natural gas.
Mortgage lender LoanDepot has let go of 2,800 employees this year and announced another 2,000 layoffs are on the way...big banks JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Wells Fargo have shed hundreds of mortgage broker positions.”
What mortgage companies and homeseellers could do is to escrow say 10 years of interest rate buydowns, so an interest rate of say 5.1% becomes 3.9%. This would require about 12% of the selling price be put in escrow.
You might ask why would sellers give up ~12% of the selling price.
They would be taking a bet that the Federal Reserve can’t force the federal government to pay a competitive rate of near 5.1% on borrowed money for ten years.
I believe it is a good bet, and better than just cutting the price ~12%.
The real estate agent might also be asked to chip in the interest rate buydown escrow account.
The buyers might be required to refinance if say interest rates fall below say 4%.
“The price of prime farmland will in the US and to a lesser extent Canada will rise considerably.”
Team Donkey might decide US farmworkers must get $24/hour at a minimum.
1 & 2 wondweful, may they cease to exist.
3. Retail and ecommerce - Bed Bath & Beyond has a $1.2 billion lawsuit for stock manipulation.
2. Streaming was dead before it started. The decades of woke garbage couldn't sell on television; why would it sell on a streaming service? Did they really think people would still buy garbage from people who hate them because it was at a lower price and you could watch it on demand? The problem is not just the "cord-cutters", it's the "cord-nevers". You can't sell streaming to people who never cared to watch television.
1. Tech and Social Media - companies such as Microsoft, Google, and Facebook have gone out of their way for a decade to sell nonsense at the expense of offering real products and services that people want and need. When more than half of the clicks online are from bots, that's a sign the customers have walked away.
Facebook spent $400 million to steal an election that has really caused our economy to tank. The laid off workers and investors that lost their money should be really happy with that weasel zuckerberg.
google, tinder, etc. were all in for handing the presidency to the democrats. I hope they lose their asses. They economy will tank big time when their stocks get rocked. None of them are really making money. It’s all hyped up by the blackrocks, vanguards, etc. that are backed by the deep state.
“They would be taking a bet that the Federal Reserve can’t force the federal government to pay a competitive rate of near 5.1% on borrowed money for ten years.”
Bond investors, aka bond vigilantes, wield more power than the Fed if they act in concert like they did during in the late ‘70s, early ‘80s. The vigilantes routinely unloaded bonds when they didn’t like the weekly money supply numbers, driving up interest rates.
In a word, the trouble in the world today is government.
I figured it out, but it took a while. I guess fish enjoy technology, too.
Microsoft isn’t going anywhere because they actually make a product. Their cloud offerings are still growing while Amazon’s are declining. Google and Amazon rely heavily on advertising revenue. That’s not a recipe for long term success.
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