[phyzix5761]

Interest rates are relatively high compared to what they were several years ago. When interest rates are low everyone and their dog gets hired because its cheap to do that. When interest rates are high companies need to be more selective and growth/risk taking decreases.

If we can somehow get inflation under control it will trigger lower interest rates and hiring will increase again. But the current, and possibly only, strategy is to stagnate wage growth and increase the number of people out of work so that the economy has less money circulating in order to reduce inflation.

I've lived through a few of these. Its definitely cyclical.

[piloto_ciego]

I've lived through a few of these now too, maybe not as many as you, I don't know, but...

I do think this time is a little bit different. I don't think a lot of these jobs are coming back. Maybe ever.

I'm not saying I'm some crazy woodland luddite maniac, I mean, I'll be tailscaling into the business VPS from the cabin... but... yeah, I think this time is a bit different. I think stuff like this has happened before with like "John Henry was a Steel Driving Man" sort of vibes? But a lot of people are going to try to out-machine the machines right now, and I think that's a losing strategy?

We'll see in 10 years, and I'm in a bit of a privileged position that I'm able to do this, so I don't envy the folks who are struggling right now? But, more concretely, I do think this is different. Interest rates are absolutely part of it, but there's so much deviation from the historical norms right now that I think normalcy bias is a loosing move.

Personally, I'm adapting - also, I'm playing with robots, but that's mostly because it's fun.

[rdsubhas]

> Interest rates are relatively high compared to what they were several years ago.

And compared to last 50 years, Interest rates are still WAY lower, and unemployment is still WAY higher.

Make no mistake: Sure, the "curve" of unemployment trends downwards as interest rates drop [1]. But the "base" of unemployment is constantly increasing with each cycle [2]. There is no reality of unemployment rate going back to what it was before.

It's easy to be unaware of this pattern if one is constantly re-employed and never part of the 27-week unemployed graph, or if the point of reference is just the post-2000 or post-2008 crisis.

But 20% baseline of people who are unemployed more than 27 weeks. Let that sink in. It's pretty insane. And that baseline is only increasing.

What the OP commenter says has truth in data to it: Unemployment increase is not a linear scale of a working society. It's driven by tipping points where major changes happen (e.g. the current political changes in US).

Sources:

1. Unemployment rate last 50 years FRED graph: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS13025703

2. Interest rate last 50 years FRED graph: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DFF