A note about federal layoffs 🏛️

On one hand, they're arguably small. On the other hand, it could get a lot worse. 🤔

U.S. employers continue to hire far more workers than they lay off. (Source: BLS via FRED)

U.S. employers lay off a lot of workers every month, even when the economy is booming.

Over the past four years, 1.2 million to 1.9 million workers have been laid off each month. Yet the unemployment rate has hovered near 50-year lows through most of this period.

This counterintuitive dynamic is explained by the fact that employers hired 5.2 million to 6.9 million workers as they worked to fill 7.3 million to 12.2 million job openings in any given month during this period.

The U.S. labor market is complicated. So we should always be careful about jumping to conclusions on news about layoffs or hiring.

That brings us to the federal layoffs being brought by the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency.