When the economy declines jobs go with it
Not that long ago in the UK beloved high street retailer Wilkos (Wilkinson’s) closed its doors for the last time. Now the iconic Bodyshop is also entering administration. In a restructure administrators will be closing 75 stores with a total job loss of 800. Bodyshop Canada is to close 33 stores and end online sales.
From developed to underdeveloped nations economies are slowing down and/or contracting. It may not be even across all sectors/countries but bankruptcies and job cuts overall are on a decisive rise.
Top of the job cut list this week is the U.S. Army with 24,000 redundancies across special operations, engineering and cavalry squadrons. Despite calls to “fight a Russian invasion”, cuts to the armed forces has been a trend across Europe in this last year.
The banking and real estate sectors also continue to see job cuts as banks go bust and the commercial real estate market tumbles. In Australia Commonwealth Bank and Westpac Banking Corp are laying off 215 workers between them.
Redundancies continue in the gaming industry and tech sector with Sony this week announcing 900 job cuts in its PlayStation division and Electronic Arts gaming company laying off 670.
Universities continue to face redundancies in the wake of budget cuts and decreased enrolment.
Starbucks in the Middle East are laying off 2,000 jobs.
Expedia,1,500 employees to be let go.
Sainsbury’s (Major UK supermarket), 1,500 redundancies.
Businesses are facing a diverse array of problems. Escalating inflation and interest rates, soaring energy bills, cash strapped consumers, hangovers from lockdown and now a fear that recession is waiting in the wings, it’s already here in certain sectors and countries.
here in America the unemployment rate is at or near historical lows, hasn't been this low since the 70s.
Unfortunately that statistic doesn't reflect the number of FT jobs that have gone to be replaced with PT jobs. On the other hand labor participation rates in the US are also low showing people have dropped off the radar for one reason or another. I wonder how many working age adults are off sick now and how that impacts the unemployment rate? I think Ed Dowd would probably have answers to that. Anyway, thanks for reading and taking the time to leave a comment.