"It is a recession when your neighbor loses a job; It is a depression when you lose yours."
"It is a recession when your neighbor loses a job; It is a depression when you lose yours."
The percentage of Americans who believe will lose a job over the next 4 months jumped to the highest on record
On Monday, the New York Fed released its regular labor market survey for July 2024 which showed a pretty grim assessment of Americans' job expectations.
The share of Americans who believe will lose a job in the next 4 months soared to 4.4%, the highest since the survey began in 2014. This is also sharply up from 2.8% seen in March.
Moreover, 28.4% of surveyed said that they searched for a job in the past 4 weeks, the highest share in over the last 10 years.
This was a substantial 9 percentage points higher than 19.4% recorded in July 2024.
That implies nothing else than the unemployment rate set to rise in the upcoming months. This is because the survey responses' probability of losing a job versus finding one has been steadily rising over the last several months.
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I read the 28.4% figure as wages not keeping up with inflation. Maybe there is some expectation of incoming unemployment, but I wouldn’t discount people looking to find a higher paying job.