The New Narrative: Yeah, it’s slow but no layoffs, amiright? 😉

13 Oct The New Narrative: Yeah, it’s slow but no layoffs, amiright? 😉

In the same way that real estate websites are FINALLY starting to admit the housing market is a hot mess, we’re seeing the early wave of reports that the labor market isn’t quite so hawt either.

IMO, the new narrative appears to be: Yeah, OK, the job market is slowing down but, like, you don’t need to worry about layoffs. Really?!?

Article I reference:

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/10/6/23388247/layoffs-recession-labor-market

Need more? Email me: https://causeyconsultingllc.com/contact-causey/

Transcription by Otter.ai.  Please forgive any typos!

Welcome to the Causey Consulting Podcast. You can find us online anytime at CauseyConsultingLLC.com. And now, here’s your host, Sara Causey. Hello, Hello, and thanks for tuning in. So I want to dissect an article that was recently published on vox.com, titled, the pandemic could have changed how employers think about layoffs. The byline reads even as recession fears grow, and job openings drop. Layoffs remain low for now. So the first question that we always have to ask ourselves is, is this even true? It’s sad. Yes, that we do have to ask that question of our journalism nowadays. But let’s be honest, we do. This reminds me very much of the article that was published in fortune.com, the other day, where a commentator was saying up layoffs are still low. And I just don’t see them picking up and q4 I mean, I really think things are gonna be okay. And I thought, what hopium is this? So apparently, now the narrative has shifted, we’ve moved in to the next phase of whatever this is, they’re finally admitting that the job openings are dropping. Employers are starting to scale back. Earlier today on LinkedIn, there was a post about how fewer workers are quitting. And I thought, well, yeah, no, da, I’ve been talking about that for a while now, the great resignation, it’s done. It’s toast. Unless you are in an already high turnover industry where it’s like, okay, it was ever thus, retail, hospitality, Gen labor, those kinds of fields typically do have more of a churn and burn type situation around them. It’s almost like the analogy of the leaky bucket, you have to always have people coming into the top of the bucket to replace the people that are getting out of the bucket at the bottom. That’s not anything new. But I think by and large, across so called White Collar knowledge work, people are not job hopping the way that they were last year. Same thing with the housing market, in the same way that a seller could put a poopoo house on the market and ask some insane, inflated price for it and probably get it. We’re not seeing that now. Are there still people in the Midwest who are trying to do real estate shenanigans and goofishness? Of course, yes, I’m still seeing grossly overpriced houses myth trailer on 20 acres and someone wants a million dollars for it. Yes, there are still people trying to do that. They’re not succeeding. These people from out of state who perhaps don’t know any better, or who had more money than sense, they’re not taking the bait anymore. And I’m not seeing these white collar knowledge workers hippity hopping all over the market the way that they did last year, I think a lot of people are starting to take a look at what’s going on gestures broadly at the economy. And they’re thinking you know, what, I do think it might be a good idea to slow down, be a little bit more measured in my decision making and not hop just to hop or not hop only because somebody dangles a 10% raise in front of my face, it might be better to plug in and stay where I’m at. And if I leave, I really need to have a good reason for leaving. Same thing in the real estate market. I can’t imagine that somebody would want to sell just at random right now. So I think we’re still in my part of the Midwest anyway. We’re still seeing people trying to unload problem child houses, bad neighborhood, neighbors from Hill House is falling apart, tons of deferred maintenance, etc. Or those people have gotten themselves into a major bind financially, and they’re trying to outrun the creditors. They’re trying to outrun being foreclosed on by the bank having the car repossessed, and they’re wanting to treat that house like it’s a balloon payment. Well, if I can just get out of here, if I can unload this house to some unsuspecting individual from California or New York, who sold their place for an absurd amount of money, then everything will be alright. No one’s taking that bait right now where I’m at. So I don’t know how successful they’re going to be about that. So let’s dissect this article. I mean, is it true? As recession fears grow? Okay. Well, in my opinion, we’re already in a recession. It does not matter to me that they change the technical definition weakening weak of what a recession is to avoid saying we’re in one. I believe that after the midterms, that’s when a lot of the wheels are going to come flying off of this economic Joe lobby we’re driving and we’ll be allowed to know more things. Regardless, I’m politically agnostic on this podcast, I don’t think it really matters, who comes out on top? And who doesn’t? dimes worth a difference? In my mind? I don’t think it’s really going to change much of anything. But I do think more people are at least sort of going, Wait a minute, are we in a recession, it really doesn’t feel like things are moving and grooving the way that they were two or three years ago. So I mean, are we finally in this recession? Now, job openings are dropping, which I think anybody who has a finger on the pulse of the job market could have told you that I have said repeatedly that I do not think true unemployment is anywhere near 3.5 or 3.7%. Nor do I believe there’s two legitimate open jobs, or I guess what they’re saying now 1.7, legitimate open jobs for every one unemployed person. Now they’re very well may be service sector jobs, there may be fast food, restaurant jobs, things of that nature that are open and going unfilled, or that have that high churn and burn rate where somebody gets started, they work for a week and say, eff this, I’m out that very well could be. But as far as jobs that pay a living wage, and that have good benefits, do I really think there’s 1.7 of those jobs open for everyone. unemployed person? Hell, no, I don’t I just I think that’s some funny math that’s going in to try to make those figures happen. I don’t personally believe that sorry, I don’t. I’m also starting to see a little bit of this in my area of the Midwest, and I’m hearing about it, let’s just say whispers on the wind from other people that didn’t want to be named or called out on the air. I’m hearing about companies just folding small to medium sized businesses, as well as sometimes, like larger chains, people just not able to hang on, maybe they were able to kind of keep a band aid on a bullet wound, so to speak, using the PPP loans that came out. But now the bill has come due. And they’re just not able to keep going. In fact, I’m thinking of a couple of places off the top of my head, the nearest town to where I live, several kind of like mom and pop shops that have already gone out of business. But in these whispers on the wind from other people in other parts of the country, I’m hearing a lot of that whether it’s like mom and pop shops or smaller scale restaurants or actual chain restaurants, I had heard the other day that Cracker Barrel was struggling, because so many of their clientele would be age 65 and older. And because a lot of those individuals have retired and they’re on fixed incomes now, they’re not going out to eat as often when you go to a restaurant, and it’s more expensive than it was the time before or you get in there. And due to supply chain issues. Half the stuff that you might normally order isn’t even available. What’s your motivation to go back? So in some of these places, like chain restaurants or chain stores are even folding up, it’s not to say that the entire chain is going bankrupt or about to go under, it’s just you may not have this particular chain restaurant or this particular chain store in the nearest town to you anymore, which is clearly not a sign of a robust economy. When people have plenty of discretionary income, and it’s not that difficult to go out to eat or to go shopping, then you don’t see this kind of thing happening. But here’s my point, they’re going to blame this on the labor market. They’re going to blame this on the average working class person. Well, you just didn’t want to wait tables. You just didn’t want to be a bartender. You just didn’t want to be a store clerk. We couldn’t make it because labor shortage, we couldn’t make it because no one wants to work anymore. We couldn’t make it because Gen Z is a bunch of lazy, spoiled, entitled whatever’s they said the same thing about Gen X. Okay. We heard that crap all through the 90s. We were called the slacker generation. It was like, You guys just don’t want to pay your dues. You don’t want to work hard. You don’t have the same grit as like the greatest generation or the baby boomers. We heard all that same stuff. So it’s like this is the same argument that people have made since time immemorial. They were probably cavemen that said the same thing about their kids, man, these these, these dang cave kids are just so spoiled and entitled, they don’t want to get out on the tundra and hunt the woolly mammoth. But they’re gonna blame it on the labor market. They’re gonna blame it on workers who just, they’re just lazy. They’re just flush with cash, living in grandma’s basement, et cetera, et cetera. In my mind, this is part still yet of the Fed trying to justify what they’re doing to deliberately crashed the job market, like, oh, golly, gee whiz, it just got so out of hand. So out of proportion, the average working class person, the average job seeker just had too much power. And well, you know how it is when the pendulum gets so far out of balance, we have to kind of bring the scales back level. So we’re gonna need to go ahead and start shifting that balance of power back to corpo America. I mean, y’all had your little moment in the sun, you had you look great resignation, had you little workers revolution, and that’s fine and all but now it’s time to come home back to the office. I’ve been predicting this for months. I mean, to me, we’re, we’re living in this like dystopia of all these things that I said, all these things I warned you about that we’re going to happen are happening. I really wish that I had been wrong about all this because frankly, it sucks. Nobody wants to go through another great recession 2.0 global financial crisis. I still wonder how many industries and huge Wall Street fat cats were going to be asked to bail out this time around, because it’s coming, we’ll get the hat in hand speech about this is too big to fail. It’s too integral to the economy, we just can’t be without this. And so we’re going to need that sweet taxpayer money. And they may even go a step further and say, you know, we sent you those stimulus checks. We sent you the PPP loans. We did what we needed to do. Oh, and we also did student loan forgiveness. Let’s don’t forget that. So we did these things to help you out. So quid pro quo Clarice. We scratched your back, when we shut down the entire MFN economy and crippled everybody with two years to flatten the curve. You know, we we scratched your back during that. So now you need to scratch our back by giving us some of that sweet, sweet taxpayer money to bail out our cronies on Wall Street. Wait and see. So here we go into this vox.com article we read. The labor market is starting to slow down. Job openings have fallen and employers are adding fewer jobs to the economy compared to earlier in the year. I’m going to butt in long enough to say there was a great video that Orlando miner published where a lot of these real estate companies like Zillow and realtor.com and Redfin are finally, after all, this time starting to admit, hey, I don’t real estate market ain’t looking too hot right now, y’all. And my comment is like, if it’s bad enough, that it can’t be ignored, if it’s bad enough that they’re finally coming forward and saying, oops, a daisy, that Oh, real estate market might look too good. If it’s not bad, how bad is it really, because in my mind, if it’s bad enough that they’re finally admitting it, they’re finally coming forward and saying who Oh, is bad. Because otherwise, they would still be trying to paper over the cracks, and play pretend I put this vox.com article in the same category if they’re willing to finally freaking telling you, hey, the labor market is starting to slow down. Job openings have fallen employers are adding fewer jobs. How bad is it really? If they’re willing to come out? And finally admit that this dead right? Look at all these jobs to open jobs and one employed person and all that other nonsense? If they’re finally willing to say this, how bad is it really? I’ll continue to read. Although that may seem dim, economists say there is reason to believe that some employers could be more hesitant than in the past to layoff workers in a potential economic downturn. In August, job openings fell to 10 point 1 million down about 1.1 million openings from the month before. According to Labor Department data released on Tuesday, the same month employers added 315,000 jobs to the economy, fewer than in July, when 526,000 were created. Oh, I’m sure the unemployment rate also rose to 3.7% in August, but that’s only a small increase from a 50 year low the month before. At the same time layoffs have remained steady. Oh, oh. Oh, what linguistic gymnastics? We have their layoffs remained steady. Mm hmm. Okay. In August, layoffs ticked up slightly to 1.5 million, but that’s still modest compared to pre pandemic levels. In February 2020. There were about 2 million layoffs. Job openings are still high layoffs. are low and employees keep quitting rate of job openings quits and layoffs out of all employment. And they have a little graph here, where they show layoffs being low quits being high, and job openings being really high. Meanwhile, the same day this article was published, as I’ve mentioned earlier, LinkedIn, finally let the cat out of the bag, but not as many people are doing the old great resignation, maybe more. I’m in the job market every single day. And I can tell you some of these people, it is like trying to pull their teeth to even get them to have a conversation right now. Part of that is we’re in q4. And as we drift closer and closer to the holiday season, a lot of people have their vacation and their PTO already planned out. They’re starting to think about where are we going to go for Christmas? Are we going to visit your family for Thanksgiving? And then my family for Christmas? Where are we going to stay? They’re already having those preliminary discussions, especially since during the so many people just stayed home. They had a virtual Christmas or a virtual Thanksgiving. And now they have the opportunity to finally get back on the road if they can afford the gasoline. And go see Nana go to the inlaws go to aunt, uncle cousin and have a fun holiday season. So these people are already thinking about those things. So historically, q4 can be a tricky time, in fairness to the argument to try to get someone to make a job change. But right now you have all of this economic turmoil and uncertainty on top of the fact that we’re in q4. So I think a lot of people who are financially and economically savvy are like, no, no, no, no, no, no, I’m gonna ride the wave here, don’t have that much time left in 2022, I’ve already put in my request for PTO. And then when you have people at a very high level, the C suites and the executive folks, some of those people have so much PTO, that they’re going to be going for huge amounts of time, you’ll start to get these out of the office emails where it’s like, I will be gone for the entire month of December. Try me back in January of 2023, or I will be gone from Thanksgiving until the middle of December, I will be back in the office for two days, and then I will be gone. Again. This is not at all unusual. And I think frankly, we will see more of it because people have been cooped up due to the and now that we’re being told you should cross pollinate again, you should be going downtown, it’s time to be sociable. Again, I think a lot of people will want to take advantage of that. But again, it to me, it seems to be worse than normal, because people who are looking around at the economy are like, I don’t think I want to make a job change right now. Someone would have to be really unhappy, in a in an awful environment. Or it would have to really make sense, because there are always those opportunities to better yourself. There are those opportunities, maybe you are poised and ready to be in a leadership role. You’re stuck at a company where they don’t really see that or they just don’t have anyone to any place to put you, you’re going to have to wait for someone to either pass away or retire in order to move up. And so if a recruiter comes and taps you on the shoulder and says, Hey, I have a leadership opportunity I want to discuss with you, it may very well make sense. It may be that you’re overworked and underpaid, and you’re in a complete hellhole. And so if somebody comes and says, Hey, would you be interested in taking a look at this job, it might be a fantastic opportunity. What I’m saying is trying to get people to even have those initial conversations is getting more and more difficult. I put part of it on the time of the year that we’re in and I put part of it on the economic situation. So trying to say that people are just quitting willy nilly. They’re just Oh, the least little thing and they’re going No. Again, perhaps in retail, hospitality, Gen labor, these industries that historically do have high turnover that very well may be you may still have people that are like if you look at me sideways, if you ask me to work late, if you say anything that I don’t like, I’ll just turn around and leave. I’m sure that probably is still happening in those sectors. Is it happening in my observation in white collar knowledge work? Hell no. No. I’ll continue to read. It’s a confusing economic situation. Gross Domestic Product has declined. Inflation is uncomfortably high, and fears of a recession have grown. But the overall job market remains strong and many businesses can’t fill all of their openings. A recent report from employee Inc, which provides recruiting technology and services to companies suggested one reason for this, this will be delightful I’m sure. Well, some industries were letting go of workers. Others were labor hoarding, finding ways to hold on to workers rather than laying them off to save money in the long run. According to the report, 52% of recruiters surveyed said their organizations were retaining employees, even if they weren’t performing to standard or fit with the culture. Yeah, okay, I’ve got a button again. Look at what’s going on with metta. And the pips. They don’t want underperforming people there. They’ve already said, there’s people here that don’t need to be and if they want to self select out the door, that’s fine. So where are they labor hoarding? Did they over hire some companies did, some companies took a look at attrition and turnover rate. And they said, Well, we probably need to over hire for certain positions, because half of the people are going to be gone. You know, it’s like, if you’ve ever gone to law school or medical school, the old cliche about how they have you look to your right, look to your left, and they’re like one of these people, or both of these people won’t be here at the finish line. A lot of managers did the same thing. If we hire five people, two or three of them will not be here in a month, because there was so much churn and burn going on during the Great resignation. So I’m sure that some companies did over hire to account for attrition. And if some of those people stayed, and they’re just kind of sitting there in their cubicle not doing much of anything, there may be the need to go ahead and trim some of those individuals out. The thing of it is if you’re one of those individuals who gets trimmed, it’s not going to be a pleasant experience. I’ll continue to read. Economists say there are a number of reasons employers could be less likely to lay off workers, at least for now, many dealt with persistent labor shortages during the pandemic and found it difficult to hire people. So they may not want to go through the same process again. Does it ever seem to you that corporate America really learns a permanent lesson? I’ve been at this game a long time, and it’s sure it doesn’t seem that way. To me. I cannot tell you how many times I feel like I’ve had to have the same conversation with managers about their hiring funnels, like the longer the more protracted, the more asinine that you make your hiring funnel, the less likely you are to hire good people, they’re gonna drop out, they’re gonna get tired of having to do six different interviews or sit in a round robin interview for eight hours and justify their existence. It’s stupid. Yeah, I’m skeptical. Okay, I’m skeptical. I’ll continue to read. It’s also costly to onboard and train workers. So if employers think an economic downturn will be relatively short lived, they could be more likely to retain employees. Hmm. So here’s the rub. Okay, we’re kind of getting into some of what I would call just my opinion. And I could be wrong, but I would label propaganda. If they think an economic downturn will be relatively short lived, they will be more likely to retain employees. So when these puff pieces, a theme seems to be developing. We’re being told finally EU labor markets starting to slow down not as many open jobs, not not as many opportunities and then low unemployment rate starting to tick up. They’re finally admitting that, but they’re putting this spin on it, in my opinion, of look, whatever we’re going to go through, it’s probably going to be relatively short lived. Don’t panic about layoffs. There’s no reason to think mass layoffs are here. There’s no reason to think mass layoffs are going to happen in q4. It’s kind of like, sit there little baby. Take your pablum. Eat your mush. Make sure all of it stays on your little baby bib. Just Just sit down. And don’t worry. Let the people who created this freaking problem in the first place, be the ones to solve it. You don’t need to worry about layoffs. You don’t need to come up with a job loss survival plan. Well, you just sit there and you eat your motion. You take your new medicine and you do what you’re told. Because there’s nothing to worry about. To me this is yet another variation of Nothing to see here. People move along, move along like we’re just limping along into whatever economic downturn This is about to be. And we’re not supposed to do anything to prepare for it. We’re not supposed to do anything to be ready. What cool, it’s hard for me to even pick the right word. I mean, absurdity, stupidity, craziness, lunacy what, what even is that? Why would why would you not? Why would you not? That’s, I can’t It’s difficult for me to to put my mind around it. I’ll continue to read Aaron Sojourner, a labor economist and Senior Researcher at the W. E Upjohn Institute for Employment Research said that some employers have missed out on profit opportunities during the pandemic because they’ve struggled to find enough workers to fill open positions that might make employers less likely to shed workers in an economic downturn, since they would want to deploy workers quickly. Once the economy improves. He said, Okay, fair enough. But if you have fewer people spending money, which the Fed has said, that’s what they want to, they’ve said, go back to that article I talked about on CBS News, they have said, there’s going to be a bunch of people laid off, they’re not going to be spending as much money, and then the people who are still employed, their wages are going to stagnate. So businesses here, here’s a little you know, common sense factoid, businesses are in business to make money. So if you have fewer people with disposable income to spend that money, what do you think’s going to happen? It’s like what I talked about earlier, in this episode, the whispers on the wind, as well as what I’m seeing in the nearest small town to me, some of these mom and pop shops and businesses are closing, some of the chain stores and chain restaurants are closing down. And is it because they can’t find workers? Or is it because people are just not able to go in and spend money? Here’s the deal, they’re going to blame it on you. And no offense to this labor economist. I don’t know this person. This is like Connie and Merle. I don’t know him. And I don’t know what he lives on. But I disagree with the analysis here. Because I think what’s going to happen is the average working class person is going to get blamed, you didn’t want to work, we struggled to fill all of these open positions. And it’s your fault. You laid up at the house or you wanted more money or whatever, insert excuse here. So it’s your fault. It’s not that they want to hang on to these people so that they can deploy them quickly. Once the economy improves. How long do you think it’s going to take us to dig out of this hole? I remember when the great recession hit I mean it, it took a good two, two and a half years before I really felt some true relief. It was not an overnight recovery. It was not some little six month economic blip, where we all have to pull together Okay, the next three to six months is going to be the real poops. But we’ll get through it. It’s not what I remember. So I am skeptical that they’re going to hang on to people, especially if the company has deemed that these people are underperforming. They don’t want to be there bad attitude can’t get along with colleagues and supervisors. Those blades of grass are the surest ones to get cut when the Poopoo hits the fan economically. So I just don’t see this being a situation where the companies are going to automatically hang on to all these people that they’ve hired because they have some kind of PTSD about what the great resignation was like. Maybe I’m wrong, but that is not what I see happening. I will continue to read. And some companies are still struggling to fill open positions, meaning that if they needed to cut back on spending, they could slow down hiring without laying people off. Diane Swonk, the chief economist at KPMG said industries are still understaffed, such as manufacturing and healthcare and could be more likely to hold on to workers, even if economic conditions worsen in quote. I mean, when it comes to health care, there’s always gonna be a need for doctors and nurses. And seems like every other month on the TV, they’re talking about a shortage of nurses. So I don’t think it’s really fair to say that healthcare is indicative of the economy. Overall, I understand that healthcare may still be understaffed, just like I understand that there still may be a great resignation happening in retail and hospitality. But that doesn’t mean it’s going on across the entire economy. And we have to remember that I’ll scroll down and read just a little bit more. John G. Fernald, a senior research adviser at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco said that employers would be especially hesitant to lay off workers who would be difficult to rehire once the economy recovers from a downturn, such as those with specialized skills or higher levels of education. If you lay off people with valuable skills, well, you’re not going to be able to recover production when demand picks up again, for an all set in quote. I agree with that. There are certain pockets of specialized skills, just like the the nursing shortage, I mean, there’s certain pockets of specialized skills that are going to be relatively insulated from a recession. I’m not saying they’re going to be recession proof. I’m just saying in comparison to more common job openings. They We’ll have more protection, they’ll have a little bit more of a buffer between themselves and the recession, they’ll still be in demand more than likely, even during an economic slowdown. This is why I’ve said many times, I can’t give you advice, and I cannot tell you what to do. If it were me, I would want to plug in somewhere and become integral to the operation, so that they needed me a hell of a lot worse than they didn’t need me. And that’s why you want to make it difficult as hell for you to be replaced. And I think some of the people who may have kind of taken quiet quitting into the let’s do basically nothing territory. I’m not sure how they’re going to be prepared to ride this out. I’m not telling you it’s right. I’m not telling you. It’s ethical. I’m not telling you. It’s fair. I’m telling you. I think a lot of these corporate sponsored media puff pieces are exactly that. They’re designed to give you some kind of hopium so that you just kind of sit down Shut up and take your pablum like a good little baby. I’ll scroll down a little bit more and read. The Fed has been aggressively raising interest rates for months in an attempt to bring the fastest inflation and 40 years under control. Last month, the Fed raised rates by three quarters of a percentage point another unusually large increase. By doing so the central bank is trying to get consumers to spend less on goods and services. That should help prices come down but it could also slow down hiring. As demand falls, businesses could decrease production and cut down on costs, leading to a pause in hiring or eventually layoffs. Jerome Powell, the Fed Chair has said the labor market is unsustainably strong. And that employment unemployment will likely rise as the Fed tries to bring down inflation in quote. There we go, there. Here it is, I mean, here, here it is. Here it is right on front street, they’re telling you what’s coming. Please do not ignore this information. If it were me, I would not want to read a bunch of hot air and hopium. I would not for one second, assume that layoffs would not pick up in q4. I would not for one second assume that corporate America had really, really learned its lesson during the Great resignation, and that they were not going to just trim people willy nilly. Corporate America is going to look out for corporate America. And that is one reason why the onus is on you, as an individual to look out for yourself and your family. Because if you think that these Wall Street bankers and corporate fat cats and high rollers and billionaires give a flying F about you. They really don’t, they really don’t. So it’s not about trying to turn yourself into slave labor. It’s not about sacrificing and killing yourself for a job where they don’t care. To me, it’s about basic survival. It’s about doing whatever I would need to do to provide for myself and my family to make it through an economic downturn. I would also not for one second, assume that this is going to be just a little economic blip? Oh, well, they’re just assuming this is gonna be just a short little downturn, you don’t need to worry about it. You know, you don’t need to fret about that. I mean, it might be a few months of hard times, but we’re gonna pull back. Right, right, right. Okay. But what if it’s a few years? What if we have some economic hard times for two or three years instead of for two or three months? Are you prepared for that? And that’s only a question that you can answer for yourself. But I think we have to be careful with pieces like this, because it feels to me like the narrative is shifting. It feels to me like they’re starting to admit that the information is getting a little bit too prominent to ignore. So they’re starting to admit that unemployment is going up. They’re starting to admit there’s not as many open jobs, they’re starting to admit that some places in the economy like Netflix and Microsoft and meta have already had layoffs. But you know, don’t be scared about it. That’s the message, right? Don’t be scared about it. layoffs are probably not coming to a business near you. In my opinion, naivete is coming at too high of a price. Do what you need to do to wargame out your strategy. If you need to talk to a professional financial planner or advisor or a credit counselor of some kind, do it. Get your strategies put together so that you have some sense that you could survive a downturn or a job loss survival plan. I also think it might not be a bad idea to have like a support group or a calling tree. I don’t think it’s a good idea to put all of your eggs in one bed Ask it. And I’ve talked about that before on some previous broadcasts, people who think, well, if I got laid off, I just post something on LinkedIn or Facebook or if I got laid off, I would call a couple of recruiters and I’m sure they would find me something. What if that didn’t work out for you? In a situation where unemployment goes up very, very fast, and a lot of people are laid off and looking at the same time, your LinkedIn feed is going to be littered with nothing but layoff announcements and people saying, I’m desperate, please help me. So what are you going to do to stand out from the crowd and actually be somebody that gets selected, not trying to sound mercenary or gloom and doom and just being honest with you. Same thing is going to happen to recruiters at staffing agencies, they’re going to be underwhelmed with jobs to fill and overwhelmed with candidates looking for work. How do I know? Well, it happened in the Great Recession, there were people who would call crying talking about how they just could not buy a job, they could not find work anywhere. I hope to God that we don’t go through something like that, again, we’re talking about in case of emergency break glass, do you have some kind of job loss survival plan put together so that you can sleep a little easier at night and know that you at least have some kind of network some kind of infrastructure in place to try to help one another and minister to one another, be a light to one another, do things to try to help one another to get through this? Can’t tell you what to do. But if it were me that that would be very important to me to know, my first five phone calls in the event of a layoff would be so that I’m not putting all of my eggs in any one particular basket. Stay safe. stay sane. I will see you in the next episode. Thanks for tuning in. 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