Slowing Supply of Immigrant Labor & Slowing Job Growth Keeps Job Market Balanced \ stacker news ~econ

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Slowing Supply of Immigrant Labor & Slowing Job Growth Keeps Job Market Balanced wolfstreet.com/2025/08/01/slowing-supply-of-immigrant-labor-slowing-job-growth-keep-the-job-market-in-balance-and-the-unemployment-rate-low-push-up-wages-powell-talked-about-it/

304 sats \ 5 comments \ @optimism 1 Aug econ

Tons of charts in this analysis, the main premise:

The crackdown on illegal immigration has dramatically slowed the influx of immigrants into the labor force, and thereby the supply of labor, and the labor force declined further in July.

At the same time, the pace of job creation by employers has slowed, in part due to the headcount reduction by the federal government (-84,000 since January, compared to +25,000 over the same period in 2024).

[W]ith growth of the supply of labor down, and with growth of demand for labor down by about the same amount, within these changing dynamics on both the supply side and the demand side, the labor market is roughly in balance with a historically low unemployment rate that has been between 4.1% and 4.2% for the past 13 months.

Less government jobs + less job seekers = statistical stability in unemployment, but, a larger percentage of non-farm jobs not being in government means that jobs are more "productive", so this sounds like a good development to me. What does ~econ think?

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100 sats \ 1 reply \ @028559d218 1 Aug

I think there is an under-the-table part of the economy, often involving immigrants and cash, that is important to large parts of the US economy.

Firing more government workers only has a superficial effect on costs savings for government... medicare social security and defense have the biggest impacts on government outflows (in addition to interest payments of course) and so the effect of 'deporting immigrants' is greatly exaggerated.

In addition, companies may not be 'laying off' people so much as not hiring, as the trade and tariff uncertainty means that companies are uncertain to invest and spend money hiring and training people.

It puts private industry in a 'wait and see' mode... instead of a 'growth' mode.

Meanwhile the Fed can't cut... and won't raise interest rates and so whatever decision they make is some sort of compromise between inflation and unemployment. In the 70s it was called 'stagflation'... now they would call it???

Meanwhile the government continues to borrow putting up-pressure on long-term interest rates... and the political instability (associated with MAGA but ultimately bipartisan) isn't helping things.

Gold is good. So are commodities in general. Bitcoin is Best. Eventually the world will 'de-risk' out of the United States and into Bitcoin because it is harder to corrupt than the United States... and a better place for long-term capital growth and preservation in a multi-polar world.

That's it.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @optimism OP 1 Aug

I think (hope) we will find out the coming decade if Bitcoin is corruptible. It could be interesting times coming up. Let's see.

100 sats \ 2 replies \ @Undisciplined 1 Aug

There are a tremendous number of job seekers amongst the current federal workforce. Some are on administrative leave until they are terminated officially, while others are looking for off-ramps before they get fired.

42 sats \ 1 reply \ @optimism OP 1 Aug

I just learned that apparently these figures are bad (#1063865) and there is +1 looking for a job.

If it is true that the figures have been meddled with, then that's really bad. If it's not true that the figures have been meddled with and they just don't reflect the desired figures, then that is also bad. So yeah... maybe this analysis is not worth much after all.

100 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 1 Aug

All you can do is work with what you’ve got.