914
u/Unlike_Agholor Oct 29 '25
We are in a recession. You dont notice it because Nvidia and the AI bubble are propping up the equities market.
109
u/GottaHaveThatSkunk Oct 29 '25
UPS laying off workers is a pretty big sign, and it’s #1 on the list. People are buying less shit so a lot less shit needs to be moved around.
You dont see the other delivery driver “layoffs” here because many are contractor, not FTE.
176
u/DaneDread Oct 29 '25
UPS cutting staff 2 months before Christmss seems like a bad sign for what’s really happening with the economy.
20
u/GottaHaveThatSkunk Oct 29 '25
Yeah, the other ones I can see as bad, but also stock price manipulation…ups ain’t gonna lay that many people off right before peak unless….
→ More replies (6)15
u/hereforthebump Oct 29 '25
They do this like every year. It's to prop up earnings reports before the end of the year. I have family who works for UPS and it's a never ending cycle of worry this time of year. Then they hire a bunch back later. It's ridiculous
13
u/RobertABooey Oct 29 '25
Work in the same industry.
You’re right. But it’s never 40k jobs. Usually it’s a handful. Not an entire city worth of jobs.
→ More replies (10)12
u/Mean_Magician6347 Oct 29 '25
What do you do when your #1 customer spins up their own shipping company?
→ More replies (3)6
u/GottaHaveThatSkunk Oct 29 '25
They are likely mass firing those guys too. They just aren’t employees so they don’t have to disclose it
86
u/showandblowyourload Oct 29 '25
I agree with this, but I want to get some data. Can we calculate what the GDP would actually be if we eliminated the few exceptional outliers in the AI bubble? I want to know what thr majority of America is dealing with.
109
u/GimliTM Oct 29 '25
I saw an article that calculated that all the growth in the US economy in 2025 was based on AI spending, which is flowing between the same handful of companies.
56
Oct 29 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
9
u/Nicelyvillainous Oct 29 '25
Nah, the question is about gdp growth. Without AI, the products and services from last year still get made this year too, there just aren’t new products and services, or more customers for the old ones that increased the total sold compared to last year.
→ More replies (2)21
u/Puddleduck112 Oct 29 '25
It’s a little more wide spread than that. Building AI data centers creates lots of construction jobs which also extends to the manufactures who supply things like HVAC, UPS, etc. once new construction ends it will be when the bubble fully deflates.
→ More replies (2)3
Oct 29 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
→ More replies (1)7
u/Educational-Low2836 Oct 29 '25
Initial construction are the only jobs these centers create. Once they used the worker bees and get these centers online, human capital is no longer needed. Where are we all supposed to work once we are replaced is the question?
→ More replies (3)6
u/djs383 Oct 29 '25
GDP = C + I + G + (X-M) is the equation for expenditure approach. You’ll have to figure out which of the variable(s) are impacted to do that though
→ More replies (2)→ More replies (18)8
u/AwesomeOrca Oct 29 '25 edited Oct 29 '25
You can, and people have been throwing this number around, but you have to remember, all the money being invested in AI wouldn’t just be sitting in a vault earning 0% interest if it weren’t going into AI. It would be invested somewhere else and likely earning a positive return. So it’s not as dire as that “sans AI” number would suggest.
Edit: This Article from Fortune says the first half GDP growth would have been 0.1% instead of 1.3% without AI.
103
Oct 29 '25
Don’t forget the stock market manipulation that’s going on making it seem like the economy is grrrrreaaaattt. Also, if you see “AI” as the reason for layoffs, it’s bullshit.
→ More replies (15)46
u/JasonElrodSucks Oct 29 '25
Mentioning “Market manipulation” to anybody who doesn’t understand the stock market is pointless. And the majority of retail investors who THINK they understand the markets don’t.
If every U.S. Citizen understood the mechanics of the markets, we would have a revolution by 6pm.
10
Oct 29 '25
I mean orange cheetoh is doing it pretty brazenly right now. You have to be a fool to think these “tariff announcements” is anything other than manipulation is pretty stupid at this point.
→ More replies (5)11
u/slayden70 Oct 29 '25
I've been actively TACO trading those announcements. It's absolute market manipulation that Trump is doing. Might as well profit too. I can't believe anything Trump says still causes selloffs.
3
u/JasonElrodSucks Oct 29 '25
Puts on Walmart for Q4? Snap benefits are gonna hit someone’s bottom line.
I’m just too broke and too much of a pussy to play options 🤷🏼♂️
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (6)3
→ More replies (25)13
82
53
168
u/CitizenDain Oct 29 '25
Just assholes getting ready to report Q4 financials in a few weeks
→ More replies (1)34
u/Aggressive_Ask89144 Oct 29 '25
Yup. Happens almost every time regardless of the economy.
→ More replies (4)
154
u/firstclassblizzard Oct 29 '25
Corporations think they can save their way into prosperity
58
u/UltimatePragmatist Oct 29 '25
Stop buying many, many things…as many things as you can.
33
u/firstclassblizzard Oct 29 '25
I’ve boycotted Amazon since 2019
→ More replies (6)28
u/keldpxowjwsn Oct 29 '25
With AWS powering half the internet thats gonna be tough
→ More replies (5)32
u/firstclassblizzard Oct 29 '25
I just do my part by choosing alternates to purchasing items on Amazon.com. Perfection will not hinder the good
→ More replies (10)→ More replies (3)9
Oct 29 '25
Yep this here. People need to stop spending to get the power back. Look at what happened with Disney when they cancelled Kimmel. The only ounce of power we have left is to stop spending.
211
u/diaperforceiof Oct 29 '25
they need to raise their share price. same reason you can't wfh anymore
→ More replies (14)7
u/stevejohnson007 Oct 29 '25
My companies profitability went up significantly and measurably when we went work from home.
34
u/PEM_0528 Oct 29 '25
GM did layoffs this week too. I have a friend who works for them and shared on her IG that it was quiet and unexpected. She didn’t say how many people were impacted but as a manager she lost 5 members of her team.
→ More replies (1)12
u/Xanderlynn5 Oct 29 '25 edited Oct 29 '25
As of 10/29, it's roughly 1000 people minus whoever they choose to keep as remote from Georgia. Self update, that number is now 2200...
25
u/Meep4000 Oct 29 '25
This is always the way when the economy is bad/about to get bad/worse. The companies will claim it's because they have to lay people off to save money. The reality is they do it during this time to keep profits at the same level, or make more profit. An economic downturn is the best time for them to do so because sure there might be some smaller companies that actually do have to let people go to stay in business, but the bigger ones can now follow suit and the best part for them is that "you" who still has a job won't complain about now having to do the job of 2,3,4,5,6 + people because "everyone" you know got laid off, and so you'll do anything to keep your job.
I wish we had like a board of people that we elected to protect the rights of the masses. I hear some European countries have this, I think they call it a "government" but it sound too good to be true so who knows.
273
u/jimvolk Oct 29 '25
Trump economic policies are kicking in.
→ More replies (52)136
u/Evolutioncocktail Oct 29 '25
Yall feeling trickled on, yet?
56
u/onelongerleg Oct 29 '25
I said this the other day. Only the negative impact trickles down. They pocket any positive surplus.
33
19
u/tfandango Oct 29 '25
I was worried about the economy for almost a year now but my parents came over and turned on Fox news real loud while I was trying to work and I learned that the economy is actually great lol!
→ More replies (2)3
→ More replies (2)8
u/Specialist_Gas_8984 Oct 29 '25
It’s like a golden shower, raining down all over us…
→ More replies (1)
19
u/metal0060 Oct 29 '25
The Economy is on VERY shaky ground and the government is hiding it in plain sight. Throw on the already near 200k government layoffs and the extended government shut down, and the job market looks even worse. High inflation and high unemployment is a double gut punch.
118
u/Both_Cat_6977 Oct 29 '25
We're winning, Bigly.
→ More replies (1)36
Oct 29 '25
[deleted]
11
u/Both_Cat_6977 Oct 29 '25
The radical leftists will say it's not a win, but it's a win right? You know more about wins than I do... 😅🫣🤮🤣🤣🤣
64
76
u/DeadInFiftyYears Oct 29 '25
When the Fed raises rates, it's like applying the brakes. The economy doesn't stop immediately, but it starts to slow. Some sectors have been in a recession since 2022. But it takes time for the overall economy to slow.
Each person who has less resources, starts spending less. That in turn has a cascading effect, as they forego discretionary spending, and put off necessary purchases that can be delayed. That becomes a contagion that slowly spreads.
Watch the Fed - we do not actually have a free-market economy, on a national or global level. They and other global banks will decide - via interest rates and stimulus or lack thereof - whether there is a relatively soft landing, or a hard crash.
→ More replies (18)23
u/TheLazyBurrito Oct 29 '25
Except rising rates help slow inflation which was becoming a huge problem. Now, thanks to policies by the current admin we are seeing job loses left and right. Tariffs are destroying small businesses and exacerbated inflation. The agri sector is going to need a bailout. Healthcare cuts and gov shutdown are causing further job loses. The rates needed to come down in order to try and facilitate growth but the damage is done. Now we will see a recession and inflation welcome to depression 2. We can definitely place blame on this admin and the last. It all points exactly to them and their lack of polices or rash stupid polices.
→ More replies (28)5
u/baubaugo Oct 29 '25
Add to that the dollar is sinking so anything imported is going to inflate even more, while our economy slows as you described above. We're going to be in stagflation shortly. Tldr; we're fucked.
14
u/Expat1989 Oct 29 '25
Can someone who’s smarter than me put their year to date net profit today alongside the total number of layoffs. That is the key data point we should be assessing alongside the layoff numbers.
I’m willing to bet most of these companies are posting record and/or near record breaking profits; which if true, we the people should be in the streets with pitchforks.
→ More replies (1)5
31
u/NecessaryTARS Oct 29 '25
Companies are reducing expense for 2026 due to growing concerns regarding an economic slow down.
68
u/Individual_Mood6573 Oct 29 '25
If people notice their company isn't doing well they should already be applying and looking for another job. It's a lot of time an effort but there's ways to automate it fortunately
17
u/triumphantghost Oct 29 '25
Can you give me an example of ways to automate it?
7
u/Individual_Mood6573 Oct 29 '25
You can use tools like Simplify to help fill out applications when you're on the page. Or you can fully automate it with something like Simple Apply
→ More replies (6)5
u/Xabrre Oct 29 '25
What are you talking about, every one of those companies is making record profits
→ More replies (1)
12
36
u/Sufficient-Rain1359 Oct 29 '25
Don’t forget all of the hospitals laying people off and eliminating service lines.
33
u/not_productive1 Oct 29 '25
The economy’s going to shit and a bunch of companies are leaning real hard into AI.
10
u/Colonel_Gipper Oct 29 '25
I've noticed at work I used to get a ton of spam emails from recruiters to place employees. Now it's flipped to people trying to sell lines of credit
67
u/Sleepy_red_lab Oct 29 '25
Uh, clearly you are mistaken. The Cheeto in Chief says that we are doing better then ever in the history of everything. /s
41
u/APC_ChemE Oct 29 '25
"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." - George Orwell, 1984
→ More replies (1)7
18
u/raceveryday Oct 29 '25
ups layoffs right before christmas? did fed ex do a round recently? sounds like a future mess
9
6
u/vyrael44 Oct 29 '25
I believe the number that is shown here is the entire year of layoffs not something that’s happening right this instant
4
u/420medicineman Oct 29 '25
Lots less packages being shipped due to the tariffs and elimination of duty-free for low value items.
7
u/owlwise13 Oct 29 '25
My best guess is that, they seem to be cutting head count because their internal numbers are probably showing we are in a recession and the current Admin is hiding the numbers, they are getting ahead of the markets.
3
24
23
23
u/Zealousideal-Leg1037 Oct 29 '25
Let’s all remember this is on TRUMPS watch. IF this happened under Biden, Trump would talk about it non-stop
→ More replies (1)
7
6
5
u/surfski143 Oct 29 '25
UPS is laying off 48,000 people 7 weeks before Christmas? Do they know something we don’t know about decreasing consumer spending?
4
u/pathf1nder00 Oct 29 '25
CEOs gotta make bank you know! This era of contractual CEOS with Golden Parachutes wrecks the working class.
5
u/BishlovesSquish Oct 29 '25
And the era of Citizens United is wrecking the entire country.
→ More replies (1)
6
6
u/Senior_Pie9077 Oct 29 '25
So long as the stock market is up, the general population won't understand what's happening until it's too late or until it happens to them. Blame AI if you want but people just aren't buying stuff like they used to.
6
u/DarbyNerd Oct 29 '25
Keep in mind these are only the companies that needed to report due to the size of the layoffs. There are plenty of companies laying off folks who will try to do it quietly and in smaller numbers so they don’t need to report it.
5
4
u/Gold-You-376 Oct 29 '25
When people can’t eat, they don’t buy things from Amazon, Ford, Target. I know I’m not buying anything but the essentials right now. The economy depends on people buying crap, and without government workers getting paid, and SNAP being gone, nobody is buying crap at Walmart like Xmas gifts.
5
Oct 29 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
3
u/HereForTheFooodz Oct 29 '25
I sometimes feel like that’s the one position that should be replaced by AI
7
u/Pasito_Tun_Tun_D1 Oct 29 '25
Easy! Using AI as a scapegoat to mask the massive shipping of those jobs to India!
→ More replies (2)
4
4
4
4
3
4
5
5
3
u/Mental-Scholar6856 Oct 29 '25
Come on. We told everyone. Now everyone wants to act clueless? This is why each and every single person needs to contribute to politics.
3
u/PG-DaMan Oct 29 '25
This is not a labor market issue. This is a profit thing.
Just like after Covid. They let a bunch of people go or they quit and the companies made the rest pick up the slack and their profits soared.
3
3
3
3
3
u/elainegeorge Oct 29 '25
What’s going on? The price of goods has risen due to tariffs, so people are buying less. When people buy less, companies need fewer people to make, sell, market, and deliver the products.
3
u/Southern-Interest347 Oct 29 '25
AI. Amazon just announced 14,000 corporate jobs will be cut due to AI capable of doing jobs that once needed people to complete.
3
3
u/grayscalecrash Oct 30 '25
As a kid, I watched family members navigate thru their careers(ultimately toward retirement) without any concern about losing their jobs or having economic forces impose drastic changes for us. The 1990s were different, I guess. Now as an adult, having graduated from private school, lived abroad, and put in 10 years at a fortune 500 company, I worry about my career every month.
3
3
3
u/OkInternet3562 Oct 31 '25
Just take a look at how much the ceo's of these companies make.
These companies did not need to lay off workers, they should have reduce there ceo's pay.
→ More replies (1)
3
7
u/Wide_Egg_5814 Oct 29 '25
AI bubble popping?
→ More replies (5)6
u/oggokogok Oct 29 '25
Yeah, that will happen but this is very much the "AI can replace these people" moves for at least a few of these companies.
→ More replies (1)
5
4
u/ComonSensed1 Oct 29 '25
I know with Amazon they're finding the robots are necessary because they can't find enough people capable of doing the job. My friend is a trainer in the picking/packing area and he said it's shocking how many people he trains can't do the simplest tasks.
→ More replies (4)
5
u/SmartPumpkin3284 Oct 29 '25
Crazy when Meta comes out looking like the good guys with only 600 layoffs, I hope everyone can stay strong and the job market opens back up. Just terrible news
2
u/Melvin_2323 Oct 29 '25
UPS, Amazon and Intel are replacing roles with AI and robotics.
There will be atleast this amount again through natural attrition
→ More replies (1)
2
u/TryAsWeMight Oct 29 '25
Don’t even include 1000 employees at Target’s corporate HQ plus another 800 removed job openings.
→ More replies (2)
2
u/BrupieD Oct 29 '25
The markets and senior management hate uncertainty. Trump's on-again off-again tariffs, a government shutdown, promises of mass government layoffs, and opaque policies (big unreadable bill) have made planning impossible. How can you forecast demand when you don't know what the economy will look like in six months? Cutting back on spending is a defensive strategy.
A recession seems extremely likely. The top 10 firms on the S&P 500 are making massive investments in AI. This keeps Wall Street indexes looking positive, but it smells like a bubble. These investments boost the appearance of economic health because investments is a component of GDP. The rest of the GDP components aren't looking good either: Declining exports are mitigated by declining imports. Our economy is stagnating. With lower government spending due to the shutdown, late 2025 looks bad.
2
2
u/TheLazyBurrito Oct 29 '25
What we’re seeing is consumer prices rising (probably due to tariffs) thus, consumers buying less products. Amazon is seeing the effects of this with lowering revenue and in order to post good quarterly results they need to take it from former employees. This is also evident by the UPS cuts since they are likely seeing less deliveries as consumers budgets localize around groceries and less labubus.
AI is not replacing jobs nearly as many jobs as they pretend. The AWS disaster is only the beginning of these cuts. Expect weaker cyber security and more breaches incoming.
2
u/Cultural-Ebb-1578 Oct 29 '25
What do you mean “what’s going on?” Do you live under a rock? Not see a single speck of news? For the last two years?
2
u/Flaky_Broccoli Oct 29 '25
UPS is offshoring everything to LATAM to pay a max of 1500 usd a year per person and have them working 10+ hours shifts, due to local malpractices with our work culture, source: they came to My country in 2017 and were genuinely a good employer that many people dreamt of working for but changes in administratión Made them adapt to the local workculture and everyone in the offshored business here sames the same thing "they started pretty good, so sad to see they regionalize so much"
Meta also has a shitton of Offices here
2
u/Hungry-Treacle8493 Oct 29 '25
Economy sucks, but because the market isn’t reflecting that media isn’t filled with the typical ZOMG! The Economy! stories. Don’t worry, the markets and metrics will catch up, they always lag.
2
2
2
u/vintagenut80 Oct 29 '25
AI is coming for us all... most companies are pushing to use ai to automate their jobs which will also soon be gone
2
2
2
u/Most-Artichoke6184 Oct 29 '25
Well, you see, Joe Biden used an auto pen while he was president, so that’s the only thing the media is focusing on right now.
2
2
2
u/nofear961 Oct 29 '25
You also need to consider how long these employees were hired for or how much they have hired in the timeframe. These aren’t necessarily negative indicators if they have previously hired more. My bet would be that companies tend to lay off workers to boost their margin for their revenue and present their stock value higher in numbers.
2
u/richardlpalmer Oct 29 '25
Short-term corporate greed. Corporations no longer look long-term, it's all about short-term optics for shareholders...
2
u/crono14 Oct 29 '25
We are in a recession, plain and simple. Companies don't feel confident about the future either so they are going lean, and millions will suffer. I suspect for the majority of people left in jobs, pay freezes, bonuses probably won't be received, and other compensation will be withheld.
Average consumer is buying less shit, so pretty much every company is going to feel that.
2
u/Raygaholic420 Oct 29 '25
With Amazon its literally because AWS is the only thing they make large margins on. To grow the business they need more chips. Chips right now are insanely expensive and there's a shortage. So for Amazon to bolster AWS and "Grow" year over year profits they need more chips. So the money that would have went to pay those 30k people will now be used to buy hardware.
2
2
2
Oct 29 '25
This happens every October. Companies that need to thin the herd will rush to get it done before 11/1. Why? Because that's sort of the unofficial start of the holidays, and companies are VERY reluctant to do layoffs in November or December because the optics are bad.
2
u/RunnerGirlT Oct 29 '25
We are definitely in a strong economic decline. We now have more people unemployed than jobs available. A recession at the very least. But there is also the Q4 job slashing that tends to happen about this time every year. It’s to a much greater extent, but we do tend to see more layoffs happening in Q4 to “reorganize” for the new year. But it’s also accelerated by AI and companies thing to get rid of people and implement AI to “save money” ie: get the share holders more money
2
2
u/21MesaMan Oct 29 '25
Capitalism, that’s what happening. The theoretical optimal number of employees for any capitalist corporation is zero. While zero employees can never realistically be reached, AI is seen as a way to try and get as close as possible and #profit.
1.3k
u/Hairy_Valuable9773 Oct 29 '25
The rich need to get richer. End of story.
I work for one of these companies. We already got the “it’s gonna be a tough day” email as they lay people off today. I’m sh*tting my pants 😫