Housing, Retail Sales, Energy, And Hiring (Podcast)

from Home. So, Vince, we got some retail sales numbers today. I think they're pretty good. I got target reporting numbers. Yeah, they were really bad as they just kind of throwing the kitchen Zinc getting clearing out their inventory. But they say the consumers looking good for the back half of the year in terms of buying. What did you make of some of this retail stuff today and what like you said, it wasn't that at all, um. You know, any reductions in the retail sales numbers came from gas

and energy. So as consumers cut back on some driving because of the high gas prices, you know that slow retail sales. But we're starting to see that shift lower once again, you know, from six dollars a gallant to you know, just on their fish. UM. So that might lift future retail sales. But to me, the the issue going forward with retail sales still is on the revolving credit side. We've seen revolving credit jump by a third,

same numbers were reported this morning in the UK. People are actually, you know, showing signs of borrowing on their credit cards, which is a terrible sign. Uh, and also running balances on their credit cards. And of course that users interest rates. You wonder how long that could last. So the future is going to be very interesting if

we don't start to see some wage games. I'm not sure the consumer can carry us in the fourth quarter simply because they're they're borrowing, is they're just going to run it hit a wall. And meanwhile, people who think the FED needs to keep raising rates are saying, you know, five percent average hourly earnings, it's way too steep and it indicates a price wage viral. Do you disagree? UM? You know, we saw something just came out of biding panel.

UM did an evaluation and they recommended to what was it? I think the freight industry. Let's see the rail bid and rail panel recommends a wage hike through two thousand four, So clearly, yeah, exactly a lot of work. Um. I don't think we'll see the wage price spiral that people are talking about, simply because I don't think we're going to have earnings to support that. If we if we get any kind of increase like that in wages, we're gonna see a bigger increase in prices. Companies are not

going to eat this, They're gonna pass it along. And when they pass off those prices, you know, I guess that's why people see the wage wage price final They think that this is going to be some sort of what workers ask for more, So companies have to raise more. Companies raise more, so workers have to ask for more. I just don't see the economy by being able to sustain that. So but if that in fact occurs or is occurring, does that not suggest that the Fed has

to be more aggressive? And I know you have a you know a little bit of a problem with our Federal Reserve these days. I do because when you look at what the Federal Reserve is doing there there are basically two areas. The CPI shelter. So the FED can in theory manipulate that because by raising interest rates they make it more difficult to borrow and and it's its

stalls housing meains. Yeah, the problem is then those people have to rent and that and exactly so you know, it's it's a double edged sword when the when the FED gets involved that way. And I my concern with that is, you know, there's a demand and supply chain story, you know, demand and supply or the equilibrium levels if it should the FED be trying to curb demand um when the real issue was supply and and maybe they're

just missing missing the mark. And it's my feeling that what's causing inflation right now is not something that FED can defeat, and they're better off taking their handle off the wheel and trying to see if the economy can scored itself out. We've already seen, you know, moderation and home prices and moderation and inflation because of what the FED has done so far. You know, if the FED wants to go back to their textbooks, what they should be doing is waiting six months to see how this

works before going again to just keep going. You don't really know the effect of that, right, I mean much and Vincent in the last hour, Tom Keane was, you know, house hunting in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and he found a four bedroom cabin that was assessed for a couple hundred grand, that was listed for four point five million dollars um. To the extent that the housing market has seen its peak, how does that impact this economy and the FED and

consumers and all that. Well, you know, if there are lots of lots of corrections in housing that you know go unnoticed that people don't realize because you don't sell a house every year and and things like that, so you don't really check where your home price is, you know, like you look at your your stock portfolio, um, because you just don't roll it over as um. But you know, as long as that correction is modest, it's it's not a huge effect on the economy. It's when you have

something crippling like two eight that would become insignition. So Vince, I gotta ask as a macro strategist or as a trader, um, it's more important your forecast about what the FED is going to do then what you think the FED should do. Right, So if you think the pot the Fed should be pausing and waiting six months. They're clearly not going to do that. No, absolutely not. They are going to hike in September. I think the key question is is a

fifty or seventy five? Personally, I'd like to see them do fifty and send a positive message to the markets that you know, they're they're not. They don't have blinders on. They see that the data is slowing down and that you know, they can maybe take the foot off the gas going forward. I would love to see them, you know, but they're gonna laise in September. They basically set a period.

I would love to see them stop after that. I think they if the data continues soft and from the minute today to where we are today, the data is rolled over right now. If it rolls over again, I think maybe they stopped all right. Vincegnarella always good to chat with you. We try to get Vince on every week, get his perspective and spent decades on the street trading currencies, trading corporates. Uh, he kind of knows what's going on there. He still talks to the traders all the time, so

it gives us a good view of that market. Vince Signerella, a global macro strategist for Bloomberg News, famously phoning it in and proudly phoning it in red headline across the Bloomberg terminal, Blmot Sacks cuts China GDP forecast to three pc from three point three percent. Remember the days when it was just a layup to do six or seven MDP growth. You can't keep shutting down your economy every fifteen minutes. I mean that was was that nominal or

that that wasn't real GDP growth? Right? That was nominal when they were when they were posting those big numbers. But nonetheless, Um, this is important because they're supposed to do five right according to the Communist Party's forecast at least, so they're gonna miss that by a mile. And my question every time we have one of these negative stories out on China there was one, you know Monday was a really bad narrative as well, Um is how long does she jing ping last? Does he get his third term?

That's exactly right, And everybody, you know, we need to get Leland Millard trying to beige book on because he is my man on the ground or unemployment for kids unemployment there, Yeah, how do you get reelected? I don't We'll see. All right, let's bring our next guest. We'll keep it on the economic call. Jennifer Lee, senior economist and managing director for PIMO Capital Markets. Jennifer, we had a bunch of retail sales data today. I'm gonna call

it a little bit better and expected. We had some mixed numbers out of the retailers. It seems like they're cleaning up their inventory issues. As you look at the retail numbers across the board, what's it telling me about the consumer here? Well, good morning. I think the numbers are sort of telling us that we again we cannot

completely uh discount the American consumer ever. Um, you know, the headline was a bit disappointing obviously, but all of it was gas and maybe in a good way because gasoline prices are still below the four dollar per gallon level for the second week in a row, I believe. So, you know, obviously consumers are feeling the pain, you know, the pain afford or high inflation that's really hitting home.

But the positive influences there, like the gas prices, you know, is is definitely a good thing and it shows that consumers are still buying. There's still going out for lunch, there's still going out for a drink. You know, they're still buying more electronics and furniture, but just getting less bang for their book. We appreciate all of that, but are consumers starting to charge this stuff and and not pay off their balances? That's what Events was just telling us.

And I noticed the savings rate is now down to five um, you know, well below historical averages, which for Americans are already low. Right, So okay, so yes, I am definitely getting worried on the on the on the part of but charging a lot of their purchases. But that's saving rate. We really have to take it with

a grain of salt. You know. It's it's income versus spending, but it doesn't take ato account what your savings have been, like what you have stocked way and when you look at what Americans have um so far in their in their bank accounts, they're checkable deposits of currency. So they still have like over four um for four trillion dollars still stocked up in there, and a lot of this probably um you know, coming off that peak already because that's only for the first quarter, but that's still quit

a bit that stalked away. And you know, if I make and I bring like a personal UM example of that. UM, I definitely have a negative savings rate so far this year, Yes, and negative savings rate. And that's because you know, I did man to save my pennies during the pandemic and

I was working from home. And this year I have you know, I'm I'm spending all my kitchen rental, which is uh, you know, so I'm definitely spending a heck of a lot more than than then I'm you know, than than my I've always wondered the savings rate that we get from UM. It's the US personal savings rate as a percentage of disposable income. UM. I guess we get it from the b l S or some subero of Economic Analysis or yes, that's right, Burero of Economic Analysis. UM.

That doesn't count. For example, Paul has a giant walk in, say, filled with municipal bonds. That's not counted in his savings rate, right, even though those are legit savings. Right, It's like, you know, your house could be worth you know, a trillion dollars, but you know, that's not gonna be counted in your

saving rates. So it's it's you know, you have stuff, you have your ass It's it's like a balance sheet versus your income statement, right, so you know, it's it's very interesting obviously to look at the saving rate just to see what you know with the trenches, but it doesn't take him to account the full picture of the health of the U. S. Consumer. All right, Jennifer, we're sending Tom Keenan the Bloomberk surveillance team out to Jackson Hole.

What's the key question they should ask? You know what I will be I don't think Jackson Hole is as um market moving. I think, but like way back in the day during you know, for example, we're sending three anchors out there, plus a whole television crew. Let me whisper that. Um, you know, I mean I think he has said, you know, Feda Powell has has been very clear. I mean, as I've said before on your show, I've

given him, you know, an a in communications. You know what you're saying, they're moving expeditiously to bring inflation down there, it could be appropriate to slow the piece of increases, you know, Uh. Um, amester Can continues to say that she wants to see compelling evidence of a of a slow down instlation. You know, I don't know what more they could say, Um too, you know that's gonna be new to to to markets except you know, maybe how close they are, you know, But so that's what I

want to see, like for example, the minutes today. You know, um, it'll be interesting to see. You know, what will it take? You know, he did say this, it might be appropriate to slow the piece of increases at some point when we look at how policy is affecting the economy and inflicition. But you know exactly what it's gonna take. It is gonna take that nine point six percent dive in housing starts that we saw in July. You know it's going to take a heck of a lot more than that.

You know, we're you know, yes, last week was all you know, confliction chatter. You know, you know it's going to take a lot more than one last to get the FED to turn around. All right, good stuff, Jennifer Lee. Always appreciate getting your thoughts, your perspective. Jennifer Lee. She's a senior economist and managing director at BMO Capital markets. BIMO. That's the Bank of Montreal for those of us that remember that, that was always worth a trip up to

Montreal to see Bimo. I want to bring in one of my b f f's right now, one of my dear dear friends, Maria today. I used to be on Bloomberg TV, and she's left us for well, it's a hiatus. I think she's gone to Bloomberg opinion, Um for a while. We do these road atians every once in a while to give people experience a different areas, which I think is fantastic. But I miss her, sure, don't we all?

I'd really like her back. Um. She joins us right now to talk about, uh, the situation in Europe in general. I was gonna say a recent piece, but really she's been writing about this for weeks and weeks. Um. The situation in Germany is particularly problematic because um, of their reliance on Russian gas, and of course we all know what's happened there with Putin cutting down the UM pipeline flows to about I believe of what they once were. Maria, Uh, what's your focus right now? As we see not only

the problem in Germany but in France. The rivers are so warm they can't um run their nuclear plants at full and in the UK we have double digit inflation. Everywhere across Europe. It seems there is a crisis. Yeah, and Matt, I have a date. I know when I'm back in TV. I'm not gonna tell you because I want to keep it. I want to keep the expectation.

But I have. Yeah, it's set out and and the day you see me back in TV will be like, ah, now it makes sense, Um, But you know, to to answer your question, I think this week there has been some good news but a lot of bad news, and I guess our job is to try to figure out what's happening in between. The good news is that storage is better than expected. Remember the European Union said this

year you have to take it seriously. You have to fill up storage because it can make all the difference between having to ration or not going into recession or not. Germany had good news on Monday. There's se full. That's for gas. They're running two weeks ahead of schedules, so that means they're doing it faster. But the reasons for it, Matt, they're not good. It means that demand has dropped for a lot of consumers because we're concerned about the price

that coming the bills. Also for the industry, they worry about the implications and the costs of this. And then also you have the big industry, the big German industry that's trying very very fast to switch from gas to other fossil fruls, which you could argue is back through the planet too, but it's also expensive for them, So

this is coming at a cost. So in reality, with your face now is still the potential of Russia cutting off to place, but also the fact that now it is becoming clear that the bill for this will be very expensive. The question is who's going to pay for it. The Germans this week already said we have to let

that cost be paths through consumers. So that could lead to a very shaky social winter in Germany if people get furious about the fact that it's cold and they have to choose between don't want to fill out the car or buy more food. I mean, that's really a

scenario that we're facing. Well, and you have a story on O P I N Go on the Bloomberg terminal or Bloomberg dot com, slash opinion, um showing that this uh, this problem and the need for a real pality check goes so far past Um the German borders into France all the way to Spain and in the sort of northwest corner of Galifiaia. Where's that? It's well, in the northwest corner of Spain. Okay, Um, it's right right below Ovieto. You know, have you ever been to Ovieto? No, it's

amazing if you go down. The next major city is Vigo. Never been there? Madrid, dude, that's where the money is. We have a little summer place in Cando. I love it. But um, how are they dealing with this? And what are energy prices? And what's the crisis like in Spain? Yeah?

And you know the reason why I wrote about this, and this is a great thing about opinion is I do get to lash out in a way that is justifiable because on TV there's a number of things that I wish I could say, but of course, you know, as a reporter, you always have to pretend to sides to the story. Here right on opinion, where I have a little bit more freedom, and this is a story that to me, when I saw it, I just could

not believe it, and it made me furious. Um, we talked about this idea of a very tough winter for consumers for houses that really it could get very ugly for a lot of people. And of course, at times your privilege because you kind of go, oh, my bills are gonna go up, But for a lot of people

this is a life change in situation. So then I go on the Spanish TV, which I have still a habit of watching, and I see this mayor who says, well, nonetheless, we're still going ahead whether Christmas extravaganza, which means we're gonna do like huge Christmas lights. We want to arrival New York, and we should do it because Christmas is important and the war should not crush the holiday in

the Christmas spirit. And to me, the whiplash to the average person here is so big where you're telling them, yeah, this winter is going to be very tough, set money aside for your bills, and then you go, but hey, let me just plant a Christmas tree like nothing's changed

this winter. You know, you have to really change your tone here and the way that you prep people who what could be very very rough winter, and the sooner you do it, the better it is going to be, because otherwise the whiplash in no Member December could be huge. But also you could get a lot of people down the street seeing, well, you know, I don't want to pay my bills, or why should I listen to anything. Politicians tell me they didn't really anticipate any of this.

So I think it's time to get serious on this. I gotta I take issue with one, uh sentence in this story, Maria. You wrote that in Spain energy saving measures came into force last week, air conditioning will be said at twenty seven degrees celsius eighty and a half fahrenheit. Now, I have been to the Moto g P and head F. I've been to Alhambra twice. I met Zapatero in Madrid. I've gone to the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona. I'm going to next week. Woman from Spain, let's be

there is no air traditioning in Spain. This is my point. It's not it's not entirely true. You go to any shopping center you have it, but I think that uh, you know again, this this was another point that to me I just kind of went, guys, what are we making a big deal about a minimal This is a minor change. Plus it's it's it's Spain. I mean every summer it's like this. You get to forty five degrees. Since you're age twelve fifteen, your mom teaches you how

to deal with the heat. You know there's some much bigger story happening here. You know two degrees is not going to change your life. The fact that some of the windows stores are gonna go black from ten pm. In reality, I understand there may be concerns about this is not good for tourism, it's not good perhaps for safety. But on the other hand, we're being told this is exceptional. I mean, this is just a one winter. Get it done.

Let's trying to do it in a way that we all get the best of a really bad situation, and that, of course next year turn up the Christmas lights, blast year conditioning. I don't agree with it for the most part. You know, it doesn't have to be a freezer. But if that's what you want to do, that's great. But it needs to be obvious to people that this winter is exceptional. The sooner this message gets across, I think,

the better it will be. I love that the Spaniards are worried about turning off the lights in stores at ten pm? Is that a thing? Ten pm is dinner time in Spain. I know which I think it's it's life is still going on. That's that's the thing. And I do agree with people who say, well, you know, you go to a shopping center at tempt the amberish people out. You know those people are just paid, are leaving. So that is a third point. But I guess you know,

something's got to give and they've decided. Well, the temp the end, that's what we're gonna do, all right, Maria, thank you so much for joining us. We get the reporting on the ground in Europe like nobody like Maria can provide. Maria Today, Europe reporter for Bloomberg Opinion. I mean, I'm in bed at nine or ten. I can't even watch the end of the Yankee game. What would I do if I lived in Spain A plan? Imagine staying

up until ten? I mean, but they do. I mean, I've been there and it's boy, it's a great lifestyle for there, no question about it. And we appreciate getting the on the ground reporting from Maria Today. O. G. L. CEO, the Global Commodity Price Index. It's a great screen for all things commodities. I'm looking at that right now, and the number that jumps out of me is this Henry hubb Not gas up a hundred and forty year today.

What is up about that? I know they have an issue over there in Europe, in Europe, but what's going on here in States? Mike McLane, he does this commodity stuff for a living, purportedly from Miami, Florida, which is a scam in and of itself for Bloomberg Intelligence. Mike, what's going on with that gas here? You always start me out laughing ball, So I'll try to try to lead on that. The key thing is, like you mentioned,

so al, a European problem. And then number one thing to remember about USNADCAST is where the world's largest ellendy ellengy exporter. But we can't really export more than third keen percent of our total production. We're still a massive oversupplied market. Now. It's not showing up in prices up a hu this year, but the market's price for pretty extreme bad winter. It's price for doing everything we can to help out Europe. And the big issue is can

Europe get through the winter. And I think we're at the point now in natural gass is how much worse is going to get for prices? So the kee thing remember about that gas is a price on the screen right now. Nine is about three times the US cost of production, and there's an ocean of natural gas once they want to do it to bring it on. The lesson I've learned as every time prices go up they don't last long. The key thing is it's only August,

so typically they peak in January or December. So right now, which is the question how much we can get through this period before that supply comes back? Alright, So but you think, um, the supply is going to come back on for us in Europe, it's going to be a different story, right, So we're gonna have a real discrepancy in UH in the contract prices. Yeah, well certainly, I don't know how many excess it is now for European

allergy versus U s ban. But one thing that's really happening is there there pointing in lergy from all over the world. You know, the highest price wins. So they're gonna get plenty of nat gas for the winter. I mean, getting through this winter will be kind of that simple. I mean, when I was over there, everybody was talking about the need to build terminals in order to be able to import the l en G. And if you don't have those terminals built, you can't bring it in,

no matter how much you're willing to pay. It's definitely not that simple. But what was happening in the demand instruction, We're going to get a complete recession in that continent We're having. Demand is just going to collapse only because the prices, and then of course they're trying to cut back on on the use, and so it's the classic elast dissy is going to kick in. The question is, right now, how much higher does it go before it collapses? Um?

And from a U S standpoint, the key thing to remember about most broad indices like the Bloomberg, COMMANI Knicks and sm P g S I have U S nat gass in, which is a global benchmark. So there's a bit of a difference. But in Europe you're gonna get a full complete recession and energy as a key driver. Alright. So sticking with the energy play here, w t I Crude oil eighty seven dollars a barrel, certainly a long way from that one twenty we were at. Drop dropped

down to a six month low. What's your I mean you were pretty bearished. I think the last time we really talked w T I crude. You know, maybe it hit fifty dollars before it hits one fifty? What are you thinking? Still thinking that? But have to admit and sometimes you have to take the pain before the game. I was too early and wrong initially natural gas, I didn't think you'd get I'm sorry, and crude, I didn't think you can get this high. But there's a key

lesson in Crewe oil. It spiked at the highest velocity ever on a hundred week moving average basis. It's very some of their golf, and it's probably going to do the same where it's going to make a high that will might last for fourteen years like it did last time and drop. So I see crudel first stop is really getting back to seventy five, which is changed on the that's just simply following copper and cotton and cotton and wheat and things like that. But the key thing

is what happens after that. I think it's unlikely stags above one. What does that mean? Global recession? Seventy five normal reversion. But if you really go back to the average prices two thousand fourteen where it's when it really collapsed, it's around fifty bucks. I gotta ask you about stable coins. Something we talked about a lot, and that the most

traded cryptocurrencies is UM. You often remind us there is a lot of talk about legislation that's going to force UM, operators of Tether and USDC and other stable coins to actually show what they're what they're holding to back up these one to one U s dollar stable coins. Do you think they can do that? I mean does is there enough actual collateral to back up Tether? Oh? Yeah?

Well Tether has been controversial, but the key thing remember tether to day right now it's six and seven billion dollars, So you think the people that tether have sixty seven billion dollars in like bearer bonds. I need to point out the facts about tether, Matt. The lesson I've learned is every time think people push back on it, it keeps going higher in market. Captain, though it's peaked a

little bit, but USDC is pretty solid. The key thing is the New York Attorney General came down in Tether and they do have to file quarterly reports and they've had to for a well to be audited. So the key thing is also we remember why is Tether on the top despite the fact I've been hearing the same thing for almost five years, but we still haven't seen real transparency. Though it's revolutionary technology does something the whole

world wants, it gives well. The key thing is people keep saying that, but if the hiding anything, that money is going to U S d C. And it's then going to a dozen other Tether wannabes. And that's the key point is tokenization of assets is unstoppable. The dollars number one, what's next? Maybe treasuries, stock, It's just the

better technology. I just feel like, you know, money markets, they have to show you what they're holding, right, I would love to know exactly what they're holding, and it's gonna probably get The key point I like to point out about Tether is despite all these discrepancies and issues, it's still winning on the global stage. The point is because the technology is overwhelming for people to get access

to the book. Most Americans who are used to kind of you know, for Americans our currencies like water is to a fish, but not for the rest of the world. I think of China that yuan looks like it's ready to collapse. Yields in to your yields in China collapsing versus US two yields. All right, Mike, awesome stuff as always a lot of it. I don't understand, but I know Matt though, So that's all we need here. Mike mclogan,

senior commodity strategist for Bloomberg and Intelligence. He used to do orange juice and pork bellis, now he does bitcoin. We've been parching through a lot of retail sales data this week, including today's macro data. We also had lots of the big box retailers reporting some numbers, generally some pretty good outlooks onto the consumer that goes to the labor market, which has been pretty pretty solid with record low unemployment, wage growth a little bit north of five percent.

Let's dig deep into the details of this labor market. We can do that today with Ian Segel. He's a CEO and co founder of zip Recruiter New York stock exchange stock z I P as a ticker. You can enter into your Bloomberg Professional terminal to get all the stuff you need there. Ian, thanks so much for joining us here. I love from your perspective. You kind of see the big picture here. The labor market looks darn good. What are your thoughts as to how this might develop

going forward? Yeah, well, we certainly had a labor market at call of me that was barreling along all the way through Q two. It's a big part of the reason why the recruiter was able to beat them both top and bottom line. Again, however, when you look at the last two weeks of the quarter, you saw the beginning for the first time and basically a year and a half of a reduction in the number of open jobs. And when you ask yourself, why is that happening, Well,

look at the unemployment number. Suddenly we're down to three and a half percent unemployment. The twenty million people who lost their jobs during COVID have all managed to find work or they've left the workforce, And so you find the employers find themselves in a situation where for every open job that was posted, um, there was basically less than a candidate available who was actively looking for work.

And so employers are now adjusting and they're changing their strategy and rather than continuing to fruitlessly recruit, they're trying to figure out how to do more with what they have. And what that means for the labor market is there's going to be less open jobs, so that for the jobs that are open, there's going to be increased competition

going forward. Well, and especially in tech, right, I mean, um, it seems to me just from reading the stories every day, that tech is having a much bigger problem than everybody else in terms of headcount that's too high. You're seeing reductions or at least hiring freezes on the West Coast that you aren't seeing out here. Yeah, I mean, there's some really interesting headlines that I think potentially are confusing the issues somewhat of who's slowing down hiring the most.

Because yes, tech has definitely both made headlines with hiring freezes and even staff reductions, which is novel for tech. However, when you look at the overall labor market, what you see is that SMBs have slowed down hiring a lot faster than enterprises have, and there still is pretty substantial hiring amongst larger companies and that's that's even reflected in the Zippercritter numbers. And if you look at Q two large businesses, the percentage of our revenue that comes from

these large businesses screw six percent in the quarters. So there's still aggressively hiring. But smaller businesses are definitely definitely starting to scratch their heads and try to figure out a new way to deal with the dearth of talent that's available for the jobs they had posted, and a lot of them are are actually engaging with their current workforces.

You're seeing a lot of really novel perks and it's everything from more flexible schedules to mental health benefits that previously, um, we're unheard of. So you are seeing employers adapt, you are seeing a slowdown in the labor market. But let's be clear, there's still ten million open jobs in America. Pre COVID, when we thought we were at peak employment, there were six million open jobs. So this is still

a froththy, frofthy market for job seekers. And my advice to job seekers out there is, look, this is peak leverage for you. This is the moment that if you were thinking about changing jobs, trying to get a new situation trying to make more money. There will never be a better labor market probably in your life. It's time to go get a better situation than right now. Where should be? Where should people search? Yeah, exactly, Well, I definitely think ZIP recruiters the way to go there you

go transitions. Yeah, well, the the you know, the really the big change that's happening in the world of recruiting is if you look at people who have been hired in two thousand and twenty two, thirty seven percent of them were recruited to their current position, and you contrast that was two years ago, it was only eight So employers have adapted, they've they've gravitated to tools but allow them to proactively reach out to people before they've actually

applied to their jobs to try and induce them to apply. This is one of the key differentiating features of ZIP recruder actually, and to put this into a sense of scale for you, employers invited more than a million candidates to directly apply to their jobs. They recruited over a million people last quarters, and those are the employers who had the most success hiring. So that's a big change in the labor market. Employers are going to go first.

But we do see still some big job cut headlines, right Google, Um is apparently telling employees this quarters numbers better be good, or layoffs are coming. Apple Late laying off recruiters, companies, smaller companies like Peloton or hoot suite, you know, firing eight or six hundred people UM, Microsoft slowing hiring in some groups, Shopify laying off ten percent of its workforce, Rivian is cutting its workforce, robin Hood reducing head count UM, even Walmart laying off hundreds of

corporate workers. So this seems to me like it's a brewing story. I mean, there's definitely a looming recession. We I there's a lot of discussion about the variety of factors that are impacting the economy, and that definitely has a fallover effect into the labor market. But I would also say this is a byproduct of the post covid UH work reality, which is that the majority of corporate jobs that can be done remotely are doing either partial

or fully remote work. And that's creating a novel challenge for the managers of those businesses, because how do you keep the productivity high when you have such a large workforce. It's just human nature that some percentage of your workforce is not going to contribute at the same level they

did previously. And so when you look at the stories about Google and you look at the stories about Apple, I mean those in particular are talking about effectively the output per employee and they're trying to get their arms around it. And I think what you're seeing right now is a reset where these large companies who aren't getting as much done as they want to, are scratching their heads and trying to say, like, how are we going to create accountability when people are not face to face

with each other. And I don't think this is, for the record, a widespread problem. There's multiple economists who are doing research on it, this guy named Nick bloom Over at Stanford. Basically, the on average, employers are getting a half hour more work out of employees because those employees are saving seventy minutes a day in commuting and interestingly

enough grooming, they're giving a half hour more to their employers. However, uh there is a cohort of employees who are either what's called soft quitting or are dialing it down, and probably in the work life balance equation UH over balancing to life, and so I think what you're seeing is a logical refract. Work life balance is a term that Paul doesn't recognize exactly. That's not how I was raised.

All right, Ian, thank you so much in single CEO and co founder of Zip Recruiter talking to us about the labor market today. Still tight from Siegel's perspective. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Markets podcast. You can subscribe and listen to interviews of Apple Podcasts or whatever podcast platform you prefer. I'm Matt Miller. I'm on Twitter at Matt Miller nineteen seventy three and on false Sweeney I'm

on Twitter at p T Sweeney. Before the podcast. You can always catch us worldwide at Bloomberg Radio.