Ghost jobs, time wasters, unemployment, etc.
Right... as if scarcity is some sort of social construct that can be abolished by "drumming up some public support"? Maybe we should start small and start with energy scarcity, by "drumming up" some support for cold fusion?
Naww, must be someone else’s fault.
The data is lagging, usually by a full year. The policies that lead to that data are from the year before data collection, at a minimum, more likely two+ years.
Economic policies generally take time to ripple through the economy. Generally. There are exceptions. Interest rates tend to affect things pretty quickly relative to other changes.
* Tariffs and Trade Uncertainty – Elevated tariffs and rapidly shifting trade policies are raising costs for manufacturers and discouraging hiring and investment (Investopedia; Atlanta Fed survey; CBO analyses).
* Automation and AI Displacement – Automation and AI, especially in low-skill occupations, are reducing new job creation and wages for some workers (academic studies in arXiv and PMC).
* Restrictive Immigration Policies – Tightened immigration and visa processes are straining labor supply, particularly in sectors that rely on immigrant workers (Axios, 2025 labor coverage).
* Small Business Strain from Economic Pressure – Tariff-related uncertainty is leading small businesses to slow hiring or lay off employees (Joint Economic Committee report, 2025).
* Offshoring and Outsourcing Trends – Technological advances are enabling offshoring and automation, substituting domestic labor with remote or machine-based alternatives (academic research in World Development, 2024).
I can’t even get myself to read what you “wrote” because of the LLM tinge though lol.
Hey I review and use LLM code slop as much as the next programmer, and I use it for lots of topics too, but I am not spending a second on reviewing LLM slop output on HN comments. Honestly it’s somewhat insulting that you expect me to.
Major policy or hiring gets slowed down during the election year, especially surrounding the voting month. Maybe that pace never picked up due to tariffs and other policy uncertainty?
Technically, there is no decline in jobs. There were more jobs as of March 2025 than a year before. Less than reported earlier, but the overall number of jobs is still growing.
Correct [1].
I like how this is always framed as strained supply instead of upward pressure on wages, as if increasing wages is simply impossible and only supply matters. Then people look at graphs like this[1] and wonder: "What the heck is going on?"
> Trump ordered McEntarfer's removal on August 1 after data showed a surprise weakening in the U.S. labor market last month. The BLS employment report revealed meaningful revisions to job figures for the prior two months that raised investor worries that the Federal Reserve may need to play catch-up with interest rate cuts.
https://www.reuters.com/business/inflation-data-draw-scrutin...
> Today, the BLS released the largest downward revision on record proving that President Trump was right: Biden’s economy was a disaster and the BLS is broken.
> The benchmark revisions make clear the economy President Trump inherited was even weaker than we thought.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/2025/09/bls-revisions-sh...
gnabgib•5h ago