When Starbucks Announced He was putting more than 1,000 employees from a company, he highlighted a disturbing trend for white collar workers: During the past few years, they have seen a sharp rise in unemployment from other groups, and The slower wages growth.
He also added fuel to a discussion of the economists all the time: Are the last job losses just a temporary development? Or does it indicate something more fateful and irreversible?
After sitting less than 4 percent for more than two years, the total unemployment rate topped the threshold since May.
Economists say that the labor market is still strong with historical standards and that many of the last weakness seem related to the economic impact of the epidemic. Companies that were appointed strongly amid the increasing demand, and then turned into the demobilization of workers as soon as the federal reserve began raising interest rates. Many of these companies have sought to make their operations more strict than investors.
But amid rapid progress in artificial intelligence and the targeting of President Trump to federal agencies, which supports non -sponsored white jobs, some wonder whether there is a permanent decline in knowledge work.
“We are witnessing a meaningful transition in the way in the world of white collars,” said Karl Tannnnbum, chief economist at Northern Trust. “I tell people that a wave is coming.”
To date, a few industries have embodied the transformation of the past few years better than making video games, which It started a boom in 2020 The Americans associated with the sofa also sought new forms of home entertainment. The industry was hired strongly before reversing the path and attempted in a period of demobilization. Thousands of video game workers lost last year and the previous year.
The size of a job loss was like a host Game developers selection awardsExhibition of Annual Awards, complained about “registration workers” during its opening monologues in 2024. In the same year, the direction of unions that started through low -wage quality guarantee laboratories on workers who support the best such as games producers, designers and engineers in companies that make successful games He falls and The world of boxes.
In Bethesda Game Studios, owned by Microsoft and Make Fallout, workers said they are partially saved because they were concerned about tours of the company’s demobilization in the company in 2023 and 2024 and felt that the union would give them the leverage in the diverse labor market.
“This was the first time that Betisda has experienced the demobilization of workers in a very long time,” said Taylor and Ning, a studio producer, who has a master’s degree in interactive entertainment. “This kind of fear of many people.” Microsoft rejected the comment.
Unemployment in Related financing and industriesAlthough it is still low, it increased by about a quarter of 2022 to 2024, as high interest rates slowed the demand for real estate loans and pursuing companies until they become smaller. on Profit call Last summer, the CEO of Wells Fargo pointed out that the company’s “efficiency initiatives” had raised the company’s labor force for 16 consecutive quarterly, including a reduction in about 50 percent of workers in the company’s home lending department since 2023.
Last fall, Wells Fargo delivered about a quarter of the 45 employees of the behavior management management team, which reviews the company’s bad behavior against customers and employees. Heather Rolf, A lawyer who has been left said that she believes that the company is seeking to save money by reducing the American labor force, and that she and her colleagues are an attractive goal because they recently sought the union.
“I think it was great for them to get rid of two birds with one stone.” Some of her former work colleagues say they are eagerly awaiting every Tuesday after the day of payment, because this when the company tends to inform workers to reduce jobs. “We feel that at any moment we can get rid of,” he said, he said Aden Davis, Another team worker.
A spokesman for Wales Vargo said in a statement that the demobilization of workers has nothing to do with the union and that “we review and control employment levels regularly to comply with the market conditions.” He pointed out that two of the team managers lost their jobs.
“Many companies were seeking to simulate the Amazon model to build multi -functional teams that reduce barriers between different experienced workers, such as coding and marketing. In this process, they may discover repetition and lay off workers.
In a note announced Demobilization In Starbucks last month, Brian Nicole, CEO, Cited From “removing layers and duplication and creating a smaller and smarter difference.” Nissan presented the logical basis similar to the cutting of the administration Declare This month.
In general, the latest data from the Federal Reserve in New York Display The unemployment rate for university graduates has increased by 30 percent since it came out in September 2022 (to 2.6 percent of 2 percent), compared to about 18 percent for all workers (to 4 percent of 3.4 percent). An analysis conducted by Julia Pollac, chief economist in Ziprecruiter, explains that unemployment was very high among those with a bachelor’s degree or some college but there is no degree, while unemployment was fixed or falls at the top and lower education ladder – for those who hold advanced scientific degrees or without high school diploma.
Employment rates slowed in jobs that require more university degree than other jobs, According to ADP researchWhich is studying the labor market.
Some economists say these trends may be short -term in nature and the little cause of anxiety on its own. Lawrence Katz, an economist of the Harvard Labor Party, pointed out that the rise in unemployment for educated workers in the college was only modestly greater than the increase in unemployment in general, and that unemployment for both groups remained low due to historical measures.
Professor Katz has argued that slow wages for workers in the top layer can simply reflect an effective opponent before these workers in exchange for the ability to work from home. Data from the Institute of Liberal Economic Policy He explains that workers ’wages in the seventy -eighty centenary of income distribution have grown more slowly than those in any other group since 2019.
But there are other signs that the revenues on a university degree have turned over a longer period. The gap in wages between those who have a university degree and those who have no one I grow steadily Starting in 1980, but it has been settled over the past 15 years, although it is still high.
Flotity may partially reflect the fact that there are more educated workers in the college for employers to choose from, while increasing the college presence. But some economists Argue It reflects The needs of employers For university graduates – for example, less functions such as holding notebooks as information technology have become more advanced. Such jobs do not necessarily require a university degree, but they were often attractive to graduates because they paid them relatively high wages.
Artificial intelligence can reduce the need for more automation of white collar functions. accident Academic paper It was found that the developers of the program who used the artificial intelligence coding assistant improve a major productivity measure of more than 25 percent, and that productivity gains appear greater than among the least experienced developers. The result indicates that the adoption of artificial intelligence can reduce the premium of the most experienced programmers, as it will erode the advantages of productivity on beginners.
Mert Demirer, an economist of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who was a co -author of the paper, said in an interview that the software developer function can change in the long term, so that the human programmer has become a kind of project manager supervising multiple AI’s assistants. In this case, wages can rise as a person has become more productive. It may end up expanding the scope of work between programmers if cheaper programs increase demand.
However, at least in the short term, many executives and their investors seem to see artificial intelligence To reduce their employees. A software engineer at a large technical company, who refused to call him fear of hurting the horizons of his job, said that his team was about half of the size that was last year and that he and his colleagues are expected to do almost the same as the work by relying on AI’s assistant. Generally, and Unemployment In technology and relevant industries jumped in more than half from 2022 to 2024, to 4.4 percent of 2.9 percent.
Then, Mr. Trump’s attempts to reshape the federal government, which has so far led to job losses and freezing employment for Federal employees And employees in universities and other non -profit organizations that depend on government financing. Johns Hopkins University, which relies heavily on funding for federal research, Declare This month, this month was expelling 2000 workers around the world as a result of Mr. Trump’s discounts.
Professor Katz of Harvard University indicated that a larger part of the college’s educated workers depends on the federal government for their jobs from other groups, whether directly or by financing non -profit organizations. “What seems to be a great contraction in science and research, on education, by the government – is likely to have a very big impact,” he said.
He added: “The total unemployment rate for university graduates does not seem especially high.” “But it may be in the next six months.”
