by Brian Shilhavy
Editor, Health Impact News

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce published statistics last week that show there are 3 million fewer Americans working today than there were in February of 2020, before the “pandemic.”

They reported that the latest data shows that we have over 10 million job openings in the U.S.—but only 5.7 million unemployed workers.

They also reported that the labor force participation rate is 62.6% today, down from 63.3% in February 2020. That means there are 1.8 million missing workers today.*

What happened to all these missing workers?

The Chamber of Commerce admits that “there’s not just one reason that workers are sitting out, but several factors have come together to cause the ongoing shortage.”

However, one of those reasons they did not consider or report about, were deaths and disabilities due to the Operation Warp Speed mass vaccination program of COVID-19 shots that began at the end of 2020, and were widely mandated as a condition for employment throughout 2021.

Edward Dowd and his Phinance Technologies has supplied that data for us, which I reported on last week. Dowd’s data shows that deaths and disabilities skyrocketed as the experimental COVID shots were injected into Americans. See:

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce surveyed unemployed Americans in 2021 and 2022 to find out why they had not returned to the workforce. Only one third of those surveyed stated that they wanted to return to work full time, and almost half of those surveyed stated that they would not return to work unless they could work from home.

Why?

According to their survey, the top two reasons given were they were too ill to return to work, or that they needed to stay home to take care of children or others in their family.

Over a quarter (28%) of respondents say they’ve been ill, and their health has taken priority over them looking for work. Additionally, 27% say the need to be home and care for children or others has made it difficult or impossible to search for full time employment. (Source.)

If there are so many jobs available, why are we seeing record layoffs?

Another report that was published last week was The Challenger Report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc.

Their report stated that U.S.-based employers announced 89,703 job cuts in March, up 15% from the 77,770 announced in February, and an increase of 319% from the 21,387 cuts announced in the same month in 2022.

The report stated that there were 270,416 total job cuts in the first quarter of 2023, a 396% increase from the 55,696 cuts announced in the first quarter of 2022.

“We know companies are approaching 2023 with caution, though the economy is still creating jobs. With rate hikes continuing and companies’ reigning in costs, the large-scale layoffs we are seeing will likely continue,” said Andrew Challenger, Senior Vice President of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. (Source.)

How can this be? How can there be record job cuts during the same time period we are seeing more job listings than those unemployed?

I think the main answer here is by looking at the sector of the U.S. economy that is laying off the most workers: Technology.

This is a topic I have reported on frequently since last year: The Big Tech Crash that started in 2022. The economy has not seen this many layoffs in the technology sector since the dot.com crash of 2001-2002.

Indeed, Technology companies have announced 102,391 cuts so far this year, up 38,487% from the 267 cuts the sector announced in the first quarter of 2022.

It is already up 5% from the annual total of 97,171 in 2022. It is on pace to surpass the highest annual total for the sector announced in 2001.

The only years during which Tech announced more job cuts than the current year are in 2001, when 168,395 cuts were announced, and 2002, when 131,294 Tech cuts were recorded. (Source.)

The Technology sector has created an economic bubble that today is much larger than the tech bubble that crashed in 2001-2002.

[…]

Via https://healthimpactnews.com/2023/u-s-chamber-of-commerce-3-million-fewer-americans-are-working-today-compared-to-february-2020/

*[Ed note] After studying the Chamber of Commerce data, I assume the discrepancy (between 1.8 and 3 million) relates to 1.2 million people taking early retirement.