Think Big Tech’s thousands of layoffs indicate a coming recession? Think again

Amazon is laying off more than 18,000 workers. Salesforce is shedding 8,000, and Twitter has let go thousands more.

While we should never minimize the difficulties of people facing an unexpected layoff, these announcements by major tech companies are not a large-scale tragedy for the American economy. What would be very bad news is if we saw a marked slowing of the economy, leading to far more layoffs by large and small businesses in a wide variety of sectors.

While job loss can be traumatic for workers, especially from long-held jobs, the reality is that these large-scale layoffs in tech are just a tiny blip in the U.S. labor market, with its 160 million workers. In a strong labor market, like the one we’re in currently, close to 1.4 million workers are fired or laid off from their jobs in an average month. Another 4 million leave their jobs voluntarily. With more than 6 million workers getting hired each month, most of those who lose their jobs can count on relatively short spells of unemployment.