I don't think they're a symptom or a cause. Just indicators the economy may not be doing well.

> Even unemployment, which is your top line, seems... fine

My lines were in no particular order. The issue with unemployment data is it counts gig workers as "employed." What doesn't add up is that there are fewer job openings, mass layoffs, and rising long-term unemployment (people who can't find work past 6 months).

> I just don't understand where the squeeze is coming from.

Nobody really knows. It's hard to model the economy and identify cause and effect. But likely candidates are low competition, businesses with coercive leverage on pricing/pay since buyers and workers have no alternatives. Essentials like housing, health, and food have skyrocketed, and we haven't scaled them as demand grew. Companies have abandoned stakeholders, they only care about shareholders. They're squeezing record profits, sustained because buyers are supplementing with gig work, have all adults working, are taking on more debt (and there are more ways to get credit than before), or are abandoning their savings (YOLO).

> Undoubtedly they are laying people off, especially in tech. But the symptoms you list don't explain it to me.

My list wasn't about layoffs, just signals the economy may be doing poorly. One reason for layoffs is companies believe the economy is at risk. They're avoiding hyper-growth and cutting fat. In tech specifically, I think a lot of it is undoing the mess of Covid, such as ventures that didn't profit, hiring before knowing what to use people for, workers distributed across too many places. Even if one part is growing, redistributing is hard. Easier to lay off and rehire where needed. There's probably some offshoring too. But in general, cost-cutting happens when companies feel they need to be conservative.