Power Reads: 5 Interesting Articles That Will Help You This Week

Each week, I select a few articles that rise above the fray and hopefully help you on your journey in leadership and the CRE world. They pull from one of four "corners": corporate real estate, technology, management science and anything positive. Each day we can become a better version of ourselves.

1. Welcome to the Full-Employment Recession

Is the U.S. economy in a recession? Real gross domestic product contracted at an annual rate of 1.6% in the first quarter of 2022, according to a recent estimate by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta estimates that the economy contracted by a seasonally adjusted 1.2% in the second quarter. If those estimates turn out to be correct, the U.S. economy will have contracted for two consecutive quarters, the technical definition of a recession.

“This recession—if that’s what it is—isn’t like other recessions. According to the latest employment report issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the economy added 372,000 new jobs in June, with the unemployment rate remaining stable at 3.6%. Over the past 12 months, according to the same report, average hourly earnings increased by 5.1%, another sign of a tight labor market. What explains a full-employment recession? The answer lies in long-term developments in the U.S. labor force.”

The economy grew by 5.7% in 2021, the largest annual gain since the 1980s, with an addition of some 6.1 million new jobs. But those gains were in the form of bounce-backs from unprecedented losses in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic. The economy contracted by 3.4% in 2020 and some nine million jobs disappeared. When the GDP changes from 2020 and 2021 are combined and averaged, the annual growth rate over these two years comes in at just above 2%, very close to the 2.3% rate in 2019, before the Covid lockdowns began.

2. Tech Workers Long Got What They Wanted. That’s Over.

Tech workers used to asking for the moon are starting to hear an unfamiliar word as startups and giants such as Google and Microsoft MSFT 1.04%▲ get more cautious: No.

“For much of the pandemic, tech companies big and small went on hiring sprees where would-be employees could name their price and expect rich, work-from-anywhere perks. Now, as fears of a recession loom, more employers are scaling back or freezing hiring, rethinking how many of their positions should be remote and in some cases even rescinding job offers.”

Microsoft Corp. this week said it would lay off a small percentage of its staff, following earlier layoffs at Netflix, Coinbase Global Inc. COIN 0.69%▲ and Twitter Inc. Alphabet Inc.-owned Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai also told employees this week the company would slow the pace of hiring for the rest of the year. And the head of engineering at Meta Platforms Inc., parent of Facebook, told his managers to identify and report low-performing employees to manage them out.

3. A new challenge for employers: Growing anxiety for workers

If Google searches are any indication, workers are getting increasingly nervous about what a recession might mean for them.

“Searches for “Will I lose my job in a recession?” are up 9,900% compared to a year ago, while searches for “What to do when you get laid off?” are up 336% over the last 12 months, according to data from Lemon.io, a marketplace of vetted software developers.”

While anecdotal in nature, the search patterns show heightened anxiety among workers despite a still-robust job market and predictions from economists that a potential recession might not be accompanied by the same broad-based layoffs as past downturns.

4. Nobody wants to be in the office on Fridays

Haley LaFloure picked up a couple dozen doughnuts on the way to work. She forgot it was Friday.

“The surprise she’d planned for her colleagues turned out to be on her: The office was empty. Everyone else at the St. Louis investment firm where she works had decided to close out the week from home, which meant LaFloure was stuck at her desk with enough sugary fried dough to last her a month.”

“I don’t even like doughnuts,” the 25-year-old said. “I sat down and was like, ‘What am I going to do with these?’”. As white-collar workers across the country settle into hybrid work routines, one thing is becoming clear: Nobody wants to be in the office on Fridays.

5. The Trouble With Zooming Forever

If, as it is said to be not unlikely in the near future—the principle of sight is applied to the telephone as well as that of sound, earth will be in truth a paradise, and distance will lose its enchantment by being abolished altogether,” the British author Arthur Mee wrote in 1898.

“So, fellow Zoomers, how do you like paradise? It turns out that in nirvana, the customary greeting is “I think you’re on mute” and your colleagues may or may not be wearing pants.”

Zoom and related technologies were necessary during the COVID-19 shutdowns. At a time when more than 40 percent of the U.S. labor force was working full-time from home, videoconferencing arguably saved the economy from much worse collapse. Even as workplaces have opened back up, these technologies have allowed some workers to increase their productivity and given businesspeople options if they want to avoid the appalling state of commercial air travel.

Your success blesses others. I wish you a great and hugely impactful week!