The Economy of the Pandemic is in Trouble

As we enter the Second Wave of the pandemic, our worst economic fears might be realized. Weaker-than-expected job creation in September kindled concerns about the health of the economic recovery. The W & K-shaped recovery in 2021 could be pretty dire as significant layoffs keep occurring and at least 4 million U.S jobs are never coming back.

For a business network, LinkedIn has preciously little economic news or data to share for the business community or CEOs. Coronavirus infection rates in the New York City area continue to soar far above other parts of the state, as cities like Montreal and Toronto are also seeing a rapid rise, and subsequent shutdowns of the economic sector and consumers appear inevitable.

The economic data at the start of October, 2020 are not good. The report is a potential early flare from the business community that a rebound during which 11 million jobs were refilled in four months could be petering out. This great recovery appears to be a myth of politicians and the elite. Tech companies like Microsoft, Google and Amazon have a vested interest is pretending like the economy is great, as these companies have done great during this period of economic crisis for the working-class majority. Censorship by the technocracy is occurring for a reason and it's not just antitrust abuse.

Six states reached record high Covid-19 hospitalizations — based on a weekly average to smooth out the reporting as November and December look to be grim months for how Covid-19 moves from GenZ and young Millennials to GenX and Boomers. This will translate into economic hardship and many more small business bankruptcies and an accelerated retail apocalypse.

Female professionals are abandoning the workplace at record levels due to multiple demands. While others are losing their steam at work due to pandemic fatigue and a decline in their mental health. The economy is not okay, and it's time we are more honest about the actual economic data, instead of pretending everything is 'business as usual'. The mental health of workers is clearly suffering and economic projections on the post-pandemic economy are clouded.

 U.S. employment growth slowed more than expected in September and over 300,000 Americans lost their jobs permanently. This is before the 2nd Wave has fully even hit. The burden of parenting and running a household while also working a job during the pandemic has created a pressure cooker environment in many households, and women are bearing the brunt of it. The U.S. election appears to be more than anything a referendum on the Pandemic and the economic recovery.

The news last week shows that the so-called recovery is dipping in the W-shaped forecast. The Labor Department’s closely watched employment report on Friday underscored an urgent need for additional fiscal stimulus to aid the economy’s recovery from a recession triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Just in September, 865,000 women over 20 dropped out of the American workforce compared with 216,000 men in the same age group, the Labor Department reported Friday.

The U.S. labor force may not recover for years and some of GenZ will drop out of the Middle Class, likely forever. But we aren't hearing these stories. My LinkedIn feed is filled with mostly Ads and male professionals who keep saying the same things. It's like LinkedIn is immune to what's really occurring. Meanwhile growing coronavirus outbreaks across the American West and Midwest have started to take an alarming turn as some states report growing Covid-19 hospitalizations and a shrinking supply of beds for patients. 

“Economic scarring is likely to become more apparent in Q4,” said Seema Shah, chief strategist at Principal Global Investors. The U.S's failure with the pandemic will likely mean China will catch up economically to the U.S. faster than previously projected. China alleges positive GDP forecasts for 2020.

Millennial Moms are taking the hit during Covid-19. the Labor Department finds that married mothers do almost double the amount of household chores and parenting as married fathers. Just over half of the 22.2 million jobs lost during the pandemic have been recouped. Many of those are likely to be lost again. This means that when all is said and done up to 10 million jobs in North America could be lost due to the pandemic. No amount of stimulus will bring those back!

Investors will be watching the path of Covid-19 and the stimulus negotiations in Washington to determine the economy’s fate. But the Fed's interference has benefited the top 1%, while giving the rest false hope. The unemployment rate fell to 7.9% from 8.4% in August, the Labor Department said Friday. However this outdated statistic will only rise due to the Second Wave. The truth is that many young people are dropping out of the labor force in North America, many are under-employed and many women see no path forward for equality in the workforce.

There's no making America great again given the Second Wave anytime soon. We know that corporate debt is rising and innovation are falling behind during the pandemic. The jobs report is the last before a Nov. 3 presidential election that could serve as a referendum on President Trump’s handling of the pandemic and its economic fallout. The U.S. elite profited from the pandemic and this governed its handling of the infection spread. The ugly truth is capitalism has been hacked. Biden also has irrevocable and irreconcilable Chinese ties.

The second V of the W-shaped recovery will be worse. Nonfarm payrolls increased by 661,000 jobs last month, the smallest gain since the jobs recovery started in May, after advancing 1.489 million in August. Every sector added jobs with the exception of government, which shed 216,000 positions because of the departure of temporary workers hired for the Census and layoffs at state and local government education departments as many school districts shift to online learning. But 2021 won't be as positive as some economists have projected.

As the stock market surged in the Spring it gave investors, GenX and Millennials the illusion of a recovery. But the reality is that women, GenZ, small business owners and enprneurship will be set back a decade. Millennials have thus had to go through 2 major economic crisis in their lifetime, and the oldest of them are just now entering their 40s. That's not an economic climate that will make America great again, any time soon.

Can we try to be honest on LinkedIn? What is the point of a business network if we don't talk about what's actually going on in the small-business, restaurant, retail, corporate and consumer world? This censorship of reality is disturbing and points to a management of LinkedIn that is profit instead of truth orientated. Let's be honest about the pandemic and report on our world the way it actually is also telling the stories of business heartbreak. LinkedIn algorithm has significant positivity-bias, creating an artificial and meaningless environment.

The problem, economists say, is that the pace of recovery is slowing. The sum total impact of the pandemic is likely to mean less equality, a churning of jobs that will never return, a speed-up of automation and E-commerce and a resulting democracy and capitalism that is further manipulated by fewer corporations and people.

The big job gains over the summer were the result of furloughed workers coming back to their jobs when local economies reopened. As new shutdowns will come into place, and with less support, workers are going to have a hard time. But don't expect to see these stories online much, don't expect algorithms, editors and tech product people to care about giving a balanced view of the business world.

Several major corporations announced huge layoffs in recent days:

• 28,000 at Disney.
• 3,600 at Ralph Lauren. 
• 3,800 at Allstate insurance.
• 2,000 at Marathon Petroleum.
• 31,000 at American Airlines and United Airlines combined.

Who is next? The continued unemployment crisis, compounded by massive layoffs, could have serious economic consequences even for those Americans fortunate enough to remain employed. Silicon Valley is stacked with rich companies that can resist layoffs at a time when most other companies aren't so lucky.

We’re at an inflection point, even among the half of the people who got their jobs back, many of those will lose them again in the months ahead. Even as travel, hospitality and the energy industry —are now adjusting to a new normal, retail, the service-sector, finance & banking and the startup sector fail to understand what the new normal even is.