01-09-2017, 12:55 AM
Unemployment is a lagging indicator in an economic downturn and subsequent recovery. It takes time for companies to realize that their sales volumes are falling, and in the first few weeks of an economic downturn, companies are likely to have the optimism of the boom in which nobody wants to be caught with inadequate inventories or inadequate potential for service. It takes time for businesses to recognize the need to do lay-offs; they would rather cut back on hours (which results in lesser pay but not in people being unemployed) or rely upon normal attrition. On the other side, as things start to improve, businesses generally see any uptick as a fluke until it is sustained. Businesses may prefer to lengthen hours even to the extent of authorizing overtime before hiring new workers or bringing back laid-off workers.
Businesses can rarely know when an economic downturn or an economic upswing begins until after the fact. t
Businesses can rarely know when an economic downturn or an economic upswing begins until after the fact. t
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.