Re-Session Confirmed? US Government Jobs Tank to Lowest Since 2020 as Big Tech Keeps Cutting

The US job market is flashing warning signs that would make even the most bullish macro trader flinch harder than someone who bought the dip in 2021. According to The Kobeissi Letter, government job openings dropped 51,000 in February to 701,000—the second-lowest reading since December 2020.

Available government vacancies have fallen a staggering 524,000 since their 2022 peak, now sitting at pre-pandemic levels. Federal government openings specifically fell to 89,000, the second-lowest since the pandemic low, putting us right in line with 2017-2018 readings. For context, that's roughly the population of a mid-sized crypto Discord server, gone.

"Government hiring is frozen," The Kobeissi Letter noted. The government hiring rate now stands at 1.4%, matching the lows of 2016-2017 and marking one of the lowest levels since mid-2020. Imagine the government is just like that one DeFi protocol that promised "temporary" yield farming incentives back in 2020—except instead of APY dropping, it's your career prospects.

Meanwhile, the private sector continues to hemorrhage jobs. Oracle reportedly cut up to 30,000 employees on March 31. Amazon trimmed 16,000 corporate roles in January, and Block eliminated over 4,000 positions. These were just a few of the many companies joining the layoff parade. Call it the PoW massacre—Proof of Workforce reduction.

Consumer sentiment data suggests the pain isn't over. The Conference Board's March survey shows only 27.3% of consumers describing jobs as "plentiful"—up slightly from 26.7% in February but well below the roughly 55% who felt that way in 2022. That's basically going from "bull market euphoria" to "trying to sell your NFTs on a Sunday" levels of optimism.

Simultaneously, 21.5% said jobs were "hard to find," up from approximately 10% over the same period. The labor market differential—the gap between these two readings—has collapsed