"The UK Labor Market Is Sending A MASSIVE Warning to the World"

Jobs in the United Kingdom got hammered

in November and then again in December

and as lackluster and as dim as the

Christmas shopping season turned out to

have been in the United States it was

far worse in the UK now many are blaming

the British government and its

introduction of a payroll tax but that

won't be effective until April what

we're seeing in the labor market in the

United Kingdom is the same thing that

we're seeing all over the world in

addition to the United States Switzer

for example the place which kicked off

the current Global great cutting cycle

that got started on worries about

exactly what's unfolding now the Swiss

National Bank had been warning that

Global weakness could harm the Swiss

economy and here it comes not only is

Switzerland facing the possibility of

negative consumer prices that

possibility is being accompanied by the

highest unemployment rate since the

middle of

20121 Sweden's unemployment rate outside

of 2020 is the highest that country has

seen

since the third quarter of

2010 there was a sharp spike in South

Korean joblessness in December no

surprise given the political

disintegration yet that turmoil also

stems from growing problems in the South

Korean economy as the global AI bubble

cools off Canada Japan even places like

New Zealand economists and Central

Bankers same thing have said that this

is all just normalization after a period

of red hot economic growth but as I've

repeatedly shown there has been nothing

normal about the economics of the past

few years that so-called RedHot growth

was a nominal price illusion one that is

being exposed for what it is because

labor market conditions all over the

world even in places you wouldn't expect

unemployment continues to rise well past

any point of

normalization the British labor market

is perhaps the best example of

everything that we've been talking about

what I talked about in the video over

the weekend not normalization and

economy that doesn't look like recession

but one that certainly seems to have

forgotten how to grow and if the economy

can't grow it can't generate jobs and at

some point many businesses are going to

look around and say we've got too many

workers well the British economy seems

to have gone past that point as has so

many others around the world more than

you would think and in some places as I

said you might not

expect starting with the British what

the British government reported just

this month is that payrolls in the month

of December fell by nearly 50,000 which

is a lot for the British economy and

that came after falling by 32,000 in

November but it wasn't just November and

December as I said the the British

government announced a payroll tax hike

in late October that would be that will

become effective in April so it wasn't

the announcement of the tax hike that

did it because British payrolls had been

negative even before then there was a

positive in October but over the last

five months August through December

British payrolls have dropped by nearly

880,000

combined the unemployment rate in the UK

which had risen to 4.4% earlier in

2024 after a short summer reprieve where

it backed down to 4.1% it's right back

to 4.4% all over again and looking to go

a lot higher on top of the growing labor

market troubles in the UK now we see

consumer spending that backed off a

tremendous amount in the holiday

shopping SE The crucial holiday shopping

season according to Bloomberg UK retail

sales posted a surprise fall around last

month's crucial Christmas period in a

fresh setback for the labor government's

hopes of Reviving economic growth the

volume of goods sold in stores and

online dropped 310 of a percent in

December this is volume following a

1/10th of a percent gain in November

that was revised down from 210 of a

percent economists were expecting a 4/10

of a percent increase for last month so

it's a major Miss in a major part of the

calendar from a an expected 4/10 of per

increase in volume to minus 3/10 of a

percent so a huge shift in consumer

spending in December in the UK which

raises a number of questions what is

actually going on

there it's the same story that we see

everywhere continuing cautious spending

Define the festive season slowing

momentum in retail said Nicholas found

who's the head of commercial content at

retail economics scars from the cost of

living crisis saw fragile consumer

confidence persist in December as

Shoppers adapt to higher prices

prioritizing value during the Christmas

season and it's the same thing that we

see every year loss purchasing power but

it's also combined with this

deterioration in the labor market that's

where fragile confidence is coming from

consumers know that they lost purchasing

power during the pandemic the supply

shock the price delusion it was

inflation and with the labor market

increasingly weak they know they're not

going to get it back plus now they have

to worry about are they going to lose

their job are they going to lose their

hours are they going to have the same

incomes there's lack of opportunity to

go to someplace new a whole host of

problems that is combining into the mess

that we saw in December but that's not

what the media says in instead the media

adds these figures add to anecdotal

evidence of a disappointing Christmas

season for retails more than

disappointing so despite growing real

incomes households are in a cautious

mood amid warnings of an inflation

Resurgence and expectations of slower

declines in borrowing costs that's what

you hear in the mainstream media because

it comes from Central bankers and

economists when survey after survey

shows that consumers are not afraid of

resurgence in consumer prices whether

they call it inflation or not that's not

what they're focused on they're focused

on labor market jobs and incomes but

they also have to throw in there the

fact that the bank Bank of England is

taking a more cautious approach to

lowering interest rates as if lower

interest rates or the speed at which the

Central Bank undertakes them is going to

make a big difference in the spending

patterns of consumers there's a big

conceit there and by the way one that I

covered in the Ural University's Deep

dive and else including the M the March

1991 fomc meeting and what what happened

during it the FED had been hiding for

years the truth they lied repeatedly in

fact in that March 199 91 meeting the

Federal Reserve itself admitted

officials at the fed and the fomc

admitted that they were lying to the

public about what it is the Fed actually

was and what it was up to what it's been

doing for 17 years as I went over in

that DDA the FED had hidden transcripts

of these meetings or recordings of these

meetings because they didn't want the

public to know the Fed was being

transformed into something it didn't

think it wanted to be so ever since then

the Federal Reserve like any other

Central Bank has been targeting interest

rates and selling the public that

interest rates are the most important

variable in everything everywhere so

like I said that's at our Ural

University Deep dive analysis and

there's a lot to the story uncovering

the truth behind the Federal Reserve and

what really happened in its

transformation from the 70s 80s into the

90s to get to where we are today where

everyone believes the FED controls

interest rates and that interest rates

are the only thing that matters in this

passage from this this news article

another another piece of evidence

showing that for the mainstream any

anyway it's always about interest rates

it's always about central banks when

back in 1991 the FED said we're lying to

the public about all of this but that's

euro dollar University's Deep dive

analysis check out the subscriptions at

our website Euro dollar. University but

it's not just the UK like I said this is

a this is a phenomenon that's that's all

around the world we can see it all

around the world another really good

example I've talked about many times

Germany Germany because it's maybe one

of the most weak economies that there is

in the Western World the of the of all

the developed economy certainly that's

the case the unemployment rate there has

risen to 6.1% where it's been each the

last three months as unemployment slowly

Rises month after month in

Germany that 6.1% is actually very near

the official 2020 highs and outside of

2020 it's the worst since July of 2016

so Germany you know that one that's

where we see labor market deterioration

one of the best examples of that along

with the

UK but even in France Europe's second

largest economy we've got a sharp rise

in joblessness September October and

November November is the latest data

that we have and like Britain the

unemployment rate in France had dipped

in the middle part of that year although

closer to the second quarter in the

spring but ever since the second quarter

jobless claims have risen and the

unemployment rate is rising and it's

likely to rise a lot more in the fourth

quarter of 2024 as well heading into

2025 on the wrong foot the same as we we

see in Germany and and the

UK but Switzerland Switzerland may be a

surprise to many people because it

thought of as a safe and steady economy

but the truth is the Swiss economy is

highly heavily dependent on global

forces and Global factors in fact the

Swiss National Bank ever since March of

last year when it kicked off the rate

cutting cycle among central banks it

repeatedly cited Global factors for its

decisions now that they the latest

update for December when they cut by 50

basis point shocking everyone they came

out with a forecast that showed their

prediction for consumer price rates in

20 late 2024 and into 2025 were in

comfortably close to zero and the only

reason they didn't cut it they didn't

show it at zero or maybe even negative

prices was because of that 50 basis

point rate cut in December because

Central Bank models like all

econometrics immediately assume that

rate cuts are going to be effective and

therefore that will help keep consumer

prices on the plus side of zero when in

reality the economy is increasingly weak

which is the reason why consumer prices

are threatening to go negative in the

first place we see that in in

unemployment unemployment in Switzerland

began to rise in the middle of 2023 like

a whole lot of places including the

United States it went from a low of 1.9%

to 2 and a half% by January of 2024 then

we got a seasonal dip in Switzerland

first part of 20 first part of last year

before it then jumped to 2.8% % by the

end of last year so that was more than a

half a point a half a percentage point

above December

2023 and so the argument about

normalization doesn't really fly here

because the unemployment rate is low as

it is it's still relatively low but it

is higher than both December of 2018 and

December of 2019 and it's really not

that far off of December of 2017 so the

labor market in Switzerland because of

global economic factors and the global

economic downturn has gone beyond what

would be what would be reasonably called

normalization and has now risen to

increasingly uncomfortable even from the

Swiss National bank's perspective

dangerous levels that's why the Swiss

National Bank aggressively cut rates to

end last year because it's starting to

see more clearly the downside in the

Swiss economy as it's being driven by

these Global negative factors the Dutch

Netherlands the unemployment rate there

is moderately Rising it's kind of

consistent around the 3.7% level at

least for now and it really does look

like normalization so you could use the

Netherlands as a case for normalization

but the Dutch the Dutch labor market is

one of the few and one of the one of the

only ones that it looks like things are

relatively stable there on the other

side of that there's the Italian labor

market that's one of the few examples of

the really few examples where the

unemployment rate continues to drop and

in Italy the unemployment rate has

already hit record lows and and keeps

going into further record lows every

month every month of the data comes out

but what we're seeing in Italy in the

Netherlands those are the exceptions far

more often we're find what we see in the

UK or Germany or France or Sweden

Swedish unemployment rate exploded to

8.4% in the third quarter of 2024 that's

up from 7% at the low in the second

quarter of 2022 which coincides

with this Global recession or the global

economy that just stopped it just forgot

how to grow it may not look like a

global recession as I said in that

previous video but it is every bit of

one including how it's creating these

the these problems the losses in

employment throughout the jobs markets

around the world 8.4% for Sweden that's

miles above the 28 lows of 6.4% you're

talking about two full percentage points

so that's not normalization and I said

in the introduction here 8.4% is the

highest since the third quarter of 2010

now that's outside of the 2020 pandemic

but

88.4% highest since

2010 so there's another example of an

economy that's experiencing a lot worse

than just strictly normalization in fact

the Swedish Central Bank the Ricks bank

one of the oldest in the world has

admitted that the Swedish economy is in

substantial

trouble Canada's another one where the

unemployment rate has risen

uncomfortably High we already know about

the Bank of Canada and the reason we

focus a lot on Canada because there's

High degree of correlation between

what's happening in the Canadian economy

and the United States economy is

uncomfortable as that may make people as

unemployment Rises more noticeably in

Canada we should expect similar s a

similar Trend to develop and continue to

develop in the US Labor Market but the

Canadians had two solid payroll reports

sort of like the US in November and

December which allowed the unemployment

rate to dip from 6.8% which was the

highest since 2016 down to

6.7% but that like the United States the

Canadians still have a participation

problem in fact a major participation

problem which means the real

unemployment rate is far higher than

even the 6.7 or 6.8% that were reported

over the last couple months New Zealand

New Zealand's economy that's really

struggling for a couple big reasons

really big damage during the pandemic

period severe lock downs but also

because New Zealand is highly dependent

upon what's happening in China they're

very China adjacent and the unemployment

rate was down around 3.2% at its low in

the third quarter of 2022 there's

another one we keep coming back to the

same timing and by the third quarter of

2023 the unemployment rate in New

Zealand was up to 3.9% and as of the

latest data the third quarter of

2024 it shot up to 4.8% and once again

that 4.8 8% is well above the

201829 level so once again we see it's

not normalization after a RedHot economy

in 21 and 22 instead the economy stopped

growing in 22 and 23 and while it

doesn't look like a recession at least

what most people imagine of a recession

we're getting all of the consequences

anyway because even if you just going

along sideways in terms of GDP or

anything else sideways for a prolonged

period of time time is every bit of a

recession and a contraction and the

longer a period of time that you're

stuck going sideways the worse it

actually gets especially in terms of the

labor market because companies realize

they don't see any upside they look at

their payrolls and think we've got way

too many given that we were expecting

things to pick up and it doesn't appear

like they're going to so Rising

unemployment is all of these businesses

around the world throwing in the towel

on the idea of an economy that was

either red hot or sustainably hitting

some some long run potential that's just

going to continue on into the Future No

Matter What form the unemployment rate

and what path it's following in whatever

place around the world it's the same

thing in MO most of these places it's

not normalization it's the downside to

the supply shock and what that means as

far as the labor market and the economy

well here's what I said over the weekend

in that previous

video so what really happened well these

were pandemic distortions we had

basically governments come in and

undertake the least productive means of

redistribution that you could possibly

imagine governments literally paying

people for absolutely nothing

governments giving out what they called

loans certainly in the US the PPP which

were which ended up being grants or

gifts again for doing literally nothing

you had a price shock that benefited the

least productive parts of the global

economy at the expense of the most

productive Parts demand ruction and

don't forget how much damage the

lockdowns themselves did especially to

smaller businesses that disappeared and

never came back it created an artificial

high and Central bankers and politicians

since then are in denial that it didn't

lead to the sustained longrun recovery

that they were all promised and that

they promised the public that's where

you get the political angle in all of

this they're in denial saying in

realizing and admitting it didn't

actually work and that's what this

process is it's a transition from that

Distortion to a more stable equilibrium

when that more stable equilibrium as we

see in German GDP or the US Labor Market

data is much less than it was supposed

to be it's much less than we need it to

be it is not a recovery it's a stopped

recovery and this straight line sideways

this unusual pattern whether it's a

recession or not it doesn't matter

because it's happening and there is no

sign it is going to stop

so companies all over the world back

during the early emergence from the

pandemic and lockdowns they hired for

the economy they thought they were

getting they started to ramp up hiring

because it was difficult to get

employees plus everyone was telling them

these good times or what looked to be

good times under the price illusion

they're going to last forever you're

going to need employees and then over

the the next couple years all of these

businesses they they kept getting

disappointed by the economy some

benefited some some were successful but

by and large most of them were waiting

and waiting and waiting for this RedHot

economy to show itself and be sustained

moving forward instead disappointment

after disappointment after

disappointment has led businesses all

over the place to start throwing in the

towel on hires that they didn't really

need to make and that they've been

holding onto and hoarding for the last

couple years waiting and waiting for the

full recovery to finally show up only to

realize over the last couple years that

it's not going to show up that it was

not a red hot sustainable recovery it

was all or mostly an artificial illusion

distortions harmful distortions that

we're now having to pay for and by we we

mean regular consumers who lost a

tremendous amount of purchasing power

and now the real downside to all of this

having lost that purchasing power now

they're also losing their job

the world didn't forget how to grow it's

a recession that just doesn't look like

one any of us has ever seen before went

over