"Buried in May’s Jobs Data: Virus’ Impact Spread Further to White-Collar Workers"

Preceding June 10's "Bond King Jeff Gundlach Is Predicting White Collar Layoffs" was this piece by Matthew C. Klein writing at Barron's, June 9

May’s jobs report was an unexpectedly pleasant surprise for millions of lower-paid workers (and dentists), but it confirmed that the economic impact of the coronavirus has .

Of the jobs added in May, 2.6 million came from a handful of sectors accounting for less than a third of pre-crisis employment: construction, dentists’ offices, personal services such as barbers, retail, and, most importantly, restaurants. The rest of the economy continued to lose jobs or saw no growth. The biggest losses were at local governments, followed by passenger transportation, and media.

This shouldn’t be a surprise. The government has failed to contain the economic impact of the virus, which means that it spread quickly from businesses where consumers would have risked infection—such as physical retailers, doctors’ offices, restaurants, hotels, and airplanes—to everyone else. First, consumers cut their spending at immediately affected businesses. Deprived of revenues, those businesses were then forced to shed workers and cut their own spending on everything from online advertising to legal advice.

Laid-off workers then cut their spending on everything from clothes to cars at the same time as businesses as diverse as tech companies, news publishers, and law firms started experiencing their own revenue squeeze, repeating the entire process. Meanwhile, state and local governments had to deal with a collapsing tax base, which meant cutting infrastructure investment and firing more workers. Everyone in society is linked one way or another.

Even though many industries and occupations may have seemed immune to the disruptions caused by the virus, the result of these links has been lower employment and incomes across almost all sectors of the U.S. economy. There were 19.5 million fewer Americans on nonfarm payrolls in May than in February. That includes 1.5 million fewer teachers, 1 million fewer health-care workers (excluding dentists), and almost 1 million fewer workers in tech, media, real estate, and professional services.

Across the white-collar workforce as a whole, there have been almost 4 million jobs lost since February. That 7% decline is unprecedented, since health care and education jobs used to be recession-proof.....

....MUCH MORE

Among dozens of visits with Mr. Klein during his time at FT Alphaville:
Questions Americans Are Asking: What Size Are Matthew Klein's Shoes?

Investment Banks As Marxist Paradise 
I think I could learn to like this young Matthew Klein fellow....

Ooh, ooh: Matthew Klein on New York Fed Head Calling For More Cashout Refi

Expanding on and contextualizing Monday's "New York Fed Chief Dudley Has An Idea — Homeowners Should Tap Into Equity".

In Which FT Alphaville's Matthew Klein Flexes His Clickbait Muscles

Aaarrrggghhh: I Can't Get Matthew Klein's Song Out Of My Head
Leaving the office after posting "Pray For FT Alphaville's Matthew Klein" I found myself humming Jingle Bells à la Klein:

Rolling down the curve
With my Eurodollar strips
Making tons of money
‘til the Fed hikes 50 bps!

...MORE

"The long history of dodgy art 'investing'" 

We had two other art posts in the queue but this one is better than those.
Matthew Klein writing at FT Alphaville:...

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