This is Scott Becker with the Becker Private Equity and Business Podcast. Our first story today is what I'll call the job market softens, the labor market softens. And here are a couple of quick stats. First, in November, there were the most layoffs that we've seen in the couple of years, 45,000 layoffs. In fact, layoffs are trending at twice the pace of last year in 2023 through November. So layoffs are way up. The second is there are low job openings than there's been in the last couple of years down to 8.7 million, which still seems like a high number. But when you look at a country of 330 million people, 8.7 million is not so many. And this compares to 11-13 million not very long ago. Third is this year we'll see the lowest amount of new hiring since 2015. What does this all mean? This all means if you lose your job, it's a little scarier. If you're trying to find job, it's a little harder. It also means that the Fed gets quicker and quicker to stop raising interest rates and also gets to a spot where at some point, there's different predictions of when we'll start to lower rates the Fed funds rate next year.

That's what this all means, the labor market softening. What I think I saw this morning, and I think this is a sign of the times when you start to see this, is an article on what to do when you're laid off. And this was an article in Business Insider. But again, I view this as a sign of the times that when people start to think about, and more and more articles are written about what happens when you get laid off. And there's an article in Business Insider with the exact title. I'm a former Microsoft VP of HR. Here's what I would do in the first 48 hours of being laid off from my job. This is from Chris Williams just published today. Again, thank you for listening. Big story today, labor market softening, and that's going to lead to more and more stress on the Fed not to raise rates further to fight inflation. Thanks for listening to the Becker Private Equity Podcast.