Michael Burry's Worrying Recession Warning (The White-Collar Crisis Begins)

So we all know the story up to this point. Those cushy buy-anything and double-your-money days are well and truly over. Inflation is high, interest rates are rising, the consumer has less to spend, corporate profits are under pressure, and big corporations are already looking to cut back their workforces.

If you followed the channel at all over the past little while, you'll be very aware that Michael Barry has predicted basically all of it up until now. In fact, just recently, he took a victory lap on Twitter, saying, "I showed up here in 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic. I then predicted inflation on COVID's end and warned on the effects on kids of shutdowns. In 2021, I warned of the all things bubble." For those that just like to say that Barry is a broken clock permabear, he adds a little line to the end of that saying, "He doesn't recall calling eight of the past ten recessions."

It's true that he has been remarkably spot on with his economic predictions over the past couple of years, which has now got a lot of suit and ties very worried. The reason being, he's recently predicted a white-collar-led recession in the United States. Back in June, Michael Barry first started tweeting about this white-collar recession, saying, "I see a bifurcated labor market developing as unskilled and semi-skilled remain in short supply, but white-collar workers having proven their redundancy during COVID will find gross excess in the labor market, pressuring wages."

At the time, he used Tesla as the go-to example as, after Elon Musk revealed he had a super bad feeling about the economy, Tesla announced they would be cutting 10 percent of their workforce. But on further questioning, it was in fact revealed that 10 of salaried workers would be losing their positions, and in fact, they expected to grow their blue-collar manufacturing workforce significantly over time. Tesla is reducing the salary workforce for roughly 10 percent; we expect to grow our own hourly workforce. But we grew very fast on the salaried side and we grew a little too fast in some areas, and so it requires a reduction in salaried workforce.

This is an interesting dynamic that also seemed to stay true throughout the rest of the market. The street notes the taken crypto sectors, which often employ white-collar workers, have recently announced waves of job cuts. Shopify, Coinbase, Crypto.com, Robinhood have recently announced layoffs. Social media giant Meta Platforms and Alphabet, parent company of Google and YouTube, are expected to cut jobs in the coming months. Microsoft has also eliminated many open jobs, a spokesperson told the street in July.

Now, while it's true that those crypto-based businesses have been laying off stuff more because of the obliteration of the crypto space over 2022, it’s still interesting that so far, a lot of white-collar businesses have announced layoffs, whereas blue-collar businesses don't seem to be struggling as much. The list doesn't stop at the businesses mentioned in the article; there are a ton more companies that have also announced layoffs to white-collar staff: Netflix, Credit Suisse, Ford, Rivian, Twitter, Peloton, Unilever, the list goes on.

And while I'm certainly no expert, I think there is a very logical explanation as to why this might be occurring, and it has to do with the inflation we're currently seeing. Because if we look at our basic inflation equation, the inflation over the past 12 months has been from both demand rising, as central banks have handed citizens a lot of freshly printed money, plus the overcorrection of demand after the global lockdowns in 2020 and 21.

But equally, inflation has roared in the past 12 months because the supply side has really struggled. Even a few videos back, we discussed how China is still really struggling with ongoing lockdowns, which is disrupting manufacturing across the country. The country that is responsible for literally a third of the world's manufacturing. You certainly don't have to be an economic expert to see that the world's supply chain is still a bit of a mess. You've probably found out yourself over the past year sometimes that the wait times on products that you want to buy have been crazy long.

But who's responsible for getting the supply back up and functioning again? Blue-collar workers. So in my opinion, looking at our current inflation equation actually provides the explanation as to why a vast majority of blue-collar workers will be safer during the downturn of the next few years. The reality is we're still in a situation where we need more production; we need increased manufacturing to restore the supply chain. Hence, blue-collar workers are in high demand.

On the other hand, though, I think a lot of white-collar workers will be on the complete opposite end of the spectrum. The reason being, as companies battled through the lockdowns of 2020 and 2021, many businesses found ways around relying on white-collar workers, whether it be through simplifying processes or finding software that can replace some roles, or just realizing that the absence or reduced output of some workers didn't actually change their businesses all that much.

So I tend to agree with Michael Barry's opinion on this one, but I do need to stress that this is obviously just a broad generalization, and it definitely won't hold true in all cases. I'm sure even in the comments section, we'll have copious examples of blue-collar workers that are being laid off and white-collar workers that are in high demand. For example, I'd hazard a guess that white-collar workers to do with healthcare policy or disease prevention or global logistics are now in very high demand.

But on the flip side, you could argue that if we see a painful recession over the next few years, well, I'm sure a lot of blue-collar home builder jobs will be lost. That example makes sense, right? But it obviously paints the exact opposite picture. But generally speaking, Michael Barry sees white-collar jobs as vulnerable, a lot more so than blue-collar jobs. He's really doubled down on his opinion recently, too. Just last week, he tweeted, "The white-collar employment bubble is bursting right before our eyes, and the longer it takes the redundancy to disappear, the more permanent the decline in employment will be."

Working from home, in time, will be seen as a culprit. It's worth mentioning too that Michael Barry isn't the only one that sees a white-collar-led recession on the horizon. Actually, very recently, William Lee, Chief Economist at the Milken Institute, was interviewed by MarketWatch on exactly this topic. He said, "It will be mostly a white-collar recession, and the blue-collar recession will not be in the same place that we saw in the past. The Joe six pack, which is an average working-class American who used to be the first guy to be laid off, can be less concerned if he has one of these jobs that is in high demand like the Amazon warehouse worker, the delivery guy, or the guy who's working in the ghost kitchen."

So Lee agrees with Barry's thesis on blue-collar jobs. On the other end of the discussion, he also believes that white-collar workers will be the first ones to be laid off, saying, "The entry-level white-collar guy is going to have to watch out. That's going to be the surprise in this downturn."

The article even goes on to note similar reasoning to what we're discussing before, saying that many of these jobs have been replaced by apps and new technology, or alternatively businesses simply don't have a need for certain lower-wage white-collar workers anymore. And you can bet that as the Federal Reserve continues to raise rates, these trends in the labor market will become a lot more evident. The more interest rates rise, the tighter the clamps get on businesses, and the more they look to cut costs.

Remember, despite the current employment situation actually looking pretty rosy with employers adding 315,000 jobs in August, Jerome Powell has repeatedly stated that he thinks the labor market is simply too hot at the moment, and he won't hesitate to raise rates further, even if we start to see the unemployment rate rise. The labor market continues to be out of balance, with demand for workers substantially exceeding the supply of available workers.

The overarching focus of the committee is getting inflation back down to two percent. To accomplish that, we think we'll need to do two things in particular: to achieve a period of growth below trend and also some softening in labor market conditions to foster a better balance between demand and supply in the labor market.

But with all that said, what does it mean for us investors? What do we take out of it all? Well, honestly, not that much. I mean, it can be a bit of a sign that your business is feeling the pinch if you see they are reducing their workforce. But then again, some companies just do it preemptively as well. For example, Google does not need to cut employees to save money; they have plenty of cash. But they might just do it anyway at a time like this.

However, I do think just as a general, if you see your favorite company all of a sudden reducing headcount substantially, I definitely think it is worth revisiting exactly what their costs are versus what their income is and why they need to take such action. However, ultimately, for Warren Buffett-style investors, hopefully, this should all just be a moot point. Because what we're really looking for in the first place are companies that run on high operating margins, aka they're very scalable; they don't require a huge workforce to see big financial results.

There's no better way to stay relaxed during a recession than if your company has no debt but also naturally has very low costs or, even better, low costs and pricing power. If your company ever has any issues with costs or for some reason their profits were sapped up by an unforeseen circumstance, they can simply lean on their moat and raise prices to the end customer.

And that is a really critical piece of the puzzle more generally to ensure your business can withstand the ups and downs of the economy: ensuring that they have pricing power. But overall, that is Michael Barry's prediction that a white-collar employment crisis could be around the corner.

In recent weeks, he’s also doubled down on his market predictions, saying that "No, we have not hit the bottom yet," and recently adding that, "If you're asking what I think about the market, I told you many times over the last year." So we'll definitely have to watch this space to see if his winning streak continues.

But guys, that will just about do us for today's video. Thanks very much for watching, and thanks to Sharesight for sponsoring this video. If you want four months free on a really good portfolio tracking website, definitely check out the link in the description. You can track your trades, your capital gains, your dividends, importantly your currency fluctuations, and obviously a lot more. You can also get over 12 different ports to make tax time super, super easy. So if you're interested in that, check out the link in the description below. Thank you very much Sharesight for sponsoring. Thank you guys for watching. Like, subscribe if you enjoyed, and with that said, I'll see you guys in the next video.