April layoff showers bring what for May?

Walmart, Deloitte and Meta. These three companies are big, but they are among those whose payrolls got smaller in April.

Dozens of well-known companies have announced tens of thousands of layoffs this year as they, especially technology firms, readjust to today’s economic reality after beefing up their workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Amazon, Boeing and Carvana. Disney and Dell. Alphabet and Zoom. The list of companies announcing and executing job cuts continues growing yet the number of people filing for unemployment benefits for the first time remains low. That may be explained by the newly unemployed using severance before turning to unemployment insurance.

Still, the job market is losing momentum. The number of people collecting ongoing unemployment benefits in early April was at the highest level since November 2021.

The latest monthly jobs data will be released Friday in the week ahead. The April report will come just days after the Federal Reserve meets to discuss interest rates and is widely expected to raise borrowing rates by another quarter of one percent. The central bank’s sharp hikes over the past year to fight inflation have not yet resulted in a rising unemployment rate.

Striking the balance between tempering inflation while not stoking unemployment is increasingly difficult for the Fed. High-profile bank failures and the subsequent credit tightening by banks further challenge the policymakers. Add the federal government’s debt limit showdown and the economic storms continue gathering.

But investor confidence remains fairly bright. The S&P 500 is up 6 percent this year. The NASDAQ, home to many of those tech companies announcing big layoffs, is up twice that. Stock investors are signaling their conviction that the Federal Reserve is just about done raising its target short-term interest rate and is likely to start cutting that rate in the fall. The bond market is predicting the first rate cut in September, according to the CME’s FedWatch Tool. Though, that projection can change directions as fast as a weather vane during a spring thunderstorm.

The stock market is forecasting better times ahead even as the Fed struggles to steer the economy through some deteriorating conditions.

Financial journalist Tom Hudson is chief content officer at WAMU public radio station in Washington, D.C.