The media has been all over the issue that conventional statistics don’t show the economy as bad but many people think that it is.
My take what's bad about the current economy isn't business it's real estate particularly rents.
The national unemployment was 1.5% in August. The tech sector was %7.0?. The tech sector has hiring freezes starting in late October thru to March. August is the peak hiring, and the tech sector unemployment was 7%, 4.6x the national average, and keep in mind unemployment statistics only account for a rolling window of about 18 weeks give or take.
By March, that unemployment rate for tech will likely be well above 10% of the entire sector. This is unprecedented, and the downturn started in 2022 (outside that 18 week window), jobs have not increased in that time.
Subjective measures from insiders have quite a large number of tech workers describing the vast majority of their professional networks as being out of work, roughly 70% of my network is currently unemployed, and I've a few thousand people, having worked in IT for a decade in important roles.
Its wrong to claim something that is unupported/false when all external and objective signs show a serious problem. Doing this resorts to magical thinking, and delusion; definitionally.