“It will be mostly a white-collar recession. And the blue-collar recession will not be in the same places that we saw in the past.” That was William Lee, chief economist at the Milken Institute, a Santa Barbara, Calif.-based think tank, in an interview with MarketWatch, speculating on the nature of America’s next recession.
Amid rising expectations among economists of a recession — commonly defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth — Lee said there’s still a demand for blue-collar workers in service and manufacturing, which will help protect those workers if a recession hits. Even with a low unemployment rate of 3.6%, lower-income workers are always vulnerable in any economic downturn, but adding to comments he made on Bloomberg Radio earlier this week, Lee said there may be exceptions to that rule this time around.
“‘The Joe Six Pack, who used to be the first guy to be laid off, can be less concerned if he has one of these jobs that are in high demand, like the Amazon warehouse worker, delivery guy, the guy who’s working in the ghost kitchen.’”
— William Lee, Milken Institute chief economist
“The Joe Six Pack, who used to be the first guy to be laid off, can be less concerned if he has one of these jobs that are in high demand, like the Amazon warehouse worker, …