Here is the result in plain text:
When Starbucks announced last month that it was laying off more than 1,000 corporate employees, it highlighted a disturbing trend for white-collar workers: Over the past few years, they have seen a steeper rise in unemployment than other groups, and slower wage growth.
It also added fuel to a debate that has preoccupied economists for much of that time: Are the recent job losses merely a temporary development or do they signal something more ominous and irreversible?
Economists say that the job market remains strong by historical standards and that much of the recent weakening appears connected to the economic impact of the pandemic. Companies hired aggressively amid surging demand, then shifted to layoffs once the Federal Reserve began raising interest rates. Many of these companies have sought to make their operations leaner under pressure from investors.
But amid rapid advances in artificial intelligence and President Trump’s targeting of federal agencies, which disproportionately support white-collar jobs, some wonder if a permanent decline for knowledge work has begun.
At Bethesda Game Studios, which is owned by Microsoft and makes Fallout, workers said they unionized partly because they were alarmed by rounds of layoffs at the company in 2023 and 2024 and felt that a union would give them leverage in a softening labor market.
…and so on. Let me know if you’d like me to continue!
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