Our 'Rolling Recession' Is the Latest Economic Meme — But What Does It Actually Mean?We may not be in for a "hard" or "soft" landing.

When theeconomytakes a turn for the worse, we generally consider the landing "hard" or "soft" — in other words, we expect a quick catastrophe with millions of jobs lost or a gradual slowdown asinflationstalls.

But neither of those scenarios quite captures what's going on in the U.S. today. Instead, we're in what some people are calling a "rolling recession," a hybrid of sorts where industries contract on an alternating basis and thejob marketremains steady,Bloombergreported.

Related:Are We Headed for a Recession? It's Complicated.

Despitemass tech layoffsdominating headlines since the end of last year, the job market as a whole has held firm with low unemployment and relatively fast-rising wages, perCNBC. What's more, 517,000 jobs were added in January alone, according to a report from theU.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

虽然“滚动衰退”可能不解释ll of the economic ups and downs, it tracks with the pattern of various industry contractions.

Housingwas first amid rapidly rising interest rates; manufacturing followed as demands for goods shrank and services grew; and now tech, which saw more than 97,000 job cuts since the end of 2022, is taking the hit, perBloomberg.

Related:Worried About a Recession? Do This to Prepare Your Company.

But this isn't the first time we've been in a "rolling recession." Veteran financial market analyst Ed Yardeni told the outlet he remembers using the term in the mid-1980s during a collapse in energy prices and turmoil in commercial real estate, and 2016 saw another soft patch as well.