while the economy added a betterthanexpected 311000 jobs in february credit and debitcard data from bank of america shows people kept on spending at a strong clip during the month consumers’ willingness to spend is closely tied to their employment situation and a person who’s out of work or worried about their job prospects are obviously more likely to cut back on their spending so what’s going on the february jobs report on friday comes after a major 504000 addition to payrolls in january revised back from 517000 jobs and that’s even with the steady drumbeat of more tech sector layoffs some observers wonder how much longer the labor market can keep it up but if consumer spending habits offer any clue data from the bank of america institute might suggest there’s still room to go compared to a year ago consumer credit and debitcard spending in february increased 27 year over year that’s down from january’s 51 yearoveryear growth in spending but the bank of america institute researchers said the numbers suggest consumer pending is still holding up there is strain like signs that lowerincome households have been relying more on their savings researchers said still “the strength of the labor market has allowed us consumers to largely ride through inflationary pressures” “strong labor markets” are boosting consumer spending and any impact from techsector job cuts is “modest” researchers wrote in a thursday report read also retail sales surge 3 at start of 2023 in clear sign the economy is still growing the backdrop is the very visible layoffs in a list of companies that includes twilio twlo  docusign docu  salesforce inc crm  zoom video communications zm  ebay inc ebay  spotify technology spot  google parent alphabet inc goog  and more in a running tally of announced job cuts over 122000 global technologysector workers have been laid off since the start of the year according to information from the website layoffsfyi on friday the bureau of labor statistics’s jobs report noted 25000 lost jobs in the “information industry” and a decrease of 54000 jobs in the industry since november the types of industries that fall under this category include newspaper publishers software publishers radio broadcasting media streaming socialmedia networks and websearch portals according to a bureau of labor statistics spokesman now set that against the bank of america institute bac data where researchers looked at the bank’s data in six techsector hot spots san francisco and los angeles in california austin texas washington dc boston mass and new york city in these locations the overall card spending from households might have decreased 1 since september “perhaps as a result of tech layoffs” researchers looked closer at information from households making at least 125000 a year because techsector workers may tend to earn more they said there was a time in mid2022 when these accounts were spending at a slightly greater rate than accounts below that level but the spending increases for these higherend accounts are now in line with the spending increases for accounts below 125000 in these major hubs and the same pattern is happening across the country researchers said “so we think there is no additional impact from the techlayoff announcements on higherincome consumers currently” the researchers wrote it’s entirely possible that laidoff techsector workers are quickly finding work by taking their talents to new industries but nor does that mean that losing a job and landing a new one is an easy or low stress process “one of the benefits of the tight labor market is that not only is unemployment low but workers aren’t spending a particularly long time out of work” said nick bunker director of economic research for north america at indeed hiring lab an economic research wing of the job search site indeed the median length of unemployment fell to 83 weeks and that’s below the 2019 average of just over 9 weeks “we’ll need to wait for more detailed microdata to know how long tech workers stay unemployed but it’s likely lower than the overall average” bunker said the job market is “a source of strength” and “a strong foundation for the us economy hopefully it can weather future storms” he added