ORLANDO, Florida, Oct 29 (Reuters) - The U.S. labor

market has been characterized as a 'no hire, no fire' landscape

for much of the past year. But 'no hire, more fire' increasingly

looks more accurate, providing further ammunition for the

Federal Reserve to cut interest rates.

Retail giant Amazon on Tuesday announced 14,000 layoffs,

with more to come next year, while delivery service UPS revealed

that it has cut a whopping 48,000 employees over the past year.

The reasons cited include protecting margins, employing more

artificial intelligence, and reversing pandemic-era over-hiring.

These aren't the only eye-opening announcements recently:

around 25,000 workers are being let go at Intel ( INTC ), 15,000 at

Microsoft ( MSFT ), and 11,000 at Accenture ( ACN ). The Trump administration is

also firing swathes of government workers.

In total, U.S. employers announced almost 950,000 job cuts

in the January-September period, according to global placement

firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, with the top affected sectors

being government, tech and retail.

While most of that was earlier in the year, these figures

suggest the labor market is truly cracking, lending credence to

Fed Chair Jerome Powell's view that downside risks to employment

outweigh upside risks to inflation.

FLYING BLIND

The Fed resumed its interest rate-cutting cycle in September

after a nine-month hiatus and is expected to continue easing

into next year due to concerns about labor market weakness.

While the unemployment rate hasn't risen much, that is

mainly because cooling demand for workers has been offset by

shrinking labor supply, as the Trump administration has cracked

down on immigration and increased deportations.

In normal times, job cuts at individual firms might not be

on policymakers' radar. But these are not normal times. We're in

the midst of the second-longest government shutdown in U.S.

history. This has prevented the release of almost all labor

market data - including monthly payrolls, the unemployment rate,

job openings and labor turnover (JOLTS) and weekly jobless

claims - for four weeks. Fed officials are flying blind.

With no official incoming data for guidance, specific

corporate announcements could take on extra significance.

Troy Ludtka, senior U.S. economist at SMBC Nikko Securities

Americas, says the Amazon and UPS announcements may not move the

policy dial just yet, but they should confirm Fed officials'

"anxieties" over the labor market. "The question now is, just

how aggressive will other companies be in reducing headcount?"

WARNING BELLS

As the Fed waits for the answer to that question, the few

official economic indicators available are already ringing

warning bells.

The Chicago Fed's economic model - which uses private data

when official government statistics are unavailable - showed

that 'Layoffs and Other Separations' as a share of employed

workers are grinding higher and that the 'Hiring for Unemployed

Workers' as a share of total unemployed is falling. Both of

these are levels not seen for four years.

Meanwhile, U.S. private payrolls increased by an average of

just 14,250 jobs in the four weeks ending October 11, the ADP

National Employment Report's weekly preliminary estimate showed

on Tuesday. ADP, which usually publishes monthly reports, said

it will now publish weekly preliminary estimates every Tuesday,

based on its high-frequency data.

That's a paltry increase, effectively signaling no job

growth at all - although it is better than the 32,000 decline in

ADP's last monthly report for September.

All told, the labor market picture appears to justify lower

interest rates. But easier policy is not without risks. Wall

Street, led by tech and AI stocks, is booming, with financial

conditions the loosest in years. And inflation is still a full

percentage point above the Fed's target.

Rate cuts may be well-intentioned, with the goal of

protecting potentially millions of workers at risk of losing

their jobs, but easing will pour fuel on the ongoing 'melt up'

rally. So while it remains unclear how much these cuts will

actually support the labor market, they are almost certain to

boost wealthy asset holders' portfolios.

What we also know for sure is that the more companies

announce sweeping layoffs, the more likely the Fed is to act.

(The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a

columnist for Reuters)

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