Jan layoffs are "normal" (cant lay off people in holidays and new financial planning for new year) and tech isnt particularly affected (city group laid off 20k people, mostly finance), whereas most tech layoffs were in the hundreds by company and were in Companies who didnt make a profit (Twitch and Unity after their controversy)

So i believe that things are getting better as data showed December '23 being the best month of 23 for tech job growth.

core CPI is dropping and most of the growth in December was real-state (which is on a downward trend)

Some consumer prices deflated last month

Wider economy job data is not as hot (december was 40k higher than expected but 70k jobs were erased from octo and november payroll so its cooling)

while the fed may not cut in march i think its likely they will cut at least once or twice in '24

yes that sounds rational. central bankers are humans with a target on their back though.