Leadership Quote by Tim Bishop

That little throat-clearing phrase, "of course", is doing the heavy lifting here. Tim Bishop’s line is classic politician-speak: a statement that sounds like sober realism while quietly shrinking the space for blame. By framing layoffs as "always" and "cyclical", he pushes job losses into the category of natural weather patterns rather than human decisions, policy failures, or corporate choices. Recession becomes a season; unemployment becomes foliage.

The intent is defensive and managerial. Bishop isn’t promising rescue so much as pre-empting outrage: don’t take this personally, don’t treat it as scandal, don’t assume there’s a lever anyone could have pulled differently. The word "nature" is the softest kind of absolution. It suggests inevitability, a comforting lie for markets and a cold comfort for workers.

Subtextually, it’s an attempt to sound competent by sounding unemotional. In politics, acknowledging pain can raise expectations for action; describing pain as cyclical lowers them. It also signals allegiance to a certain economic common sense: recessions happen, job losses happen, and government’s role is to manage the edges, not question the structure.

Context matters: this is the kind of sentence deployed when constituents are scared and angry, and leaders need to project steadiness without making commitments they might not be able to keep. It’s less a description of the economy than a strategy for narrating it: if suffering is routine, then so is the limited response.