Cargo theft ramps up
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Okay, look, fish tacos. That's all I'm saying. From American Public Media, this is Market Plants. In Los Angeles, I'm Kyle Rizdahl. It is Wednesday today. This one is the 4th of February. Good as always to have you along, everybody. We begin on this Wednesday, as we are wont to do from time to time, with an eye on the economic calendar. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, no longer shut down, told us this morning that the January unemployment report, originally due on Friday, will now show up on Wednesday next. Which... Great. But at this point, can you blame us for trying to find other ways to measure the labor market at this fraught moment? The payroll processing company ADP said this morning the economy added just 22,000 jobs in January.
Marketplace's Sabri Beneshor spent his day reading those labor market tea leaves.
Clarence Clue is 43. He's his own boss. He's worked in PR in New York for a long time, and he is thinking it is time to branch out.
I see the writing on the wall for the industry in itself.
Businesses are still figuring out AI. Budgets are on hold. So he's looking for all kinds of positions.
The world around us is changing rapidly. I think we should be open to evolving as well. How do I feel about the market right now? Honestly, I think it's a bit terrifying.
Clue's not alone in feeling that way. Consumer sentiment is still depressed. That said, the job market looks to be at least stable. There's still jobs being added, but it's at a much slower rate. Macrina Wilkins is director of market insights at Associated General Contractors of America. It's hard to tell for sure right now because the government isn't releasing official data. So economists are looking at other things, like what payroll processors are reporting.
January, we saw 37,000 jobs added by small businesses. That's right around the monthly average for the past year.
Andrew Chamberlain is chief economist at Gusto, an HR platform serving half a million businesses.
We don't see any evidence of any, like, bottom falling out of the small business hiring market.
If anything, Chamberlain is cautiously optimistic. Payroll processing giant ADP reported that from what it sees, the rate of job growth fell by half between 2024 and 2025, but it's been leveling off. Health care is still doing well. And Chamberlain says those interest rate cuts the Federal Reserve made last year are going to start showing up in the job market.
Borrowing costs are going down. And if you talk to any small business owner, they use loans to cover payroll and like basic day-to-day operations. So those lower interest rates are oxygen for small businesses that want to grow.
There are other clues, too. The number of people applying for unemployment insurance has been ticking down the past few months. Jonathan Pingel is chief economist at UBS.
It does not look like a rapidly growing labor market, but we are expecting decent job gains when the January report is released. And we would expect the unemployment rate ticks down a tenth to 4.3 percent.
Pingel says there really is no substitute for the official numbers, but things are looking OK. Job hunters, hang in there. In New York, I'm Sabri Beneshour for Marketplace.
We did get some non-governmental official numbers this morning, specifically from the Institute for Supply Management, something called their Services PMI. That's a Purchasing Managers Index, which in regular person speak, is a measure of the health of the services sector of this economy. That is to say, a big chunk of this economy. The absolute number is 53.8. Anything above 50 means services are growing. The Manufacturing PMI, which came in on Monday, showed manufacturing expanded in January by the most it has since 2022. So that's all good, right?
I think we need to wait and see before we get overly excited, if I may.
How is the labor market evolving in 2025?
There's enough headwinds out there that I would be, I'd say caution is warranted.
Oh, that's Nada Sanders, a professor of supply chain management at Northeastern University. Monica Gorman there as well, managing director at Kroll Global Advisors.
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