Labor market anxieties grow
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Tariffs are back on the program today after a short time away. We'll do jobs as well. And one more visit to Altadena. From American Public Media, this is Marketplace.
In Los Angeles, I'm Kyle Rizdahl. It is Wednesday today. This one is the 7th of January. Good as always to have you along, everybody. Hey, don't look now, but come Friday, we're going to get the December jobs report on time, which is nice. Today, we got some hints as to what it might look like. The payroll processing company ADP said private sector companies added jobs last month, 41,000 of them. Not a ton in an economy the size of this one, but... We'll take it. Also, jolts came out today. That is, of course, the job openings and labor turnover survey, which show job openings fell to a more than one year low in November, but layoffs fell as well. It's more of that low fire, low hire labor market we keep hearing about.
There is, though, something else that's important as well, and it cannot be ignored. How worried people might be about holding on to their jobs and their income. Marketplace's Mitchell Hartman starts us off with that one.
All through the latter part of 2025, the job market was losing steam, says Bill Adams at Comerica Bank. Job growth hit an air pocket and has really been in low gear since April of this past year. And he says the working public has noticed. People are more worried about job security. They're less upbeat about the prospects of being able to find a new job. And that is weighing on how they're thinking about their own personal finances. This is evident in the University of Michigan's consumer surveys, says director Joanne Hsu.
One of the big overarching patterns of 2025 was a broad deterioration in views and expectations for labor markets, a pretty substantial increase in people expecting unemployment to get worse in the future.
People are worried about their own incomes falling or jobs getting eliminated, or they may know someone.
Even if the consumer themselves is stable in their job, they talk about how hard the labor market is for a young person in their family trying to look for a job right now.
And even though high-income earners have been driving a lot of consumer spending, their sentiment about the job market has actually been deteriorating.
They were the ones most likely to believe that unemployment was going to rise. Xu has an idea why. The news about layoffs have been for educated workers, white-collar workers.
What early indicators suggest the U.S. job market is cooling?
A lot of job losses have been concentrated within the tech industry.
Among demographic groups, the worst deterioration in the job market has been for Black workers, says Valerie Wilson at the Economic Policy Institute. In November, the Black unemployment rate rose to 8.3 percent up from seven and a half in September. it's up nearly 2% from one year ago. The overall unemployment rate is only up 0.4%. Bottom line on the job market heading into 2026, says economist Corey Staley at Jobsite Indeed, it's sclerotic, frozen. Employers holding on to their workers, not bringing new workers on board. Workers are feeling less confident in their ability to jump jobs, find new jobs. People seem to be just kind of sitting still right now. Staley says it's a job market short on dynamism and opportunity for workers to earn more and advance in their careers.
I'm Mitchell Hartman for Marketplace.
Wall Street today, a little bit of a reality check for equities. Oil was down as well. We will have the details when we do the numbers.
The big economic question the past nine or so months, basically since the president's tariff palooza back in April, has been, generally speaking, where are the huge price increases that tariffs like that should have generated? Because while, yes, price levels are up, they're not up like one would expect. And as a result, consumers haven't pulled back on their spending like one would expect. Well, a new working paper could explain why. Gita Gopinath wrote it. She's a professor of economics at Harvard, once upon a time also the chief economist at the International Monetary Fund.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:02–2:42
2
What early indicators suggest the U.S. job market is cooling?
2:42–7:35
3
How are worker sentiments and consumer expectations changing about employment?
7:35–13:40
4
Which demographic groups are experiencing the worst job market deterioration?
13:40–15:17
5
What do recent job-market experts say about labor market dynamism heading into 2026?
15:17–20:14
6
Why haven't announced tariffs translated into the expected price spikes?
20:14–25:50
7
How do shipping lags, exemptions, and USMCA rules lower the effective tariff rate?
25:50–28:05