Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Maybe going into the office isn't so bad for a marketplace. I'm Sabri Beneshour, in for David Brancaccio. In 2025, we saw more and more workers dragged back to the office, at least part-time, but often full-time, especially in finance and tech. JP Morgan, Amazon, AT&T, Dell, they're all back to five days a week in person.
But according to research from economists at the New York Fed and several universities, being in the office, at least some of the time, has real upsides, particularly for younger workers.
Chapter 2: What are the benefits of returning to the office for younger workers?
And many of them want more time in the office. They see it as an opportunity. One such worker is 29-year-old Sky Atondo. He is an event coordinator for Milk Studios based in Los Angeles. Sky, welcome. Good morning. So can you tell me a little bit about what you do for work? Primarily like Milk Studios, we are a hub for anything to create a space for you to have an event.
On the back end, it's bringing everyone in and next day we have a shoot, right? So it's like, we get to make it look like as if an event was never there. So my job is basically to protect space. And then at the end of the day, just make sure the client's happy. So does that mean that you are mostly in-person, entirely in-person or remote? How does that work for you?
Up until the event, I'm fully online, but I'm always in office. How do you feel about that? Do you prefer that to working remote or how do you feel? I love it. I can always say it's like it gives you a reason to put a fit on. I do know of people, certain people, who would absolutely die if they had to go into the office every day. But you like it. Why do you like it?
I love the kiki with the boys and girls, you know? There is research that shows that people who work remotely full time, they get less training, fewer chances to move up or do new work. Does that resonate with your experience? Oh, for sure. I don't think without being in person, I would have got the mentorship I got from a lot of these guys within my industry that just take me under the wing.
And honestly, it's like it's like the nuance of like if you send an email to You're not necessarily getting my personality or what's necessarily going on, you know? Out of curiosity, what is your commute like? Six minutes. Okay. So that probably helps. Well, I mean, yeah, especially in Los Angeles, one way in, one way out. It's made my life a little easier.
You have worked in your career remote before, right? Oh my gosh, yes.
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Chapter 3: How does Sky Atondo describe his role as an event coordinator?
I think it's primarily, majority of my job is emailing. But at the end of the day, I want to see the person behind it and then actually get to know them. Even if it's security or if it's the director or producer, I really like to just be a part of it rather than outside looking in. Well, it sounds like you have a lot of fun at your job, which is great.
Honestly, I'm so blessed to say I enjoy what I do. Because very rarely do we get to do things where we get to make other people happy. Skye Etondo, event coordinator for Milk Studios, thank you so much. Thank you for having me. Every month, the Federal Reserve reports on how the country's industrial production is doing. So think manufacturing, mining, gas and electric utilities.
It's not looking so good. After falling a tenth of a percent in October, industrial production was up to tenths of a percent in November, but that was mostly from mining. Construction and utilities were down. Manufacturing was flat. Marketplace's Mitchell Hartman has more. U.S. manufacturing is in no-growth mode and has been for months, says Bradley Saunders at Capital Economics.
The level of manufacturing output now is no higher than it was in July. Factory employment has actually fallen since the beginning of the year. We're seeing industrial production bounce along the bottom. as manufacturing continues to adjust downward in light of U.S. trade conflict.
That's economist Joe Brusuelas at consulting firm RSM, and he's talking about the Trump administration's tariffs designed to make imported goods more expensive and boost domestic producers. But it's not working that way, says Saunders. Take auto manufacturing.
It's fallen in five of the last six months, which is of course not what anybody would want to see in the Trump administration when it was listed as one of the main industries they were looking to supplement with tariffs. The problem is most domestic manufacturers use imported parts and materials, which tariffs are driving up in price, hurting profitability.
For the next couple of years, outside of the AI build-out, manufacturing should generally struggle as businesses try to adapt their supply chains. And figure out what production can be cost-effectively reshored back to the U.S. I'm Mitchell Hartman for Marketplace. You might have seen videos of this.
When the power went out in parts of San Francisco over the weekend, stoplights and traffic signals went out too. And as a result, hordes of Waymo self-driving taxis just stopped in the middle of traffic, blinkers on, not moving, adding to the chaos.
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Chapter 4: What does Sky Atondo think about working in-person versus remote?
Waymo says it had instructed the cars to pull over and park and says it is making changes to how the self-driving cars work when infrastructure fails. The State Department says it'll deny visas to five European citizens, including a former top EU official.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused them of leading, quote, organized efforts to coerce American social media platforms to censor, demonetize and suppress American viewpoints they oppose. The BBC's Richard Hamilton has this report.
Top of the list of the five Europeans is Thierry Breton, the former tech regulator at the European Commission, who's often clashed with tycoons such as Elon Musk over their obligations to follow EU rules. Mr Breton has been described by the State Department as the mastermind of the Digital Services Act, a major piece of legislation that imposes content moderation on
and other standards on social media platforms operating in Europe. The DSA has become a bitter rallying point for US conservatives, who see it as a weapon of censorship against right-wing thought, an accusation the EU furiously denies. That's Richard Hamilton there with our news partners at the BBC. In New York, I'm Sabri Beneshour with the Marketplace Morning Report.
From APM American Public Media.
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