Job losses reveal a shakier labor market
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Why did the July jobs report show a net loss of 23,000 jobs?
So About that jobs report. From American Public Media. This is Marketplace.
In Los Angeles, I'm Todd Risdall. It is Friday today. This one is the 7th of August. Good as it always is to have you along, everybody. Disappointing, meager, surprising. All of them words one might use to describe the July unemployment report we got this very morning. We are going to use some more words to figure out what it all means. Catherine Rampell is at MS Now, also at the Bulwark. David Gura is at Bloomberg. Hey you two. Mr. Gurren, we start with you. Twenty three thousand jobs lost. The negative side of the ledger uh rate goes to four point one percent. Revisions were down. Kinda feels like we got caught unawares by this thing.
It does. So uh wildly away from what was expected by Wall Street and a few things caught my eye. The first is the participation rate. So this is that measurement of who's looking for work. Um and that fell to something like 61%, which is the lowest it's been in many decades if you take COVID out of the equation. The other is wages. I mean, that's something we focused on a lot here. Uh, and we see that's kind of setting an historical record as well, slowest pace in in more than five years. I I think we got this other sense too, just about how the the pool of people working has shrunk and uh you know there's so much to focus on. Maybe we haven't been talking about immigration policy as much, but I think what we saw in Stark Relief today in these
Numbers is um you know a reflection of the fact that there has been this big deportation campaign. This government has been uh sending folks who've been here home and we we see that in the numbers today as well. It's it's a smaller pool of workers as a as a result of that.
We do indeed see it. And for the umpteenth time, immigration policy is a labor market story. Katherine Rampel, um labor force participation rate or wages, which are is your biggest concern? Or or pick another one if you like.
Hm. I mean they're both concerning for uh s somewhat different reasons. So the uh labor force participation rate suggests that people are just getting um getting stuck and giving up potentially.
Which sectors lost the most jobs in July and why?
And Even though the unemployment rate is is still relatively low, uh, you know, by in historical terms, it masks a lot because it means that when people are losing their jobs, they're not churning into new jobs that quickly. Like it's it's not such a big it's never fun if you lose your job, obviously. But the pain is normally relatively limited. And uh, you know, when you have a lot of churn in the economy, because people churn out of jobs, they churn into jobs. And what we are seeing now is a lot of weakness where you have a huge fraction, I think it's like a quarter of people who are unemployed have been unemployed for 27 weeks or longer. Um, and then A lot of the people who are unemployed are just saying, you know what, it's not worth it, I'm dropping out of the labor force altogether.
So all of that I I think is extremely, extremely concerning.
David, can we get back to that immigration thing for a minute? This is this is a tad weedy and I will count on you to keep us uh and take me back out of the weeds. But but there's going to come a time with uh the way immigration is going i in this economy that we're not going to need the robust number of jobs that we have needed to keep the unemployment rate reasonably low. And it sorta looks like we are getting there.
Yeah, I I think that this was a real sign of that. And I I think that we've kind of been faced with maybe largely an anecdotal issue here since the start of the second term, which is, you know, there are jobs in this country we have counted on immigrants to do. And if immigrants aren't here to do them, what does that mean more broadly? So um look, I I think that this once again refocuses attention. on that issue um and uh Again, I I think that like the the way that we have customarily or in recent years looked at the labor market has shifted radically as a result of uh the fact that we have this, you know, very, very prohibitive policy that's been put in place and and enforced by by the Trump administration.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Why did the July jobs report show a net loss of 23,000 jobs?
0:02–2:19
2
Which sectors lost the most jobs in July and why?
2:19–5:43
3
How is the decline in labor‑force participation affecting the economy?
5:43–9:36
4
What role is immigration policy playing in the current labor market?
9:36–13:12
5
Why are the Federal Reserve’s focus and statements shifting away from employment?
13:12–16:25
6
How are rising car prices and long‑term auto loans impacting consumers?
16:25–20:35
7
What innovative housing solutions are school districts using to address teacher shortages?
20:35–25:36
8
Why are more people voluntarily leaving the workforce and how can they share their stories?
25:36–27:12