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Chapter 1: What are the current challenges small businesses face in hiring?
There's a lot going on right now. Mounting economic inequality, threats to democracy, environmental disaster, the sour stench of chaos in the air. I'm Brooke Gladstone, host of WNYC's On the Media. Want to understand the reasons and the meanings of the narratives that led us here and maybe how to head them off at the pass? That's On the Media's specialty.
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On the program today, jobs and banks and infrastructure. Some other stuff, too. From American Public Media, this is Marketplace. In Los Angeles, I'm Kai Rizdahl. It is Wednesday today, the 3rd of June. Good as it always is. Tap me along, everybody. We're going to get the May jobs report on Friday morning. But ahead of that, we have gotten a private sector sneak peek of sorts.
ADP said this morning. Private companies added 122,000 jobs last month, more than people had been guessing. And two other firms, Gusto and Paychex by name, both of which do payroll for small businesses, reported the best outlooks they've seen so far this year. Gusto said almost every sector and every region added jobs.
Paychex said small business employees saw their wages and hours increase last month. Whatever happened to the low hire, low fire labor market, you ask? Well, Marketplace's Kaylee Wells makes it all make sense.
Even before this month's data, the low hiring numbers weren't all by choice. Lots of small businesses have been wanting to hire more people for a while. A few years ago, everybody was looking to staff up because of the huge layoffs or pauses in hiring after COVID.
Holly Wade, executive director of the National Federation of Independent Business Research Center, says ever since then, small businesses have been having trouble hiring. That's one of their main problems that they tell us every month is, you know, labor quality, finding applicants, filling those positions.
But then big businesses started cutting their workforces, says Frank Fiorelli at Payroll Processor Paychecks.
And now... There's a better pool of talent because the bigger enterprise companies have probably laid some people off. So now there's, you know, there's people there that they couldn't find or pick from previously now.
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Chapter 2: How has the hiring landscape changed for small businesses recently?
Macy's growth is working in the right direction and is very encouraging relative to its own prior history.
But it's not necessarily encouraging relative to the performance of its competition. The retail sector in general had a strong first quarter. If consumers pull back on spending, Siegel isn't sure they'll keep choosing Macy's.
And so the question will become looking out over the next six months, who still looks like they're growing versus who gives it back?
Here's something Macy's does have on its side. It's often an anchor store in the big corner space at shopping centers, and mall traffic is up.
Now, I'm always going to be a fan of the department store.
Michael Lisicki has written 10 books on department stores, so yeah, maybe he's a little biased. But he says shopping centers are becoming exciting again, with new restaurants and pickleball courts and grocery stores.
I think there's some hope, but you can't just throw in a couple Starbucks these days and expect that to be a destination.
Malls have to offer an experience that's enticing enough to get people past the hurdle of the parking lot and eat, shop, and play for a while. I'm Kristen Schwab for Marketplace.
We're at the tail end of a 15-year stretch now in which the average number of new banks created every year in this economy has fallen to its lowest level since the 1960s. According to S&P Global, in 2023, only four new bank charters were approved. But I said tail end of that stretch because we do seem to be at the beginning of something of a banking boom.
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Chapter 3: What factors are contributing to the increase in small business hiring?
And then they would have to go out to a partner network of around 100 different banks and find one of them to actually issue and actually hold the loan. Getting a charter, which is what Upstart is now seeking, would let them do that directly.
And then obviously they get to make more money, right? I mean, I hate to be base about it, but that's kind of what's going on.
Oh, absolutely.
Yeah. If I am a regular consumer in this economy and I see what the White House wants to do and I see other kinds of companies get into banking, what's my concern level here?
Consumers are going to have to be a little alert about the fine print of what they're signing on for. The concern is that you can get in with companies that do not end up having sort of the protections you'd expect from a bank.
Many of these crypto companies in particular are not looking to be FDIC insured, which means that assets you place with them, if you lose them, there's no insurance there as a backstop. So that's the core concern.
Yeah.
As always, consult your own financial advisor on this one. Stacey Cowley at the New York Times. Stacey, thanks a lot. I appreciate your time.
Thanks.
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Chapter 4: How are federal policies impacting small business employment?
We all kind of have dark senses of humor, and so we just kind of power through it. We laugh because that's about all you can do. I mean, it's not funny, but you find little spots of humor here and there to kind of deal with the stress of it all. They're just a great group of people, and I'm just really happy to work with them.
Can you imagine how crazy making all that is? Gretchen Blau, Customs Brokerage Manager at Logistics Plus Erie, PA.
Coming up. Until you stand up next to one, it's tough to grasp how big those really are.
Bridges and container ships don't really mix. You know, first though, let's do the numbers. Dow Industrials down 620 points. One and two-tenths of one percent finished at 50,687. The Nasdaq down 239. That is nine-tenths percent. 26,853. The S&P 500 subtracted 56 points. Seven-tenths of one percent. 75 and 53 there. Macy's, a Kristen Schwab story, up six-tenths percent on the day.
At the other end of the retail spectrum, closeout chain Ollie's Bargain Outlet Holdings also reported today. It missed estimates. Nonetheless, shares increased six tenths percent because, you know, capitalism. Banks, we were talking about them a minute ago. Wells Fargo down one percent. Bank of America slipped two tenths percent. J.B. Morgan Chase essentially flat.
You're listening to Marketplace.
There's a lot going on right now. Mounting economic inequality, threats to democracy, environmental disaster, the sour stench of chaos in the air. I'm Brooke Gladstone, host of WNYC's On the Media. Want to understand the reasons and the meanings of the narratives that led us here and maybe how to head them off at the pass? That's On the Media's specialty.
Take a listen wherever you get your podcasts. This is Marketplace. I'm Kai Risdahl. Artificial intelligence is everywhere in our daily lives. One need not count the ways, I think. But it is worth a note that AI is increasingly moving into health care. In Utah, state regulators have decided to let AI renew some prescriptions. Easier and cheaper care? Quite probably. Complicated? Quite definitely.
Alex Olgin has more.
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