Jobs Report, White House Crypto Summit, Gaza Ceasefire Uncertainty
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What does the latest jobs report reveal?
We get a picture today of employment, a snapshot slightly out of date.
Future job reports will reflect federal job cuts and employers who paused as U.S. trade policy keeps changing. Where's the economy heading?
I'm Ian Martinez, that's Steve Inskeep, and this is a first from NPR News. The president takes an opportunity today to promote cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin has set multiple all-time record highs because everyone knows that I'm committed to making America the crypto capital.
Trump himself has invested in crypto, so how does he plan for the government to promote it?
Also, why did Israel change its terms for extending a ceasefire in Gaza? With U.S. help, Israelis are pressing Hamas to accept a different deal and withholding food and fuel. Stay with us. We've got the news you need to start your day.
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Employers added 151,000 jobs in February. That's according to today's jobs report from the Labor Department. And 151,000 is a fairly healthy number, although it does not reflect the economic turmoil of the past several weeks. This is a snapshot of the economy, useful but ever so slightly out of date. NPR's Scott Horsley is here. Good morning, Scott. Good morning, Steve.
How will federal job cuts affect the economy?
So what is in and what is out of this snapshot?
Well, the monthly jobs report is always based on a survey that's taken around the middle of the month. And that timing is important here because a lot of the federal government job cuts began around the 14th of February, a Friday, which some people referred to as the St. Valentine's Day massacre. Yeah. People who got their walking papers that Friday are still counted as employed in this February jobs report. The overall report actually shows somewhat more job growth in February than the month before when cold, snowy weather was blanketing much of the country and keeping a lot of construction workers idle, for example. But even though the report looks pretty good on the surface, there are some warning signs out there.
Okay.
When you look below the surface, what are the warning signs that you see? Yeah, the outplacement firm Challenger Gray and Christmas keeps a running tally of layoff notices, and its count for February shows the biggest job cuts since 2020, which is the early months of the pandemic.
Why is the White House hosting a cryptocurrency summit?
Andrew Challenger says there were 172,000 layoffs announced last month, and that includes more than 62,000 in the federal government.
This is a really big number in terms of what we've ever recorded. The fact that we've reached that level so quickly this year is surprising to us and certainly something worth taking note of.
Now, the official jobs report today shows just 10,000 federal jobs cut last month, which we know is a fraction of the real total. We also know the Trump administration is considering much more widespread layoffs as it seeks to radically downsize the federal workforce.
Yeah, and it's numbers that couldn't affect the employment numbers in a measurable way. So what would that radical downsizing look like?
The administration reportedly wants to cut tens of thousands of jobs, for example, from both the VA and the IRS. The IRS already cut more than 6,000 workers last month. Eddie Walker represents some of those workers at an IRS office in Austin, Texas.
Of course, there's a lot of crying. I'm looking at some of the emails and stuff I've got, like they are ripping apart my work family. I left a job of 13 years to come here, and what do I get? How am I going to survive? I'm a single mom.
This is obviously painful for the affected workers. Some context important, though. There are about 2.4 million federal workers, not counting the military and the post office. That's about 1.5% of the overall U.S. workforce.
Oh, thanks for the reminder. The vast majority of people are working state and local government or whatever, or in the private sector, of course. So how is the private sector holding up?
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What does the latest jobs report reveal?
0:02–1:40
2
How will federal job cuts affect the economy?
1:40–2:36
3
Why is the White House hosting a cryptocurrency summit?
2:36–4:13
4
What are the implications of Trump's strategic Bitcoin reserve?
4:13–6:23
5
How is the White House planning to regulate cryptocurrency?
6:23–14:41
Speakers
12 identifiedMore from Up First from NPR
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