Unemployment hits four-year high

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1:16Feel the difference of quality made-to-last clothes from American Giant. Get 20 % off your first order with code STABLE20 at American-Giant.com. That's 20 % off your first order at American-Giant.com with code STABLE20. The word of the day today is portmanteau. Two words combined into one. What's that? Use it in a sentence? Sure. How's this? What we've got here is a meh-conomy. From American public media, this is Marketplace.

2:02In Los Angeles, I'm Kyle Rizdahl. It is Tuesday, today, the 16th of December. Good as always to have you along, everybody. Meh, an economy. Meh-conomy. Get it? I confess here that it's not my original thought. I saw it someplace this morning. I would credit you if I remembered where. But it is kind of apt. No, given today's November and partial October jobs report, 4.6 percent is the unemployment rate, the highest it's been in more than four years, and the latest sign that the U.S. labor market just keeps slowing down. That 4.6 percent, by the by, is up from an even 4 percent at the start of this year.

2:48The thing is, it's not happening because people are losing their jobs left and right. Marketplace's Daniel Ackerman explains what's going on. Amanda Augustine is a career coach with CareerMinds. And she says many of her new clients have been out of work for months now. It's a lot of people who have been unemployed for quite some time who are now saying, well, whatever I've been doing is clearly not working. I need some extra help. She says employers aren't laying off a ton of people. there's been no spike in first-time unemployment claims, firms are just reluctant to hire. Even the interview process takes a longer time.

3:25And so the share of people seeking jobs just keeps climbing. And one reason for the uptick in November's unemployment rate was workforce re-entry, says Tuan Nguyen, an economist with RSM. Meaning that there were people on the sideline rejoining the market again. And he says workforce re-entry can be tough to interpret. It could mean people are more confident in their ability to land a job, or it could mean more people feel they have no choice but to land a job, says Ron Hetrick, an economist with the labor data firm Lightcast. So these are people who were spouses of people or family members. They didn't need to work, and then the primary person loses their job.

4:06So these people re-enter the labor force. And then there's the stuff that the headline unemployment rate just doesn't capture. Hetrick says the number of part-time workers who'd rather be full-time is at the highest level since March of 2021. That's a pretty big deal. That's a sign of economic stress. And it's one reason the unemployment rate isn't always the best indicator of what it feels like to be in the labor market, says Sarah Foster, an economic analyst with Bankrate. She says even though 4.6 % isn't sky high compared to the long-term average. People who want a job, who are stuck at a position that they don't like, want to change something about their job circumstances, this is not an easy labor market for them.

4:48She says anxiety is being felt by workers and would-be workers alike. I'm Daniel Ackerman for Marketplace. So let's talk about where people are getting jobs. Pretty much the only industries that are doing a decent amount of hiring right now are health care and social assistance. 64 ,000 new jobs in November. But as Marketplace's Samantha Fields reminds us, past performance is no guarantee of future results. If it weren't for health care and social assistance, hiring would have been totally flat last month. Health care is really the last remaining reliable source of jobs growth for today's job market.

5:25Daniel Jiao at Glassdoor says that's been true for much of this year. There have been multiple months where all other industries have actually lost jobs, whereas health care has continued to steadily add jobs. The industry tends to be resilient, even in recessions. People always need health care, no matter what's happening in the economy. And these days, Alex Haquez at the Groundwork Collaborative says need is growing. The baby boomer population, a very large segment of the overall population, is aging. And what we know about aging is that it comes for all of us, and you use more health care as you get older.

6:00That's good for anyone looking for a job in the field. But even though there is plenty of hiring going on in health care and social assistance, Kate Bond at the Institute for Women's Policy Research says there's not quite as much now as there was a year or two ago. It is adding fewer jobs each month while the overall labor market is also slowing down. So it's a little concerning. And there's more to be concerned about looking ahead, according to Andrew Stettner at the Century Foundation, with the enhanced subsidies for ACA insurance expiring and Medicaid cuts looming. People will have health insurance next year.

6:35So that means, you know, some of this robust growth in health care, we're seeing it flatten out. And the biggest cuts to Medicaid won't even phase in for another year or so. So there's some real risks to health care jobs over the next few years. It really is going to be negative for people's health. And he says for the economy. I'm Samantha Fields for Marketplace. Wall Street today. I do not know what to tell you. Traders didn't seem much to mind what we learned about the U.S. labor market. We will have the details when we do the numbers.

7:26A year and a half or so ago, we spent some time reporting on broadband Internet, trying to figure out how the Biden administration's$42 billion broadband equity access and deployment program, the BED program, that was supposed to connect every home in this economy to high speed Internet by 2030. We wanted to figure out how it was going to work on the ground. Things have changed since then, obviously, with the arrival of the second Trump term. But back then, fiber was the priority. So we went to McKee, Kentucky, population 800, a town that was way ahead of the government's broadband goal, thanks in very large measure to the People's Rural Telephone Cooperative, where Keith Gabbard is the CEO.

8:08Mr. Gabbard, it's good to talk to you again. Welcome back to the program. Thank you, sir. It's good to be on. So it's been a year and a half-ish since we were out there in McKee. First of all, how are you and how's business at the People's Rural Telephone Cooperative there? Well, I'm doing well, and our company is very, very, very busy, and that's a good problem to have. We're building fiber in several surrounding counties, and we're just staying really busy, and that's a good problem to have. How are you doing this expanding? I remember when we were out there, we talked about how government financing, government loans have been critical to you and your operations and the growth, and in fact, the company's existence at all.

8:46I imagine And that's still sort of a key thing for you? It is. And, of course, we were applying for some things when you were here before. But we're just finishing up a project in USDA ReConnect2. And then we've just now finally got environmental permitting done for ReConnect4. And we just started the project last month in Enjorn County. And that's a huge project. It's about a$20 million,$19 million, 200-mile project. We're trying to, you know, look for every bit of possible help we can get. Most of these are part loan, part grant. But we're trying to provide good broadband to these folks. When we were out there, Mr.

9:23Gabbard, we were talking about BED funding, right, the Broadman Equity Access Program and how that was working. And obviously times have changed in government support for this kind of thing. The Trump administration is not so much in favor of whatever the Biden administration was doing. How has that affected you and what would you say the results of the BED program were for you? well we did apply for some bead funding uh we got very little i think we've been provisionally awarded like 78 locations that i'm not sure if we're even going to accept it or not but because they're not going to pay uh the proportion that we originally applied for but i think i think the program is really missing our opportunity at 42 billion dollars uh to get most people fiber and Of course, I'm prejudiced.

10:10Fiber is what we do. But it looks like the emphasis is not on fiber anymore. It's on some fiber, some fixed wireless, and a whole lot of satellite. Well, let's talk about that satellite for a minute. Starlink Elon Musk's outfit, and it's not uncontroversial, let's say, right, to pull all this money into a private company and then take money away from the folks on the ground. Well, you know, personally, I think it's a bad move. But, you know, we've got a lot of poverty here, a lot of need. I think everybody deserves quality broadband, I think. Taking money away from people that really need it and, you know, essentially giving it to the richest man in the world just doesn't make sense to me.

10:51But what do I know? I'm not a politician. I'm just a guy trying to provide a service here. What you've been doing, we should point out here, for a very long time. Explain for us, would you, Mr. Gabbard, what fiber has let McKee and Jackson County, what it has let people there do and become? Well, you know, our initial fiber was we built fiber to every home and business in the two counties we serve, Jackson and Owsley. And it just really made a big difference in the quality of life here and continues to. Work from home is a huge thing here. We have people buying property from all over the country.

11:26And moving here, I'm not saying it's just because of fiber broadband, but that is a factor. And they like being out in the country. You've been here. A lot of trees here, not a lot of people. But a lot of folks like that. And everybody don't have to leave to find a job. And that's most of my life. That seemed to be everybody's goal in order to get a good job and make good money. They had to leave the community. And that's something we'd love to everybody not have to do. There's still plenty going to want to, and that's fine. I just don't want everybody to have to. You've been doing this, as I said, I think it's been 50 years now.

12:01You're 70-something years old, right? Yeah, 71. I've been at the company almost 50 years. How much longer are you sticking around, sir? You know, I told them I'm at least staying around until the end of next year. And then there are days when we are doing something that I find so rewarding and helping people. So, you know, it makes me want to stay, but just thankful to be working for a place that's, I think, doing good things for our community. I hear that. And surrounding communities. I hear that. Keith Gabbert, he's the longtime CEO of the People's Rural Telephone Cooperative out in McKee, Kentucky.

12:38Mr. Gabbert, thanks for your time, sir. I appreciate it. Thank you.

13:09While most of us are still working our way through what President Trump's tariffs are going to do to this economy, and by most of us, I mean the Fed, I mean businesses big and small and everyday consumers, too. The advertising industry is apparently not feeling so bad. WPP Media, which is sort of a data marketing advertising conglomerate, is projecting global ad revenues going to hit almost$1.2 trillion this year. A big chunk of that is in a slice of the advertising game called Retail Media, brands paying retailers to highlight their products to that retailer's customers. WPP Media says retail media is going to top$190 billion next year.

13:53Marketplace Carl Javier has more on that one. Let's say you want to buy some shoes online. You search, get a bunch of options. Some of them are probably sponsored. That's retail media, says Luke Stillman at Madison & Wall, an advisory and consulting firm to the advertising industry. A lot of those are showing up at the top because those brands paid the most. He says even if consumers say they're worried about the economy, they're still spending. So advertisers are too. Madison & Wall forecasts that next year, digital ads will be led by retail media. Which we expect to grow by 16 percent. And most of that is Amazon and Walmart and other big retailers who have launched advertising businesses.

14:37Getting customers' attention when they are actively trying to buy something means return on this type of ad spending can be quite substantial, says Jeremy Goldman at eMarketer. Two to one or four to one, you know, 200 percent to 400 percent, sometimes even higher. As for retailers selling this ad opportunity, he says they can tell brands. It's probably a good idea to not just sell on our website, but also to have a retail media spend. Meaning they get to charge companies twice. This year, retail media was so prevalent that Kate Scott Dawkins with WPP Media says globally. That bucket of ad revenue will actually be larger than global TV.

15:20That includes traditional TV and streaming. However, she says retail players could potentially see visits to their sites diminish. If more of the consumer purchase journey shifts to AI and chatbot based conversations. If that happens, she says retail media could lose some of its share and gains from the last several years. I'm Carla Javier for Marketplace.

16:08Coming up. I don't think I've ever seen a job ad that said English degree required. You know, you might just be right about that. First, though, let's do the numbers. Dow Industrial is down 302 points today, 6 tenths percent, 48 ,114. The NASDAQ gained 54 points. That's about a quarter percent, 23 ,111. S &P 500 down 16 points, a quarter percent, 6 ,800 on the nose. Pfizer expects a big drop in revenue next year from its COVID-19 products alone. That's vaccines and antivirals. Pharma company expects to make$1.5 billion less in 26 than it did this year. Pfizer down 3.4 percent today. COVID vaccine competitor Moderna slipped a tenth percent.

16:52DoorDash has a new restaurant-finding app in New York and San Francisco. Zesty, it's called. uses AI to aggregate maps and social media and menus to help people figure out where they want to eat. DoorDash rose four tenths of one percent. Today, Yelp, yep, it's been delivering restaurant reviews since 2004, dipped about a tenth percent. Bonds up, yield on the 10-year T-note down 4.14%. You're listening to Marketplace.

17:20This podcast is supported by Talkspace. When my husband came home from his military deployment, Readjusting was hard for all of us. Thankfully, I found Talkspace. Talkspace provides professional support from licensed therapists and psychiatric providers online. Military members, veterans, and their dependents ages 13 and older can get fast access to providers, all from the privacy of their computers or smartphones. I just answered a few questions online and Talkspace matched me with a therapist. We meet when it's convenient for me and I can message her anytime. It was so easy to set up, and they accept Tricare.

17:58Therapy was going so well, my husband and I started seeing a couples therapist through Talkspace, too. Talkspace works with most major insurers, including Tricare. Match with a licensed therapist today at Talkspace.com slash military. Go to Talkspace.com slash military to get started today. That's Talkspace.com slash military. This is Marketplace. I'm Kai Rizdahl. You can rent a vacation home on an app. You can rent a car on an app. And you can rent clothes and more on apps as well. That's not new, that last bit. Rent the Runway has been around for 15 years. But there is a demographic slice of this thing that's becoming a thing.

18:39Amanda Hoover wrote about it at Business Insider. Welcome to the program. Thanks so much for having me. Would you tell me, please, how you came to this story? Did you just look around one day and said, where are all these people getting all these clothes? Well, I guess it started even two years ago when I first started getting targeted ads for Nuuly. I had a wedding coming up where I was a guest and I wanted to wear something nice and fun and appropriate. And ever since then, I noticed some of the clothes seeming to appear on Instagram. I was like, oh, I recognize those things. And then I started getting more and more ads for other companies.

19:14And the more I thought about this and realized how much my friends were talking about it, I was like, this is not just a one-off, but it's really shifting and changing how people are thinking about shopping and treating themselves and fashion and getting to try new things. Right. And not just clothes, as we'll get to in a minute. You mentioned Nuuly, there are other apps, BNTO and Pickle is another one. It's probably, do you pronounce the BNTO or is it Bento? I mean, what do you do? I think it's Bento. I didn't hear it said out loud though. Okay. Well, somebody will write in and tell us and then we'll both know.

19:45Anyway, But tell us about these apps. I mean, it's your standard sort of Airbnb-ish, Uber-ish kind of thing, right? Yeah, in a way. Pickle is a little bit different where you're renting peer-to-peer from another individual's closet. The way that like Nuuly works, it's like Rent the Runway where they have a warehouse, you know, full of all of these options. It's kind of like thrifting clothes. It's not permanent. You know, it definitely, I think, stems from the relationship that we've started to have in this like sharing economy over the past 15 years. Although, as you point out in this piece, it's one thing to sit in the back of somebody's car.

20:21It's another one to wear their clothes. Yeah, I do think things that have been around longer, like Uber and Airbnb, there's a reason more people have tried those. Some people don't like to thrift clothes still. And I think it is kind of generational. We see a lot of Gen Z millennials, especially really thinking that thrifting is cool. And for people that are concerned about the environmental impact or the exploitation of workers in the fast fashion industry, it becomes like a moral imperative to try to get things secondhand or get the most life out of them as possible. Right, for sure. And then that's what drives that consuming habit.

20:59Just to be clear here, and you alluded to it earlier, Nuuly is owned by Urban Outfitters, right? A big, big company. And so that gives them, you know, sort of they can curate better. They have economies of scale and all those kinds of things, which is different than pickle. Yes, absolutely. I mean, it's scaling more in the way that they have to have enough people in that city, in that area who are interested in renting to essentially their peers, but they're growing very rapidly. And I actually spoke to one woman in her 20s who rents out clothing on pickle and made like$25 ,000 in the past year.

21:35And I don't think any of us really look at our closets and think that there's that much value in there. Right. And she's got it down. I mean, the way you describe it is, you know, she spends a couple hours a week, you know, mailing and washing and all this jazz and boom,$25 ,000 later, she's got some real money. Yeah. And I do think it's people who love fashion and are interested in it. So I don't know how much it feels like labor versus a lucrative hobby, perhaps for some who are really successful in this. Yeah. As always, it seems when this kind of story comes around, there is the social media aspect of this.

22:11There is the we're going to get this outfit and we're going to post it. And it's not about buying it. It's about being seen in it. Yeah, I guess it probably depends person to person, but I can totally see how that would play out. And I think there's been people probably always who maybe wanted to make sure they weren't seen in the same thing at all of the weddings of their friends. But now it's not just, oh, the people who went to this wedding can't see me in the same dress. It becomes even like everyone's seen that on social media. And it's an incentive beyond the event that they're attending.

22:45Totally. Amanda Hoover at Business Insider. Amanda, thanks very much for your time. I appreciate it. Thank you.

23:09We saw in this morning's jobs report that in the month of November, the unemployment rate for people in this economy ages 20 to 24 was 8.3 percent. Overall, just by way of reminder, 4.6%. It's no secret that a lot of the jobs that are going to be threatened by artificial intelligence are those entry-level jobs younger people get, specifically jobs in the white-collar workplace. Think jobs that involve coding, maybe. Things like that. That uncertainty has more young people turning now to blue-collar work. From KUOW's podcast, Booming, Monica Nicholsberg has more on that one. Brendan Hancock is about to graduate for the second time.

23:49The 40-year-old says his English degree from a traditional four-year college didn't amount to the stable career he was looking for. I don't think I've ever seen a job ad that said English degree required. So he took a gig teaching English overseas in Ukraine and Asia. But... The type of teaching I was doing, it was really inconsistent and my schedule could be horrible at times. So he decided to start over. Going back to university when I had already been to university and not gotten a career out of it wasn't very appealing. Instead, he chose an electrician apprenticeship program about an hour north of Seattle.

24:26This time around, Hancock gets paid while he's studying and working, and he's guaranteed a job when he graduates. I'd like to continue the work I've been doing. Who knows what will happen down the line as far as being a foreman or specializing more. Hancock is one of many job seekers turning to the skilled trades for a sense of stability at a time when paying for college is starting to feel like a risky bet. Apprenticeship programs are growing steadily across the U.S. Enrollment in two-year trade-focused college programs increased almost 20 percent since 2020, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.

24:57I think we're actually probably on par for this to be a record-breaking year. Ryan Brad is the training director at another electrician school near Seattle. He said in the past few years, he's seeing a lot more young people choose the trades straight out of high school. They're cognizant and they're aware that the labor market is shifting. And they're definitely questioning the value of a college degree in today's labor market. That shift is showing up at Seattle Public Schools, where a pre-apprenticeship track prepares students to go into the building trades. The first two programs are completely full.