Obsession, the most fun job in China, and a new green card policy

0:01NPR.

0:11This is The Indicator from Planet Money. I'm Waylon Wong. I'm Darian Woods. And I'm Adrian Ma. Guys, if you could have one wish, what would it be? I would wish that it were Friday. That way we could do Indicators of the Week. Well, you're in luck. Wish granted, because it is indeed Indicators of the Week. Yes, it is that day where we pluck out the most interesting numbers from the economic headlines.

0:39Stacey Vanek Smith:I wish it could be Indicators of the Week every day. No, dear Ian, be careful what you wish for. That's a theme of my indicator. And also on the show, we'll be talking about the Trump administration's new green card policy. Plus, in China, there's a lot of interest for some jobs herding sheep. We'll be back.

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2:07It is Indicators of the Week. Darian, you're up first.

2:10Stacey Vanek Smith:My indicator is 700. That's roughly how many people applied for two shepherd positions in rural China. Some of them even had university degrees, as according to Reuters. Is this like a recession indicator in China? It's hard to tell. You know, the official unemployment rate is 5.2 % there. Which is not a recession, it sounds like. But, you know, Chinese statistics are notoriously hard to trust. I was drawn to this anecdote because it shows how lots of people are feeling about China's economy that might not be shown in the government's indicators. And didn't this job posting go viral? Yeah, on the social media site Webo, that drove a lot of interest.

2:51Stacey Vanek Smith:And what people were basically saying is that good jobs are feeling hard to find. Now, it's not that these jobs don't exist. They do. But the conditions are often incredibly demanding. They call it 996, right? So it's 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. six days a week. Yeah, that is the grind culture in some workplaces. One of the people who applied for this shepherd position spoke to Reuters. He said he was working in a factory making shipping containers and fastening screws for more than 13 hours a day. Maybe when you've been working at the screw factory, that pastoral life seems very appealing. And this job actually paid above the national urban average for private companies with food and board covered too.

3:35Do you get a cute sheepdog?

3:36Stacey Vanek Smith:That would be a plus. Wouldn't that be so cute? You know, let's not romanticize these shepherd jobs. They involve looking after 3 ,000 sheep just south of Mongolia. It's far away from many people. In the winter, you'll have to feed and clean the sheep, with temperatures dropping to minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit. Jeez, okay. So all that makes me wonder, what kind of people actually ended up getting these jobs? With so many candidates, the farm owner actually ended up hiring two couples with farm experience. Honestly, that makes sense because it's like, Do you want someone with farm experience or do you want someone who's coming from the city who's never touched a sheep in their whole life, potentially?

4:17Stacey Vanek Smith:Yeah, it doesn't matter if you have a PhD in poetry or engineering. It's people who have perfect work experience, probably preferable. Whelan Wong, why don't you go next? Okay, my indicator is 39%. And that is the increase in ticket sales between opening weekend and the second weekend for the new horror movie, Obsession. And this is notable because most movies that get a wide release do not see this kind of jump in box office between their first and second weekends. They usually see a decrease. And so Obsession has pulled off something quite rare in the movie industry. All right. And Waylon, were you one of these people buying a ticket?

4:57I was not. I'm a total scaredy cat, so I will not be seeing this movie. What I did, though, is because I am a connoisseur of Wikipedia plot summaries of horror movies. so I read the plot summary on opening day yes and then I've been watching a lot of the clips on TikTok thank you people who are I guess filming in the theater sorry for those of you who don't know this movie is about a young guy who makes a wish on a supernatural toy he wishes that his crush would love him more than anyone else in the world things go very wrong as a result here's a clip from the trailer do you still think I'm pretty

5:42jeez okay i gotta lie down i can't even handle listening to that it really escalated so not your typical boy meets girl uh rom-com i gather no i think this takes a much darker turn and the other notable thing about obsession is the background of the filmmaker his name is curry Barker. He's an aspiring actor who started making comedy videos with a friend, and then they got a big following on YouTube and other platforms. And then they actually made a full-length horror movie that they put on YouTube for free. That got a lot of attention. And then he wrote and directed Obsession. He took it to the Toronto International Film Festival, and it made such a splash that he picked up a distributor.

6:29And now he has this bona fide box office hit on his hands. The movie costs under a million dollars to make, but it's made over$60 million so far. From YouTube comedy videos to the theaters in kind of a straight line, that is a hell of a jump. I know. And Curry Barker seems to be part of maybe what's a growing trend because there's actually another horror movie that is coming out this week in wide release in the US. It's called back rooms. And the director is also a young guy like Curry Barker, who got well known for making web videos. So there's something about YouTube and web videos that seems to be very fertile ground for this kind of new generation of horror movie makers.

7:14Stacey Vanek Smith:Well, speaking of panic, I think that's how a lot of people will be thinking when they heard your indicator, Adrian Ma. That is correct. Correct. My indicator is 1.4 million. That is the number of immigrants who got green cards in 2024. And in any given year, the majority of green cards are actually going to immigrants who already live in the U.S. That's because those people have applied for what's called adjustment of status. Right. So that could be somebody who initially came here, say, on a student visa, but maybe they married a U.S. citizen. Could be that. Could be a bunch of other situations.

7:54It might be somebody is here on a work visa and they just decided, hey, I like it here and I want to stay. But now these people applying for green cards are probably freaking out because the agency that decides green card applications has a new policy. So according to a spokesperson for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, quote, quote, from now on, an alien who is in the U.S. temporarily and wants a green card must return to their home country to apply. So that means someone who's already been in the U.S. would then have to go home and then wait for this process to play out. And that could take months, years.

8:36Like, what kind of time are we talking about? Yes, those are both potential scenarios here. But the agency says there may be exceptions in, quote, extraordinary circumstances. The problem is the agency does not explain what they mean by extraordinary circumstances, right? Does it mean a person has a spouse and kids here? Does it mean somebody going back home could lose their job and maybe they work at a, I don't know, rural hospital where they're really needed? Doesn't say.

9:08Stacey Vanek Smith:Yeah, like a lot is up to the discretion of the case officer, right? That's right. And this clearly is a part of the Trump administration's broad push to curb not just illegal immigration, but also legal immigration. It will no doubt face legal challenges. But this is something we are really interested in watching. And in the meantime, we want to hear from people affected by this announcement. So here's a call out. If you listening or somebody you know is affected by this new policy, we want to hear from you. Send us an email at indicator at NPR.org. Tell us a bit about your story and we may get in touch.

9:44You can also reach me on Signal. The handle is adrianma.10. That's a number 10. And we promise we won't share any of your information without your permission.

9:58Stacey Vanek Smith:This episode of The Indicator was produced by Angel Carreras with engineering by Zina Lafredo. It was fact-checked by Vito Emanuel. Kagan Cannon edits the show and The Indicator is a production of NPR.

10:24Learn more at insperity.com slash HR matters. This message comes from Indeed. Hiring? Do it the right way with Indeed's sponsored jobs. Claim a$75 sponsored job credit to get matched with quality candidates at indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply.