January JOLTS: Is the economy positioned to withstand shock?
Citi economist Veronica Clark sits down with Madison Mills and Kenny Polcari on Catalysts to discuss the JOLTS data and her view on whether the slowing economy feeds into recession fears.
To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Catalysts here.
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Politico
4 hours ago
- Politico
The unsettled future of the BLS monthly job reports
DATA DUMP — Earlier this week, E.J. Antoni, President Donald Trump's new pick to run the Bureau of Labor Statistics, set off alarm bells by hinting that he'd suspend monthly reports on job numbers. The markets, economists and those who rely on BLS data viewed it as another unsettling development that began with the president's firing of the BLS commissioner — a move that came in response to the president's anger over the bureau's downward revision of the May and June jobs numbers. The immediate outcry, from both sides of the political spectrum, was enough for Antoni and the Trump administration to backpedal immediately and offer assurances that the key economic figures would still be released monthly. 'I believe that is the plan, and that's the hope, and that these monthly reports will be data that the American people can trust,' White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Tuesday. That semi-concession, however, has been made without any of the core issues resolved. The Trump administration still distrusts the BLS data and methodology because of its revision process, despite the many economists who confirm that it is a necessary and normal practice. Many MAGA supporters continue to view the revision process as proof of 'data manipulation.' In any case, there have been no follow-up announcements about alternative methods or improvements to collecting the job numbers, leaving a big question mark regarding the future of the monthly jobs report. As the administration weighs its options and reconsiders the BLS methodology and data, economists say it's critical that they understand the necessity of fast and frequent reports. The economy can move quickly — as can be seen in the dramatic market changes during the pandemic and the Great Recession — which is why BLS has always released early estimates, even if they're imperfect. 'There's a trade-off between perfect accuracy and getting the numbers quickly when they're relevant,' said Jessica Riedl, a conservative economist at the Manhattan Institute. Without the monthly job numbers, governments and markets will be flying blind on the state of the economy: You can expect a drop off in business investment as companies become weary of investing aggressively in an unsure economy — a phenomenon that may be seen through slowing economic growth figures, Riedl said. Then, there's also an equally concerning alternative, where businesses expand during a time they shouldn't because they're making their decision off on dated data, according to Guy Berger, an economist who leads economic research at the Burning Glass Institute, a non-profit that does labor market research and analysis. 'Both of these can exist at the same time for different people, and that's a risk,' Berger said. 'It's like you're driving and the windshield is clouded.' There's also the issue of the persisting 'vibecession' narrative, where people believe that the economy is worse than it actually is. In the past, the job numbers report has been used as concrete data to refute the negative vibes surrounding the economy. By eliminating those figures, we may inch toward a reality in which people's feelings are the only source of data, said Berger. That could be bad news for the Trump administration, which would have to continue to battle the recession narrative, and could ultimately lead to consumers hunkering down because there isn't enough solid data to disprove their pessimistic attitude toward the economy. If the Trump administration's tinkering with jobs numbers affects the quality of the data — or even renders the report useless — expect businesses and government organizations to scramble for more information from the private sector: ADP publishes a monthly national employment report; LinkedIn posts hiring rates; Indeed uploads job postings; The Conference Board surveys people's confidence in the economy. These figures, however, ultimately cannot replace the scope and rigor of the current BLS data. 'They're a complement, not a substitute,' Berger said. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@ Or contact tonight's author at ckim@ or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @ck_525. What'd I Miss? — Trump rolls out red carpet to welcome Putin to Alaska: President Donald Trump welcomed Russian President Vladimir Putin to Alaska with a red carpet on the tarmac military flyover, friendly handshakes and a short ride in his presidential limousine. It was a striking welcome for a leader who has been a global pariah since his 2022 invasion of Ukraine — and one who Trump has been increasingly frustrated with in recent months because of his resistance to Trump's peacemaking efforts. The initial image of a smiling Putin riding off in Trump's limousine could raise fears in Ukraine and Europe, where leaders have urged Trump to hold a firm line with the Russian leader, who many suspect is aiming to buy time by repairing his relationship with Trump but not willing to end the war. The private meeting without aides in the back of the limousine played out shortly after the White House announced that the two leaders would not be sitting down alone, but with a couple of their top aides. — DC sues over Trump administration's attempted takeover of city police: Washington officials are suing the Trump administration over what they call a 'baseless power grab' after the Department of Justice ordered a new 'emergency' head of District police. 'By illegally declaring a takeover of MPD, the Administration is abusing its temporary, limited authority under the law,' DC Attorney General Brian Schwalb wrote in an X post today. 'This is the gravest threat to Home Rule DC has ever faced, and we are fighting to stop it.' The lawsuit, filed in federal court, warns that the attempted takeover could 'wreak operational havoc' on the Metropolitan Police Department because of the confusion about who has operational control. — Texas governor immediately calls second special session for redistricting: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott immediately called another special session to pass a new congressional map after the first attempt failed due to Texas Democrats leaving the state to deny Republicans the ability to carve out additional GOP seats. Abbott's proclamation was largely the same as the first one, which lays out 19 agenda items, including redistricting and disaster relief for Central Texas flood victims. 'Delinquent House Democrats ran away from their responsibility to pass crucial legislation to benefit the lives of Texans,' the Republican governor said in a statement. 'We will not back down from this fight. That's why I am calling them back today to finish the job.' — Federal judge declares Education Department's attempt to bar diversity programs unlawful: A federal judge in Maryland struck down the Trump administration's attempts to have the country's school systems comply with a conservative interpretation of federal anti-discrimination law. Thursday's 76-page ruling from Stephanie Gallagher, a Trump appointee, vacates both a Feb. 14 Education Department letter that asserts that federal law prohibits schools from using race in decisions pertaining to all aspects of education — and an ensuing agency demand for schools to certify they would comply with the administration's views. — Appeals court clears way for deep cuts, restructuring at CFPB: A federal appeals court panel has cleared the way for the Trump administration to largely dismantle the work of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, lifting a lower-court judge's injunction that had preserved the agency's structure — and barred mass layoffs — for months. The 2-1 ruling, authored by Judge Gregory Katsas, said a series of legal defects in the lawsuit brought by CFPB employees and the NAACP doomed the case and required the district court judge's blockade to be lifted. AROUND THE WORLD HIGH STAKES — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country 'is counting on America,' hours before U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are set to meet in Alaska. 'Indeed, high stakes,' said Zelenskyy in a post on X, echoing an earlier post by Trump, who wrote 'HIGH STAKES!!!' on his Truth Social account before departing for the Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska. 'It is time to end the war, and the necessary steps must be taken by Russia. We are counting on America. We are ready, as always, to work as productively as possible,' Zelenskyy wrote. UN, GERMANY WARNS ISRAEL — The U.N. and Germany said a plan by the Israeli government to approve around 3,400 settlement housing units in the West Bank would breach international law. Israel's far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich presented the plan — which would effectively cut off the West Bank from East Jerusalem — earlier this week, saying it 'definitively buries the idea of a Palestinian state, simply because there is nothing to recognize and no one to recognize.' The United Nations human rights office said today the plan would break the West Bank into isolated enclaves which would be illegal under international law. A spokesperson told Reuters it was 'a war crime for an occupying power to transfer its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.' TURKISH CRACKDOWN — Turkish authorities detained an Istanbul district mayor and about 40 other officials today in what appears to be an escalation of the government's crackdown on the country's opposition. İnan Güney, the mayor of Istanbul's Beyoğlu district, was taken into custody as part of an investigation into alleged corruption, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported. Several of his close aides, including his bodyguard and some of his advisers, were also detained, according to local media reports. Güney is a member of Turkey's main opposition party, the secular Republican People's Party (CHP). His arrest comes five months after the CHP's Ekrem İmamoğlu, the popular opposition mayor of Istanbul, was jailed over corruption allegations. İmamoğlu is the main political rival of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and has been nominated as the CHP's candidate for the country's 2028 presidential election. He denies wrongdoing and says his jailing is politically motivated. His opposition party has steadily risen in popularity, performing well in regional elections last year, winning a fiercely fought mayoral election in Istanbul in part by turning districts traditionally held by Erdoğan's ruling Islamist party. Nightly Number RADAR SWEEP A CURATOR'S ODYSSEY — Behind every item displayed in a museum is the story of how it was acquired. Katherine Jentleson, a curator at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, has crossed the country and traveled to remote and dodgy corners of the U.S. in search of great art. When she heard that a man in Palm Springs had a collection of quilts and other works made by beloved Atlanta artist Nellie Mae Rowe, she knew she had to acquire them for the museum. But this acquisition involved more than the typical contract negotiation, shipping coordination and museum board approval. She also had to convince the collector to let go. Jentleson writes about her yearslong journey to collect Rowe's works for The Bitter Southerner. Parting Image Jacqueline Munis contributed to this newsletter. Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here.
Yahoo
9 hours ago
- Yahoo
Millions Of American Workers Just Appeared. Why That Might Be A Mirage
Key Takeaways Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows a large increase in the number of native-born U.S. workers, and a decrease in those who are foreign-born. White House officials pointed to the data as vindicating President Donald Trump's "America First" economic policies. Economists said the shift was more likely related to statistical quirks and did not represent genuine gains for U.S.-born workers. Since President Donald Trump took office, data shows native-born Americans have gained millions of jobs, while foreign-born workers have lost them. Is the shift a vindication of the president's "America First" policies, or just a statistical mirage?Since January, the U.S. economy has added nearly 2.5 million native-born workers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. At the same time, the foreign-born workforce has shrunk by 1 million. There are at least three competing explanations for why this has happened. America Has Been Made Great Again Officials in the Trump administration have pointed to the shift as evidence of the success of Trump's economic policies. Trump has launched a campaign of mass deportation, removing unauthorized immigrants from the country and cracking down on immigrants coming over the border from Mexico, aiming to increase jobs available to U.S.-born Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer in July on Fox News pointed to the BLS data as evidence the policies were working."The promises made by the President were that he was going to pay attention to the American worker, and that's why you're seeing American-born jobs increase," she rise in U.S.-born workers has been a bright spot for the White House amid other data showing a sharp slowdown in overall job growth. People Are Changing Their Answers On Surveys Several economists were skeptical that the data showed much of a genuine shift toward native-born Pingle and Alan Detmeister, economists for UBS, said the data were rooted in the fact that the BLS figures are compiled from household an analysis this month, Pingle noted the same set of economic data showed the overall native-born population of people over 16 suddenly, and improbably, rose by millions."Where did we find 3 million more people born 16 or more years ago in the United States in just seven months?" Pingle wrote in a commentary. "Overall population growth in that time has been only 1.1 million. Clearly, creating people out of thin air or giving birth to 16-year-olds is implausible."Pingle theorized that some people surveyed by the BLS have changed their self-reported status to native-born from foreign-born. That could be an understandable shift amid Trump's immigration crackdown."If households that previously reported themselves as foreign-born are now reporting themselves as native-born, that means comparing statistics based on the two classifications is not comparable over time," he wrote. It's Just A Statistical Fluke There's a third explanation that doesn't involve people lying on government Kolko, an economist and economic advisor to former President Joe Biden, said the answer was likely a statistical fluke related to how the BLS calculates its workforce reasons are complicated, but in short, they involve the fact that the bureau adjusts its figures in relation to data from the Census Bureau on the size of the total U.S. population. This can result in sudden lurches in native-born and foreign-born job levels, making it impossible to compare them accurately over time."The decline in the foreign-born population is suspiciously large; the truth is probably a combination of a slowly growing or possibly slightly declining foreign-born population, combined with declining response rates for the foreign-born," Kolko wrote in a blog post. "But the huge jump in the native-born population is an artifact of survey sampling and weighting. It tells us nothing about the true population, employment, or labor-market experience of native-born Americans." Read the original article on Investopedia Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Forbes
12 hours ago
- Forbes
Your Employees Are Terrified Of AI. Here's How To Prepare Them.
If you've been anywhere on the planet over the past few years you have likely seen the countless predictions of how AI is going to take away jobs. Hundreds of millions of jobs globally according to some reports! How can people not be terrified of this? Well, they are. Your employees are terrified too. And it's hard not to empathize. AI is already replacing workers at tech companies, Wall Street firms and retailers and some fear greater job losses in the not too distant future. More companies like Microsoft and PayPal are now publicly admitting how they're using this technology to reduce their headcounts. Other cost cutting measures – driven by AI and other technology advances - are leading big brands like Citi, Accenture, Tesla and Intel and other corporate giants to lay off tens of thousands of workers. Articles appear almost daily about the jobs most likely to go away thanks to AI. New job seekers are facing challenges finding work, not only because of a slowing economy but because of cutbacks fueled by technology. So it's understandable why your employees would be concerned. But – as business owners – we know that they really shouldn't be. We need them. Especially the good ones. So here's how you can prepare your workforce for the inevitable, unavoidable, inescapable impact that AI will have on your business and their livelihoods. Drill Down On Your Software Vendors Big brands are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to build their own internal systems for writing code, interacting with customers and performing tasks behind the scenes. But what about smaller organizations? Most will not be writing their own AI applications. They'll be leaning on the features introduced by their software vendors. As I write this, the technology firms that make accounting, customer relationship management, human resources, order entry, inventory management and other business applications are doing just that: investing millions in new AI capabilities for their platforms. Owners and managers need to spend time with their most significant software vendors and understand what AI features and functionality they're rolling out and then choose which of these functions will provide the most ROI for their companies. The reality is that AI isn't going to impact all of a business. But it will impact certain parts where it makes the most sense. Those parts need to be determined. Why? Because people will be affected. Train Your People. For Real This Time. Let me guess: your business has Microsoft Office or Google Workspace and you're percent of their features? Don't make this mistake again and don't do this with your AI investments. Once you choose which AI features you'll be focusing on (see above) then spend the money on training your people for real this time and then lean heavily into those features. Not only is it critical for your business to leverage whatever automation tools are available but you'll find it making a huge positive impact on your employees' attitudes towards these technologies. Help your employees to become experts in AI for their jobs. They'll gain confidence in themselves and a new appreciation for how AI will make their jobs easier and their lives better. Most fear is caused by uncertainty and ignorance. Training will remove those factors. Understand Your Demographics A recent study found that a staggering 85 percent of ChatGPT's mobile users are male. Other studies have shown that older people use AI differently than younger generations. And more research has revealed that six in ten GenZers use AI for education and 30 percent of younger generations use it weekly. Meanwhile, most older generations rely on AI mainly for work and professional tasks like helping with emails. It's important to tailor your training and your approach to AI based on who your people are. Don't advertise your intentions Shopify's CEO recently stated that his company won't hire workers unless it can be proven that AI won't do their job instead. Consumer financing firm Klarna boasted that their AI model would replace 700 customer service agents. The CEOs of Ford, JP Morgan and Amazon have all publicly stated that AI will be helping them to cut headcount. To me, none of these announcements say "hey, we love our people." Imagine working at at these firms. What would you think? You'd be afraid for your job. And that will impact your productivity and commitment. My advice: don't be like these CEO's. Whatever AI plans you have for your business, keep them close to the chest. It's likely – as a small business owner – that these plans will not involve cutting headcount, only increasing productivity. But your employees won't know that and could interpret your statements differently. And given AI's rapid change, those plans can change. Even Klarna's CEO walked back his claims after realizing that, depending on the issue, customers want to speak with humans. Duh! Change your KPIs Speaking of change, AI should cause you to change your Key Performance Indicators - or KPIs – that you're likely using to measure your people. Your AI investments are intended to increase productivity and that's what your metrics should be about. The whole reason why you're investing in this stuff is not to get rid of people, but to help them do things quicker. Because of this, you should change your focus to KPIs that emphasize productivity like output per employee, revenue per employee, task completion rates, billable utilization rates and error rates. Finally, be realistic and transparent The narrative is that employers will leap at the opportunity to replace their workers with bots, fire their employees, save money and increase their profits. And there's no denying that some jobs will be replaced. New technologies have a way of doing that. But business owners like myself - and just about all of my clients - know better. There's myth and there's reality. The myth is that everything will be done by AI and few workers will be needed. The reality is that AI is in its infancy and it's no where near the stage where we can rely on it to take away the core responsibilities that are being done by our very valuable employees. But make no mistake: these tools will get better, more accurate and more reliable over time. AI agents will start assuming tasks behind the scenes. And employers will be using them to do the work that employees are now doing. Which means you have to be realistic and transparent with your people. If they don't lean into these tools or their KPIs lag behind others, then you may have to make changes. You have a business to run. If an employee doesn't adapt to other tasks and adjusts to this new reality then yes, they may be out of a job. This is just a fact. But if you provide your people with the right training and context for your AI investments, your best workers will see the opportunity and step up to the plate. Those will be the ones who will not only help your business succeed but themselves will grow into better professionals.
