Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: Growing up in a small town in Kansas, Danielle Norwood
Speaker 2: loved listening to the radio, but she didn't predict it
Speaker 2: would become her career.
Speaker 1: I had an opportunity to babysit for the general manager
Speaker 1: of a radio station in town. He said, you have
Speaker 1: a really interesting voice. Have you ever thought about getting
Speaker 1: into radio?
Speaker 2: She gave it a try, and soon she was hooked.
Speaker 2: She started out as a board operator and worked her
Speaker 2: way up the radio ranks in Solina, Kansas.
Speaker 1: Back in the day, you're pushing commercials and you would
Speaker 1: give the weather, and I actually had a radio show,
Speaker 1: so I was playing records.
Speaker 2: Eventually she moved to Topeka to host her own talk show.
Speaker 2: By last fall, she was nearly forty years into her
Speaker 2: radio career and hosting an award winning morning show for
Speaker 2: a local station. But last November her station told her
Speaker 2: they were letting her go. She was disappointed, upset, but
Speaker 2: you thought that given her experience, she'd be able to
Speaker 2: get a new job at another station before too long.
Speaker 1: And I wasn't even going to just stay in just
Speaker 1: Kansas or the central area. I was open to going
Speaker 1: anywhere to get a good job.
Speaker 2: How long did you expect it to take to find
Speaker 2: a new job.
Speaker 1: It was in the holidays season, so I thought, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe by the end of January I would be doing
Speaker 1: something radio related. And when that didn't happen, I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: well wait a second. So my next thought was, Okay,
Speaker 1: I've got public relations experience, I could do marketing. I
Speaker 1: have all these other things that are a part of
Speaker 1: being in broadcasting that I could apply for.
Speaker 2: But as weeks turned into months, Danielle started to get demoralized.
Speaker 1: Nobody was even thinking to give me an interview after
Speaker 1: a long time. It really your ego takes a hit.
Speaker 2: She realized she might have to pivot.
Speaker 1: Well, all of the rejections had gotten into the hundreds, Like,
Speaker 1: maybe this is not working for me.
Speaker 2: She started looking at job she'd never have considered before,
Speaker 2: jobs outside of radio and marketing. And Danielle is one
Speaker 2: of many job hunters right now in that position who
Speaker 2: are navigating a uniquely challenging time in the American labor market.
Speaker 2: Bloomberg's Mike Sasso says some of them are expanding their
Speaker 2: job search in ways they wouldn't have expected.
Speaker 3: I think when you do.
Speaker 4: See people line up to be traffic flaggers, and you
Speaker 4: hear that jobs at recyclable centers are much more easily
Speaker 4: filled now. It's a sign that things are rough out there.
Speaker 2: Holder, And this is the big take from Bloomberg News
Speaker 2: Today on the show inside an unusual dynamic playing out
Speaker 2: in one corner of the American labor market. Jobs once
Speaker 2: considered undesirable are suddenly seeing higher applications and lower turnover. Mike'
Speaker 2: sasso covers the economy for Bloomberg and to get a
Speaker 2: pulse on how the economy is doing, he looks at
Speaker 2: things like the unemployment rate, sure, but also at less
Speaker 2: formal indicators of how real people are experiencing the economy
Speaker 2: right now. And a few weeks back, an interesting data
Speaker 2: point caught his eye.
Speaker 4: Indeed, the big Giant job board just put out some
Speaker 4: news about Christmas, Thanksgiving kind of holiday season jobs. They're
Speaker 4: able to monitor, you know, how many people click on
Speaker 4: seasonal job postings on Indeed, and they were showing a.
Speaker 2: Spike, a nearly thirty cent spike year over year, and
Speaker 2: clicks on seasonal job postings on Indeed.
Speaker 4: Sometimes you just operate on hunches as a reporter and
Speaker 4: seasonal jobs, by their nature are kind of your second choice.
Speaker 3: Most people would like to have a permanent job.
Speaker 2: So I just got the wondering, wondering if there are
Speaker 2: other jobs that are typically hard to fill that might
Speaker 2: now be seeing more interest.
Speaker 4: A lot of those are blue collar oriented roles that
Speaker 4: I happen to know that they have very high turnover rates.
Speaker 4: They often have something that makes them less appealing, like stereotypically,
Speaker 4: you know, the waste industry. Solid waste can be a
Speaker 4: difficult role to fill. Traffic flaggers. You're kind of out
Speaker 4: there flagging traffic in thirty degree weather or ninety five
Speaker 4: degree weather, and often for twelve hours at a time.
Speaker 4: The military, for example, it's a job that it can
Speaker 4: be dangerous. Obviously, you can be torn away from your
Speaker 4: family for months or a year on end if you're deployed.
Speaker 2: So high turnover, potentially dangerous, unpleasant, temporary, and lower pay
Speaker 2: are some of the That's pretty much.
Speaker 3: You pretty much wrapped it up.
Speaker 4: There was something unappealing about these jobs that would require
Speaker 4: a second look in a kind of a weaker market,
Speaker 4: and sure enough, there was some evidence that they are
Speaker 4: seeing more interest and more applications.
Speaker 2: Waste management companies are reporting higher employee retention rates. According
Speaker 2: to the Solid Waste Giant waste Management, turnover among garbage
Speaker 2: truck drivers is at an all time company low. Military
Speaker 2: branches are reaching their recruiting goals ahead of schedule this year,
Speaker 2: and traffic flagger companies who send people to direct traffic
Speaker 2: at construction sites are having a good year too.
Speaker 4: Two three years ago, the head of an Atlanta flagging
Speaker 4: company was sort of lucky if he could get ten
Speaker 4: applications a week, and so he's now getting up to
Speaker 4: a week, which is you know what, six or sevenfold increase.
Speaker 4: I don't want to overplay it and say that people
Speaker 4: are lining up and banging down the door to get
Speaker 4: into solid waste jobs or to be traffic flaggers, but
Speaker 4: at the least they're telling me that some of the
Speaker 4: real strain they saw from a couple of years ago
Speaker 4: has alleviated.
Speaker 2: The head of the Atlanta based traffic flagging company told
Speaker 2: Mike he's gotten so much interest he's actually starting to
Speaker 2: be more selective about who he hires.
Speaker 4: He used to basically hire anyone who could pass a
Speaker 4: drug test and pass a certification test three four years ago.
Speaker 4: Now he's only able to hire fifteen percent of the
Speaker 4: people applying to be traffic flaggers.
Speaker 2: A fifteen percent acceptance rate is as selective as the
Speaker 2: top us university's admissions for their first year classes. Some
Speaker 2: of the other jobs Mike is tracking are more traditional,
Speaker 2: but they have certain features that economists call disamenities that
Speaker 2: make them less appealing. Jobs like substitute teaching.
Speaker 4: It's a hard role to fill. I know they have
Speaker 4: historically had high vacancy rates, really irregular work, generally low
Speaker 4: pay seventeen eighteen dollars an hour.
Speaker 3: I can remember.
Speaker 4: Flicking staples at the substitute teachers or shooting spitballs back
Speaker 4: in the day.
Speaker 1: I could tell you everything I'm nervous about because it's
Speaker 1: not in my comfort zone to be in charge of
Speaker 1: a bunch of kids.
Speaker 2: That's Danielle Norwood again. After she was laid off from
Speaker 2: the local radio station, she spent months applying to job
Speaker 2: after job, and when nobody got back to her, she
Speaker 2: started thinking outside the box. She drove uber for a while.
Speaker 2: She'd already been doing that to supplement her radio income,
Speaker 2: but she found that she couldn't make a living from it,
Speaker 2: so this summer she decided she'd apply to get her
Speaker 2: teaching license and become a substitute teacher.
Speaker 5: It's the only thing where the door is open.
Speaker 1: They still need a lot of substitute teachers to help out.
Speaker 2: She can see the disamenities clearly, no paid time off,
Speaker 2: no health insurance, lack of consistency.
Speaker 1: So, I mean, there's all these considerations to have to
Speaker 1: think about, and it's like, well, do I really want
Speaker 1: to do this and I'm not getting what I used
Speaker 1: to get, But at the same time, I need to
Speaker 1: check a little money is better than no money at
Speaker 1: this particular point.
Speaker 2: According to the latest medium wage data from the Bureau
Speaker 2: of Labor Statistics, substitute teachers make about eighteen fifty an hour.
Speaker 2: Coming up How the labor market got to this point
Speaker 2: and what it means for the economy. Bloomberg's Mike Sasso
Speaker 2: has been tracking how traditionally hard to fill jobs are
Speaker 2: starting to get a lot more appealing. It's a sign
Speaker 2: that employers are back in the driver's seat.
Speaker 3: Used to be.
Speaker 4: There was this concept about three years ago or something
Speaker 4: was called labor hoarding, and it was basically the concept
Speaker 4: that employers had had such a hard time filling roles
Speaker 4: during the pandemic that even if things slowed down and
Speaker 4: they were a little top heavy with people, they were
Speaker 4: not going to let workers go. It was a great
Speaker 4: time to be an employee. We saw wage rates rise
Speaker 4: five percent a year. Pretty much. That's all gone away.
Speaker 4: Now it's gotten ugly out there.
Speaker 2: That ugliness in the labor market is showing up in
Speaker 2: economic data in subtle and not so subtle waste.
Speaker 4: The unemployment rate is somewhat Economists will say that it's
Speaker 4: somewhat misleading because there has been this low higher low
Speaker 4: fire phenomenon going on, which basically means there's very very
Speaker 4: little hiring and you're seeing people sit in the unemployment
Speaker 4: line for or six months, eight months, nine months. The
Speaker 4: rate of hiring is actually at recessionary levels. So while
Speaker 4: the unemployment level at four point three percent is still
Speaker 4: fairly low, the rate at which companies are filling roles
Speaker 4: is at recessionary levels, and so that makes it extremely
Speaker 4: hard to get a job. There's a metric where they
Speaker 4: study how long unemployed people have been unemployed. In about
Speaker 4: twenty six percent of unemployed people have been out of
Speaker 4: work for but half year.
Speaker 3: Over a half year. Now that's a very high.
Speaker 4: Level it's one of the highest in the past decade, excluding,
Speaker 4: of course, the pandemic when things are off the charts.
Speaker 4: But I think what it says, it's a sign of
Speaker 4: how challenging it is to define work right now.
Speaker 2: Worker's confidence about finding a new job is also waning.
Speaker 2: A recent Harris poll conducted for Bloomberg found that nearly
Speaker 2: half of employed respondents said it would take them four
Speaker 2: months or more to find a job of similar quality
Speaker 2: if they lost their jobs today. For a widening pool
Speaker 2: of American workers, that's not a hypothetical. Companies from Amazon
Speaker 2: and Target to Ups and Starbucks have collectively announced tens
Speaker 2: of thousands of layoffs this year.
Speaker 4: My colleague just did an article. He's studied something called
Speaker 4: a warn notice. When companies make a mass layoff, they're
Speaker 4: supposed to notify their state government, and it shows up
Speaker 4: in these things called warn notices, And he noted that
Speaker 4: in October nationally there were some of the highest readings
Speaker 4: for warn notices in the past twenty years.
Speaker 6: What we talked about earlier is the fact that the
Speaker 6: power dynamic had switched from the hands of workers into
Speaker 6: the hands of employers.
Speaker 2: What would it take to actually reverse that dynamic again.
Speaker 3: Boy, that's hard to say. I mean, you'd have to
Speaker 3: have some shock.
Speaker 4: I mean, certainly everyone's kind of watching immigrant right now,
Speaker 4: and some of the data has shown a disappearance at
Speaker 4: least from the labor roles of something like two million workers,
Speaker 4: and there has been a lot of confusion over the
Speaker 4: impacts of that. And suddenly, certainly, if those industries are
Speaker 4: potentially at risk of losing a lot of manpower, that
Speaker 4: kind of a shock to the labor market.
Speaker 3: Competitor put power.
Speaker 4: In the hands of workers if there's some major shortage,
Speaker 4: I mean, that would probably be limited there as certain
Speaker 4: roles like construction, like hospitality, you know, hotels. Of course,
Speaker 4: those who would be likely to see it first.
Speaker 2: In the meantime, job seekers who are flocking to jobs
Speaker 2: that haven't always been desirable can take comfort in knowing that,
Speaker 2: even if they're not full time with benefits, they might
Speaker 2: have a better chance of being around for the foreseeable future.
Speaker 2: That's because it's harder to replace them with AI. Unlike
Speaker 2: some of the jobs that have been eliminated recently.
Speaker 4: We have seen some companies specifically acknowledge AI and automation
Speaker 4: being a factor, and some actually mentioned specifically targeting some
Speaker 4: roles for automation, and so some companies seem to be
Speaker 4: taking advantage of the increases in automation and AI right
Speaker 4: now to reduce their costs. It's a little bit worrying
Speaker 4: if you're caught up in that, and so we're kind
Speaker 4: of watching to see how much of that happens as
Speaker 4: you a passing phase.
Speaker 2: Danielle Norwood is trying to look on the bright side.
Speaker 2: She took her licensing exam to teach in the state
Speaker 2: of Missouri and she just got her score back.
Speaker 1: Which was ninety six point one five, which I was
Speaker 1: screaming to Jesus because it was almost like for me
Speaker 1: taking the bar. It was not an easy test to take.
Speaker 2: She's working on getting her Kansas license now too, and
Speaker 2: soon she'll be able to start teaching. And while subbing
Speaker 2: is in her top pick of jobs, there are us
Speaker 2: that Danielle says she's looking forward.
Speaker 5: To being able to hopefully influence kids and to let
Speaker 5: them know that there are people cheering for them and
Speaker 5: if they have challenging situations, because I grew up in
Speaker 5: a challenging situation too, economically, but you don't have to
Speaker 5: be the situation you're in, you could always rise above
Speaker 5: and push through, and I just hope to be a
Speaker 5: lot of that for the kids that I deal with.
Speaker 2: This is the Big Take from Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah Holder.
Speaker 2: To get more from the Big Take and unlimited access
Speaker 2: to all of Bloomberg dot com, subscribe today at Bloomberg
Speaker 2: dot com Slash podcast offer. Thanks for listening. We'll be
Speaker 2: back tomorrow.