When it comes to the job market, love the one you're with

A little bit of the labor market, a little bit of the baseball off-season, and are you a cat person or a dog person? From American Public Media, this is Marketplace. In Los Angeles, I'm Colin Risdell. It is Tuesday. Today, this one is the 3rd of November. Good as it always is to have you along, everybody. Sure, yes, we could start with the straight-ahead labor market story, and we will get to today's data post-haste. But first, a sidebar of sorts into how and how well we are all working in this economy of ours. Worker productivity is the indicator of which I speak. At its most basic, how many widgets produced per hour worked. As Justin Ho is about to tell you, there is a case in place. There is a case to be made that productivity is at least as, if not more important than the actual unemployment data we are going to get on Friday morning. And in fact, productivity growth has been strong for most of the post-pandemic period. So here's Justin on what is driving productivity right now. Let's start with worker output, how much stuff we're all producing. You can measure that, at least at an economy-wide level, by looking at GDP. It's one of the best measures we have. That's Courtney Schuper, an economist with Macro Policy, President of the United States. GDP was strong in the third quarter. It rose at its fastest pace this year. Schuper says that's a sign that consumers and businesses are doing a lot of spending. But it's also telling us that output is strong, because the stuff that people are spending money on has to be produced by someone. And so when we're measuring expenditures, we're also kind of measuring how much of it has been produced. Then there's how many hours we worked, how long it's taking us to produce all this stuff. Matthew Martin is senior U.S. economist with Oxford Economics. He says hiring has been relatively weak this year. And as a result? What we're seeing is that growth in the labor force is quite slow at the moment. And so because of that, the aggregate hours worked is actually slowing down compared to what we've seen in prior years. In other words, people are producing more stuff. And at least on average, they're not working longer hours to do it. So when you add those two together, that really does point to stronger productivity. Higher productivity is welcome news for the economy overall. Nicole Servi, Because that is correlated with stronger real income growth for consumers, right? We're producing more things, we're consuming more things, and that translates to higher wages at the end of the day. But wages aren't rising that much. They're certainly not keeping up with inflation. You can have the situation where overall output growth looks robust, productivity is robust, but who is really benefiting from it doesn't really look like the worker is at this point in time. One reason is that there's not a lot of churn in the economy, right now. Workers are sticking with their jobs, and layoffs are low. Servi says that could be holding back wage growth and productivity. When you're looking to switch a job, right, usually what you're doing is you're trying to find either higher wages or a better fit for your skills. And sometimes, and a lot of times, those things are aligned. So even though productivity growth is strong, it could be even stronger if more people were on the market for jobs they're better suited for. I'm Justin Ho for Marketplace. Productivity data comes Thursday, by the by. Wall Street on this Tuesday, just like the rest of us, traders had one eye on the elections. A little up, a little down. Technology stocks are apparently back in favor. We will have the details when we do the numbers. Okay, as promised, the labor market data owe the day. You are almost certainly as tired of hearing me say we are in a low-hire, low-fire labor market as I am of saying it. Sadly for all of us, then, that that's still what's going on. The September job openings and labor turnover survey was out today. Job openings and hires and separations. Separations were all little change, that's a quote. The only thing that did change, and that only just a touch, was the number of people quitting their jobs. Marketplace's Samantha Fields has more on that one. It's a good thing when more people start quitting their jobs. It signals a labor market that is healthier, where workers have more mobility. Angela Hanks at the Century Foundation says people tend to quit when they're confident they can find another job. But one month of data showing more people quitting doesn't mean all that much. And then also this is sort of in the context of a bunch of other numbers that we get reporting on the strength of the labor market. And so far, she says, none of those other numbers on job growth or wage growth indicate now is a good time to quit your job. Heidi Sheerholz at the Economic Policy Institute says quite the opposite, actually. If you have a job, the right thing to do is to hang on to it if you can. All the data point to it's really, really hard to find a job right now. Yeah. Yeah. The hiring rate is about where it was in 2012, 2013. Just coming out of the Great Recession when we had very, very, very weak labor markets. That's the kind of world that people who are looking for a job are facing right now. It's rough. It's been rough for about two years now. And Sheerholz says she expects Friday's jobs report will show that's still the case. Elizabeth Pancotti at the Groundwork Collaborative will be looking to see if she can find a job. Elizabeth Pancotti at the Groundwork Collaborative will be looking to see what's happening in one sector in particular. Health care is really the industry that all eyes are on. It has really carried job growth for the past two years or so. Today's Jolt's report shows there are still plenty of openings in health care. But hires are down by about 13 percent from last year. And we have seen in the traditional employment report that health care is really cooling. And Pancotti says with major cuts to Medicaid going into effect early next year, that's a trend that's likely to continue. I'm Samantha Fields for Marketplace. As Sam was just saying, this morning's Jolt showed millions of people quit their jobs in September. 3.4 million. 3.4 million, according to the data. But not everybody who is out of work is in a hurry to land their next gig. Because sometimes, life just has other plans. Here's today's installment of our series, Clocked Out. My name is Ryan. I am 41 years old. I was previously working in sales and operations. After a couple of CEO changes and actually the company being sold, there was. There was a pretty solid reorg. And my position was affected. At first, it actually wasn't that bad. And I was in, you know, full mode of, you know, let's get a job quickly here. My son, Leo, two weeks after Leo's second birthday, he was diagnosed with Angelman syndrome. It's a rare neurological disorder. After learning about Leo's diagnosis, I mean, it was probably a year after that that I was not working. So as I was kind of searching for a job, you know, I realized that, you know, it was going to make more sense for there to be kind of one parent at home who was going to be helping out more with this just so we didn't have to do a lot of juggling. My wife, she's making the, you know, the income in the household. And it's like, I want to make sure that she's capable of concentrating on her job. I think next year, the year after, I would like to kind of reenter the workforce. I'm nervous for that. You know, as I was just exiting the workforce, you know, I was using AI pretty, pretty heavily. I feel like I may be missing, missing a little bit by not being, you know, fully integrated in the workforce and working in AI. People are always saying to me like, oh, wow, you know, it must be, must be so nice not working. And I'm like, no, actually, I mean, I like the daily grind and stuff like that. It's actually rewarding for me. It's not to say that what I'm doing isn't rewarding, but it's just a different, a different kind of reward that you kind of just have to be OK with it not being exactly what you want. Ryan McCaffrey in Burlington, Vermont there. What has life had in store for you and your time in the labor force? We want to hear about it. You can let us know at marketplace.org slash clocked out. With the humblest of apologies in advance, I am here to tell you that there are a scant 52 shopping days until Christmas. I hear you. I hear the yelling at the audio player of your choice that it's just not cool for me to be saying that this early. But and the gears of this economy grind on and businesses across the country are frantically getting ready, getting so ready, it turns out, that according to the latest Logistics Managers Index, warehouse space is getting harder and more expensive to come by. Marketplace's Sabri Beneshour has this latest installment of our occasional series on the great American supply chain. Picture it. America. Early 2026. Businesses everywhere thinking about ordering stuff for the holidays because it takes forever to get. They knew they had to do it, but this year they didn't want to. You don't want to bring in inventory early where it's going to be more expensive because of tariffs. Tariffs. Thought we were done with that, didn't you? Zach Rogers is associate professor of supply chain management at Colorado State. Businesses don't want expensive stuff sitting on the shelves. For months before they can make money off of it. And so the idea is, yes, we will pay these tariffs, but let's pay them at the last second before we sell whatever these goods are. So businesses were already procrastinating. And then. Today, the U.S. and Israel launched an unprecedented joint attack on Iran. Tensions are really hitting that oil market. Four dollars and sixty nine cents for the regular tank. So then businesses were like, OK, well, we have. Literally no idea how consumers are going to be feeling by Christmas. Solution, more procrastination. They were waiting to see if the consumer would show up. Well, consumers somehow are showing up. We're expecting about two hundred and seventy five point one billion dollars in spend. Vivek Pandya is lead insights analyst for Adobe. And that six point seven percent year on year growth is in line with what we've seen in kind of previous holiday seasons. So with all of this in mind, America's businesses. Put in those orders all at the last minute, all at once. Again, Zach Rogers bring all this expensive inventory at the last second has really hit the warehousing market square in the eyes. Rogers helps put together the logistics manager's index report. It shows inventory growth this month was the highest since twenty twenty two warehouses running out of space. And the price of storing stuff in those warehouses also fastest growth since twenty twenty two. Not a Sanders. Sanders is professor of supply chain management at Northeastern. She says all these crampacked warehouses are a risk for businesses. The danger is they could end up getting stuck with excess inventory that they cannot sell during the holidays. So everyone's betting on the consumer here and they better be right in New York. I'm Sabri Beneshour for Marketplace. Coming up, he goes to the Red Sox and becomes a Hall of Famer. That's insane. I mean, go Yankees. But first, let's do the numbers. Dow Industrials down one ninety seven today for 10 percent. Fifty one thousand seven eighty six. The Nasdaq added two hundred and seven points. Just over a tenth percent. Twenty five thousand three. Seventy two. The S&P 500 found twenty seven points in the couch cushions. Just shy of four tenths percent. Seven five six eight. Apple beat expectations when it reported results yesterday after the bell. The iPhone maker also warned that the rising cost of memory chips bid up by demand for anyone. Anyone. AI data centers is starting to eat into its margins. Apple subjected one and nine tenths percent on the day today. Reddit blasted Australia's social media plan for under six ban rather for under 16. The platform also says it's testing out ads for its search functionality. Reddit added five point seven percent on the day. Curing Dr. Pepper reported steady demand for energy drinks and carbonated beverages. It flattened five point six six percent on the day. The Clorox company reported stronger than expected sales and lower than expected costs. It brightened. Get it? Brightened four and a third percent bonds down. Yield on the 10 year T-note rose four point nine six percent. You're listening to Marketplace. This is Marketplace. I'm Kai Risdahl. Pet ownership between the toys and the beds and the leashes and the unexpected visits to the vet can be expensive. And I have not yet even mentioned feeding them. The American Pet Products Association, Big Pet, if you will, says this year pet owners in this economy are expected to spend almost 70 billion dollars on pet foods and treats. That's more than they will spend on vet care and other services. There's also a long way of saying that there is money to be made in the pet food aisle. Jenny Gross wrote about the big business that is pet food for The New York Times the other day. Jenny, thanks for being here. Thanks so much for having me. Great to be here. Tell me, would you please, how you wound up going to a pet food taste testing facility in the south of France? Yeah, so I was at my desk listening to an investor conference and I heard the CEO of Nestle talk about how they saw big structural growth in cat. And the whole phrase just made me laugh, which is not something I usually do when I'm listening to investor conferences. So I just thought, okay, so interesting that companies see huge potential for growth in the cat food sector. And so I thought, where's the best way to tell the story? Is there any such thing where there are taste tests that happen that these big companies do? And I had no idea at that point. I asked Nestle and I also asked Mars, which owns Royal Can-On. And turns out Royal Can-On has a big dog and cat center, their pet center in the south of France. And there are 377 dogs and cats. And every day at 4 p.m. they do taste tests and they monitor how much the cats and dogs like the food. Like literally they put bowls in front of them and it's sort of an A-B test? Literally. They're trays, not bowls. And they will test different types of their own food, their own food with competitors' food. And of course for dogs and cats eat quite differently. And so for cats, you know, these tests can take hours. The trays are put out at 4 p.m. and then they monitor how quickly the cats eat. And with the dogs, you know, dogs eat quickly. And so within 15 minutes the tests are finished. So ultimately it's a business story. But I also wanted to answer this question. How do you determine what tastes good to cats and dogs? And it's literally just like the weight of what they eat. Basically, right? And how often and all that jazz. Yep, exactly. And then, you know, not to get a bit gross, but they also look pretty closely at the excrement, the quality of it. They rate it from 1 to 10. The lowest score is diarrhea. Okay, that's good. That's good. That's the lowest score. Sorry. And so they call that, they look at the quality. But yeah, a lot goes into it. And then there's a whole other area about special food for aging. Cats and dogs. Right, right, right. So this plays down in the south of France, 377 cats and dogs with scientists and all of that. The facilities, obviously not cheap. The ROI on this for Mars, which owns this place, must be the payoff, right? I mean, it's worth it to them to go to all this expense. Yeah, exactly. And I think it's, look, it's hugely profitable for these companies. And prices are, you know, across the board, as we all know, are increasing. Wage growth hasn't kept up with those prices, but the pet food market keeps growing. So I think the number, it was 17 billion was spent on cat food in the U.S. over the last year. And that was up 14% from the same period two years ago. Dog food sales are roughly even from two years ago. But a lot of it is, I mean, what some of the executives I spoke to said was that, you know, people in general are having kids later if they have them at all. And so there's more willingness to spend a lot of money on pets. And companies are completely tapping into that, you know, offering really high-end food as well. Well, I mean, you walk down the pet food aisle in your local Piggly Wiggly, and it's, I mean, it's, you know, blinding, practically, the number of options that are out there. Yeah, and it's not just cat food and dog food. It's also supplements. So something these companies are really focusing in are, you know, supplements for dementia, even, to support healthy brain aging. A lot of it is around the fact that the pandemic cat pets that many of us adopted, in 2020, are now reaching middle age. And so there's opportunity for companies to offer different varieties of, say, you know, extra soft moose for cats ages 11 and up, or easy-to-eat kibble for cats 15 and up, all kinds of varieties. And there's a big, big opportunity for these companies. Jenny Gross, The New York Times. Jenny, thanks a lot. I appreciate it. Thanks so much. Thank you. and team owners are widely expected to lock the players out. Every major team sport in the United States, except baseball, limits how much a team can pay its players. Owners want that for obvious reasons. The players union, for equally obvious reasons, does not. But as Marketplace's Henry Epp reports, this is not your typical labor dispute. Being a baseball player at the beginning of your major league career is very different from being an established player because there's nothing free about the labor market early in baseball careers. Mike Trombley pitched for three major league teams from 1992 to 2002. The very first few years in my career were horribly stressful. I didn't know if I was going home tomorrow. I never had a guarantee of anything. That's because in their first six years in the majors, baseball players are entirely under their team's control. In those early years, Trombley earned just above the league's minimum salary pitching for the Minnesota Twins, roughly $240,000 of today's dollars. And I remember in 1994, 95, I felt like every game, this could be my last game. Because, hey, they sent me to AAA. They're going to ship me out or release me. I'm gone. But he never got stuck in the minors. And after the 1999 season, he became a free agent. Now he could participate in a free labor market. Any of the 30 MLB teams could offer him a contract. The Baltimore Orioles did for three years and a salary that would total around $15 million today. When you're signing that three-year deal as a free agent, it's relaxation. It's making more money for your family. And it's the chance to test your value in a free market, says DeMille. David Barry, an economics professor at Southern Utah University. For a select few players, that value is enormous. So you have potentially every team bidding for your services, and they will bid the price up for the Stars to a point where they can get paid, you know, $30, $40 million a year to play baseball. Major League Baseball argues that's a problem because a team can fork over more money for Star players and gain a competitive advantage over teams with less money. So it's proposing to regulate that freeing. Morgan Sword is MLB's executive vice president of baseball operations. Sword argues those changes would increase the overall amount players make. Players in the sports middle class, like Trombley was, might make a bit more in the free agent market. Superstars would make less. Players union did not agree to an interview by our deadline. But in a statement earlier this year, it said the league's proposal, quote, ensures gains for one player only come at the expense of another. Owners have proposed a salary cap before, and baseball's union has stuck together in opposition. One reason is because some players unexpectedly become superstars. Two years into his major league career hits a walk-off home run in the 2004 American League Championship Series, leading the Boston Red Sox on an improbable run to their first World Series win in 86 years. Just two years earlier, says David Barry at Southern Utah University. His career didn't look like it was going anywhere. He goes to the Red Sox and becomes a Hall of Famer. That's insane. And the part that's relevant to our story here, Ortiz also went on to make as much as $16 million a year. Baseball players really don't know what's going on. They want to believe that could be them. I'm not going to vote for a salary cap that's going to take away my potential payday. If the players hold out in defense of the current system long enough, the league might have to cancel some or all of next season. It's happened before. Back in 1994 and 95, the players went on strike, in part, over a proposed salary cap. Former pitcher Mike Trombley was early in his career then. He could have crossed the picket line as a replacement player. So I was 26 years old, something like that. You know, I had a wife. I just had a kid, and I needed the money. It would have been easy to grab that quick check. But he didn't. The union stuck together, MLB did not adopt a salary cap, and a couple years later, Trombley got his payday on the free market. I'm Henry Ant for Marketplace. We will see you tomorrow, everybody. This is APM.