Hey everybody, I'm Kimberly Adams.

Welcome back to Make Me Smart, where we make today make sense.

And I'm Rima Grace. Thanks everyone for joining us. It is Thursday, August 14th.

And today we're going to do some news and some smiles. Let's start with some news.

Reima, what do you have? So I wanted to talk about something that has been on my mind. I just want to

talk it through with you because I think it's really easy and understandable for us to get

wrapped up in the big headlines. We've got to talk about them.

But I think sometimes our conversations and what we're experiencing in our day-to-day can also be very revealing

and connect to some data points we're seeing in our economy.

And so I've noticed this thing in my life recently, this undercurrent of people who are just very fed up and frustrated with the job market.

I don't know if you've noticed the same thing.

But just last week, for example, I was hanging out with a friend who works in tech and recently got laid off.

And she's been applying to jobs nonstop without any luck.

And then two days ago was hanging out with friends and one of them was looking for a new job in government and policy. And another is like trying to hold on to her job in human rights. She's a lawyer. And, you know, last month I had a conversation with a friend in the Bay Area in tech who said he applied to hundreds of jobs before he finally got an offer. And then separately I'm having conversations with people in my personal and professional life who are just anxious about getting laid off. And obviously, these are just anecdotal. Like my friends aren't a stand-in for the labor market, but it does feel like we're in a moment when many people, including people who are very qualified and experienced, are having a really hard time finding jobs. And, you know, I'd love to know folks who are listening what your experience with the job market is.

Does any of this resonate with you?

Do you have completely opposite experience?

Matt Levin, who is our colleague just yesterday on Marketplace, talked about how the labor market is softening.

We had that jobs report earlier this month that showed weaker growth, not just in July, but the two months before that.

And then Matt mentioned this in his piece, but if you look at the website, indeed, it says

that job postings are down 8% year over year. So overall, the job market is not growing very fast,

and at the same time, more people are applying to jobs. And obviously, the reasons for that are

industry dependent, but I think a lot of companies

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