Hear that? It's productivity number noise
Marketplace All-in-One
Marketplace
4.8 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 7 August 2025
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
American worker productivity grew a modest 2.4% in the second quarter of the year. Good news, right? Well, take a look at the math, and the last few months of falling imports and slowing workforce growth translated to productivity that might only look strong on paper. Later in this episode: Trump floats a 100% tariff on foreign semiconductors, couples opt for charitable wedding registries, and a mom of six makes a tough career decision.
Every story has an economic angle. Want some in your inbox? Subscribe to our daily or weekly newsletter.
Marketplace is more than a radio show. Check out our original reporting and financial literacy content at marketplace.org — and consider making an investment in our future.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | If you've shopped online, chances are you've bought from a business powered by Shopify. |
| 0:05.6 | You know that purple shop pay button you see at checkout? |
| 0:08.4 | The one that makes buying so incredibly easy? |
| 0:11.1 | That's Shopify. |
| 0:12.1 | And there's a reason so many businesses sell with it, |
| 0:15.0 | because Shopify makes it incredibly easy to start and run your own business. |
| 0:19.8 | Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of |
| 0:22.2 | businesses around the world, from household names like Mattel and Jimshark to brands just getting |
| 0:26.8 | started. If you want to see less carts being abandoned, it's time for you to head over to Shopify. |
| 0:32.8 | Sign up for a one pound per month trial and start selling today at Shopify.co.com.uk slash Marketplace 22. |
| 0:40.6 | Go to Shopify.com.com.uk slash Marketplace 22. |
| 0:47.3 | A whole new batch of tariffs is here, and the strain is starting to show up in the economy. |
| 0:53.9 | From American Public Media, this is Marketplace. |
| 1:04.0 | In New York, I'm Kristen Schwab in for Kyris Dahl. It's Thursday, August, the 7th. Thanks for joining us today. |
| 1:14.4 | We're starting today with two reports on jobs. |
| 1:22.7 | The first is weekly first-time claims for unemployment, which we get every Thursday. The Labor Department says claims went up a bit last week. |
| 1:48.5 | 226,000 people filed. It was 219,000 the week before. And during that week before, the total number of people claiming unemployment benefits was just shy of 2 million, the most since November of 2021. The second report we got today is labor productivity. It was up nearly 2.5% last quarter, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Now, usually, a boost in productivity goes hand in hand with a boost in wages and economic growth. |
| 1:55.5 | But last quarter's gains came with a cooling labor market. |
| 1:59.5 | Daniel Ackerman unpacks what that might mean. |
| 2:02.5 | First thing to keep in mind about labor productivity, says Gary Schlossberg of Wells Fargo, |
| 2:07.3 | is it tends to bounce around. You get a lot of noise in those numbers. |
| 2:11.4 | Schlossberg says today's increase could be the result of a one-off drop in imports last quarter |
... |
Transcript will be available on the free plan in 5 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Marketplace, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Marketplace and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.