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not just in the race. You're built to win it. On the program today, it's a labor market economy

gang. We just live in it. That is true here, and it is true globally.

From American public media, this is Marketplace.

In Los Angeles, I'm Kyle Rizzdahl. It is Thursday. Today, this one is the 16th of April

Good, as it always is, to have you along, everybody. Our spin of the roulette wheel of business

and economic news today has bounced past inflation and equities and supply chains and artificial intelligence

and landed firmly in that slot labeled labor market. It is, this labor market, as you've heard

here at a time or two, a bit confounding, low hire, low fire, yes, but also holding up remarkably

well, given everything. And we offer some insight today into how and why.

The most recent beige book, the Federal Reserve's periodic update on economic conditions on the ground for businesses around the country,

it contains the word uncertainty 59 times.

The war in the Middle East, obviously, being the most approximate cause and weighing on long-term

decisions like, oh, hiring new workers. And perhaps related, several regions in this economy

have seen an uptick in the hiring of temporary and contract workers. Marketplace's Megan

McCarty Carino gets us going. A lot of companies had just been finding their footing after the last shock of tariffs,

says Holly Wade at the National Federation of Independent Business.

...