There are more unemployed people than job openings right now
Marketplace
Marketplace
4.6 • 8.5K Ratings
🗓️ 5 February 2026
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The latest JOLTS report is bleaker than expected. There were 6.5 million job openings across the U.S. economy in December, down nearly 400,000 from the previous month. This misaligned labor market is especially prominent in the services sector. In this episode, what's next for employment and which groups in particular are struggling to find work. Plus: The U.S. lags behind China in electrical capacity expansion, bankers show reluctance to lend to AI-impacted industries, and a photographer installs free-to-use phones across his city.
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 | feels like it's been a while, so I'm going to say it out loud again, just so as we all remember. |
| 0:08.3 | Stocks go down to, gang, from American public media. |
| 0:14.4 | This is Marketplace. |
| 0:25.9 | In Los Angeles, I'm Kai Rizzdahl. |
| 0:27.1 | It is Thursday. |
| 0:29.3 | Today, this is the 5th of February. |
| 0:29.9 | Good as always. |
| 0:30.9 | To have you along, everybody. |
| 0:34.0 | The standard caveat applies here. |
| 0:36.8 | Stock market, economy, not. But, stock market vibes, economy, ish. The major indices today, |
| 0:44.7 | as you have perhaps seen or already heard, not good in a kind of substantive way, people are |
| 0:51.0 | a bit wigged out over the big software companies and what AI might do to them. |
| 0:55.6 | Google, as we mentioned yesterday, is going to spend $175 to $185 billion on AI this year. |
| 1:04.7 | There is some agita out there about that. |
| 1:07.6 | And then there's the labor market, of which we have spoken often recently, and about which we |
| 1:11.9 | have some new numbers today. The first number, that is, is 213,000. That's how many people |
| 1:19.5 | filed first-time claims for unemployment benefits last week, a not small jump of 22,000 from the |
| 1:25.7 | week earlier. The next number is $ and a half million. That is the |
| 1:29.5 | number of job openings across this economy in December. That's from the latest job openings |
| 1:33.7 | and labor turnover survey. The fewest openings since back in September of 2020. Marketplace's |
| 1:40.7 | Daniel Arkhamen is on the labor market beat for us today. |
| 1:50.5 | Here's one concern that Mark Hamrick, an economist at bank rate, has about those 6.5 million job openings. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
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 2026.