Trading up to an AI-proof career
Marketplace
Marketplace
4.6 • 8.6K Ratings
🗓️ 3 July 2026
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Careers in the trades — a path that’s largely more AI-proof, less expensive, and more dependable — are attracting more attention. We visit Hope Renovations, a program in North Carolina focused on getting more women and non-binary people into the trades. Also, we look at a decline in the labor force participation rate, country stores in New England, and a tailoring business in Utah.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | On the program today, what this week told us about the economy, who's in the labor force, who's out, who's trying something new? |
| 0:09.1 | And hey, when was the last time you went to a country store? |
| 0:12.9 | From American public media, this is Marketplace. In Portland, Oregon, I'm Riemechres in for Kai Rizdal. |
| 0:29.4 | It is Friday, the 3rd of July. |
| 0:31.5 | Good to have you along with us. |
| 0:33.2 | All right, no, we're just going to jump right into things. |
| 0:35.4 | It's a Friday, which means we're reflecting on the week that was. And here to do it with me are Sedeep Reddy from MS Now and Courtney Brown with Axios. Hey, you too. Hey, Brima. All right, let's start with the June jobs report. We added 57,000 new jobs last month. Courtney, in a piece you wrote, you called it a yellow card for the labor market. Tell me what you mean by that. |
| 0:58.4 | Can you tell we're in a World Cup spirit over at Axios? I love it. Yeah, I mean, I think 57,000 jobs, not horrible, not great, and it comes after really strong months of hiring |
| 1:15.6 | in March, April, and May. So one week month does not undo three, you know, strong months, |
| 1:26.1 | but it's a little bit of a warning sign, right? |
| 1:29.0 | So I think the question is, what was the blip? |
| 1:33.8 | Was June the blip? |
| 1:35.2 | Or was the last three months of strong hiring the blip that we got? |
| 1:41.8 | And I think we just need more that, such a boring answer, such a Kevin |
| 1:45.2 | Warsh answer. We need more data. We need to not over index on a single month of data. |
| 1:54.1 | Well, speaking of Kevin Sudeep, crystal ball, the next few interest rate setting meetings for me, |
| 1:58.7 | like are we raising, cutting, holding? It kind of |
| 2:00.8 | feels like we can go in any direction. Yeah, the Fed is very clearly going to want a lot more data. |
| 2:07.6 | They want some trends here that they can operate off of. And the job mark is clearly not hot, |
| 2:14.7 | but it's not in a particularly bad place. |
| 2:26.3 | As Courtney said, the job growth has on average been probably better than expected, |
| 2:30.7 | because you have to remember that we were not expecting very high payroll growth for the last year and a half, given that immigration is being choked off by the Trump |
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