Unemployment hits four-year high
Marketplace
American Public Media
4.6 • 8K Ratings
🗓️ 16 December 2025
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The U.S. unemployment rate climbed to 4.6% in November, according to the latest BLS jobs report. There’s also data showing more Americans are reentering the workforce and more part-time workers are looking for full-time roles. In this episode, we explain what it all means for the broader economy. Plus: Advertising revenue is projected to top $1 trillion in 2025, hiring in the once-strong health care sector may slow soon, and artificial intelligence drives some young people into trade school.
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Transcript
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| 0:31.7 | The word of the day today is portmanteau, two words combined into one. What's that? Use it in a sentence? Sure. |
| 0:43.0 | How's this? What we've got here is a meh economy. From American public media, this is Marketplace. |
| 1:08.6 | In Los Angeles, I'm Kyle Rizzdahl. It is Tuesday, today the 16th of December. Good as always to have you along, everybody. Me, an economy. Me, economy. |
| 1:14.4 | Get it? I confess here that it's not my original thought. I saw it someplace this morning. I would |
| 1:20.2 | credit you if I remembered where, but it is kind of apt, no, given today's November and partial October |
| 1:27.4 | jobs report. |
| 1:28.8 | 4.6% is the unemployment rate, the highest it's been in more than four years, and the latest |
| 1:34.2 | sign that the U.S. labor market just keeps slowing down. |
| 1:42.5 | That 4.6%, by the by, is up from an even 4% at the start of this year. The thing is, |
| 1:50.1 | it's not happening because people are losing their jobs left and right. Marketplace is Daniel Ackerman. |
| 1:54.9 | explains what's going on. Amanda Augustine is a career coach with career minds. And she says many of her new clients have been |
| 2:02.1 | out of work for months now. It's a lot of people who have been unemployed for quite some time, |
| 2:08.1 | who are now saying, well, whatever I've been doing is clearly not working, I need some extra help. |
| 2:14.0 | She says employers aren't laying off a ton of people. There's been no spike in first-time |
| 2:19.0 | unemployment claims. Firms are just reluctant to hire. Even the interview process takes a longer |
| 2:25.1 | time. And so the share of people seeking jobs just keeps climbing. And one reason for the uptick |
... |
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