Tis the season of gratitude, you know, and I wanted to take a minute to thank our marketplace

investors. That is a community of listeners who've gone above and beyond to support our work

and to ensure that trustworthy news and information is available to all. And in a year like this one,

that means a lot. Each and every investor matters and makes a real difference here at marketplace.

So on behalf of all of us, thank you.

Hey, what's that saying on the one hand, but then on the other, right? Well, yeah, that,

but for the economy. From American public media, this is Marketplace.

In Los Angeles, I'm Kyle Rizdole, it is Wednesday today, the 23rd of November. It is always

to have you along, everybody. So where do we find ourselves? Do you suppose? And by ourselves,

I of course mean this economy on this Wednesday before Thanksgiving in the year 2022.

I'd be lying if I said we knew because for every good thing we learn, it seems there is another

that makes the opposite case today. Being just another example of that, we learn this morning

that orders for durable goods, the big heavy expensive stuff like cars and dishwashers,

we're up a full percent last month more than the experts had been guessing. But at the same time,

first time claims for unemployment benefits went up to 140,000 people lost their jobs last week.

That is 17,000 more people out of work than the week before. Of course, a couple of data points do

not a trend to make, but honestly, this is sort of an economic puzzler right now, right? Marketplace

is Mitchell Harman spent his day trying to untangle it. Let's start with the most worrisome news.

Jobless claims are at a three month high. Plus, there's been a wave of layoff announcements,

especially by Amazon and other tech firms. But it remains premature to say that we're seeing a

downturn in employment. John Lear is chief economist at Morning Consult. In large part because the

tech sector represents a relatively small share of the total U.S. economy, something like

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