Wanted: Social workers

The Indicator from Planet Money

NPR

Business

4.7 • 9.5K Ratings

🗓️ 6 October 2023

⏱️ 8 minutes

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Summary

U.S. job growth just surged way past expectations. But one area of employment continues to need more hands on deck: social workers. The evolving occupation is getting new attention from schools all the way up to corporations. Today, we try to understand where this need is coming from and whether it can actually be met. For sponsor-free episodes of The Indicator from Planet Money, subscribe to Planet Money+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Music by Drop Electric. Find us: TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Newsletter.

Transcript

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0:00.0	N-P-R.
0:03.0	This is the indicator from Planet Money, I'm Darien Woods.
0:14.5	And I'm Adrienne Ma, do you hear that?
0:18.9	It's a nail horn.
0:19.9	It's a particularly exuberant ring this month.
0:22.9	That eardrum smashing horn can only mean one thing, that is that it's jobs Friday.
0:29.4	That's where we check in on the latest jobs report and also spotlight trends in the labor
0:33.9	market.
0:34.9	Yeah, so numbers wise, we've got the unemployment rate staying the same at 3.8%, but look,
0:41.0	here is where things were just kind of going bananas.
0:44.0	The big headline number was the economy added 336,000 jobs.
0:49.0	It's a lot.
0:51.0	It's a lot.
0:52.0	36,000.
0:53.0	That's a lot of foul.
0:54.0	I thought the economy was meant to be slowing, this is quite surprising.
0:57.8	Yes, this caught a lot of analysts off guard.
1:00.7	The labor market is tight as a drum right now, employers are screaming out for workers.
1:05.8	And one field where that need is particularly acute is in the field of social work.
1:11.2	That's our focus this month, social workers.
1:13.3	So the Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that over the next decade, the number of people
1:17.8	doing social work will grow by 7%, and 7% that is more than double the predicted growth
	...

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