What's going on with men's labor force participation?
The Indicator from Planet Money
NPR
4.7 • 9.5K Ratings
🗓️ 10 January 2025
⏱️ 11 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The unemployment rate ticked down slightly to 4.1%, and the economy added 256,000 jobs. So, for the last month of 2024, the jobs market finished pretty strong.
Today on the show, we look at the indicators from this month's jobs report that give us a snapshot of where our economy's headed. We look at how men are potentially reversing a decades-long trend of declining labor force participation, how people who are unemployed are staying that way for longer and how a lot of Americans saw their wages rise in 2024.
PLUS ... we reveal the winner of our Indicator of 2024!
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | NPR. |
| 0:02.0 | This is the indicator for planning money. I'm Adrienne Ma. |
| 0:14.0 | I'm Waylon Wong. |
| 0:15.0 | And I'm Darren Woods. |
| 0:17.0 | It is Jobs Friday. |
| 0:19.0 | It's the day of the month where we check in on the latest jobs report, and we talk about trends in the American labor market. |
| 0:27.4 | And as always, we start off with the headline numbers. |
| 0:30.5 | So today's jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that in December, the unemployment rate ticked down slightly to 4.1%. |
| 0:38.9 | That's good news. |
| 0:39.9 | And the economy also added 256,000 jobs. |
| 0:44.9 | So for the last month of 2024, the jobs market finished pretty strong. |
| 0:49.5 | Yeah, it's looking pretty good. |
| 0:50.7 | Yeah. |
| 0:51.2 | And what's interesting is that for a few months there, |
| 0:53.1 | there were some concerning signs that maybe the jobs market was softening, although those numbers were also |
| 0:59.4 | sort of muddied by labor strikes and hurricanes. But in any case, these latest numbers |
| 1:05.3 | suggest that employers are in a hiring mood right now. So coming up, we'll dig a little deeper, |
| 1:12.1 | and we'll also talk about the jobs indicators that we find most interesting right now. I'll talk about how a lot of Americans |
| 1:17.6 | saw their wages rise in 2024. I'm going to look at what's going on with men's participation |
| 1:22.8 | in the labor force. Also, why people who are unemployed are staying that way for longer. |
| 1:28.9 | That's all coming up after the break. |
| 1:32.8 | This is Eric Glass. |
... |
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