Marketplace - Health care is still hot in the job market

Episode Date: July 9, 2024

The job market has cooled in recent months. The days of two openings per available worker may be over, but some sectors still have to struggle to find employees. One industry on a hot streak is health care, thanks in part to the continued workforce disruptions caused by COVID. Also in this episode: Small-business optimism rises despite cost concerns, tweens concoct potentially harmful “skin care smoothies” and steel prices sag as demand drops.

Hey everybody, it's Kai. Listen, is it time to upgrade your car? Give it new life by donating it to Marketplace. We'll use the proceeds to bring you more news about finance and the economy and how they affect you. Let us turn your old car into a donation to power the journalism you rely on. Go to marketplace.org slash vehicle

to donate your car today. Today we'll talk jobs and how the business owners who create a lot of those jobs are feeling about the economy. From American public media, this is Marketplace. In New York, I'm Kristin Schwab in for Kai Rizdal. It's Tuesday, July 9th. Good to have you with us. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell took to Capitol Hill this morning for day one of his semi-annual remarks. By now, economists and traders have probably already spent some time parsing over his every word, trying to interpret

what they mean for rate cuts. Reminder, a more data-driven signal comes out on Thursday with the latest consumer price index. We'll leave the grand projections about interest rates alone and bring you this point Powell made about a key source of inflation, jobs. We've seen that the labor market has cooled really significantly across so many measures and a number of people here today have pointed them out, but the unemployment rate has moved up. You see a labor market that is now pretty much in balance, pretty much where it was in 2019. It's not a source of broad inflationary pressures for the economy now. Remember, the June jobs report showed unemployment ticked up to 4.1%, which is still pretty low.

picked up to 4.1%, which is still pretty low. Here's the thing about the job market, though. It is big and broad, and no two jobs in it are exactly the same, nor are their job markets the same. For instance, even though the labor market has generally been cooling, healthcare has been hot. Marketplace's Sabri Beneshear starts us off. Over the past year, 757,000 jobs have been created in the healthcare sector. Around 400 of them were hired with the help of Daniel Spriglio, Director of Recruitment for Riders Health Management. We own and operate eight different skilled nursing facilities across Connecticut, as well

as a home care agency. There is still more hiring to be done. We have about a hundred different nursing positions open across the system. And it has not been easy finding people. We post on all the job boards, job fairs and all that, but there's a very limited pool of people. Partly because of the pandemic. Still, says Michael Abrams, managing partner of Numeroff Associates, Inc., the healthcare consulting firm. What we're seeing is, in large degree,

replenishment of workers in the healthcare industry. So many people either took early retirement or got burnt out and left during the pandemic that healthcare jobs only got back to pre-pandemic levels less than two years ago. Hospital administrators have been scrambling and have been short staffed all this time. Demand, meanwhile, is building. The population is aging. And there's even leftover pandemic demand. Tom Bales is PwC's U.S. Health Services leader.

We still see the residual tail of COVID pent-up demand. So things that were postponed. We still see the residual tail of COVID pent up demand. So things that were postponed. Think knee replacements. Hospitals alone added 242,000 jobs in the last year, but even more jobs, 374,000, were added in what's known as ambulatory care. These are outpatient settings, urgent care settings, home health settings.

Health care becoming more convenient for patients. Ironically, the health care delivery sector as a business concern still has problems, says Abrams. They're running on very thin margins. They were not doing that well before the pandemic. Despite that, the jobs are still coming for now. In New York, I'm Sabri Benishur for Marketplace. It seems Wall Street today didn't know how to interpret Powell's remarks. They'll have another chance tomorrow when he testifies in the House. We'll have the details when we do the numbers. Let's move from one major pillar of the economy, jobs, to another, small businesses. Today we learned from the National Federation of Independent Business that small business

owners are more optimistic about the economy than they've been all year, which is great. Except compared to the historical average, optimism is down. And that's the kind of way it's going for businesses these days. There are pluses, there are minuses. Marketplace's Elizabeth Troval takes it from here. I'll give y'all three seconds to guess the thorniest part of running a small business today. One, two, inflation. Well, I mean, we see the inflation in everything, right? Sheena Ismendes runs her own small business, The Well Biz, a consulting firm in Miami. Actually our workers just went up right now.

They just increased it. We also see that increase when it comes to health care across the board. We're seeing it everywhere. Workers are also getting paid more. Small businesses may be facing an easing labor market, but it remains tight, says Holly Wade with the National Federation of Independent Business. We're still seeing very elevated levels of business owners saying that they're planning to increase compensation.

And business owners are then having to try and figure out the best ways of absorbing those cost increases. Bob Kingery has felt that pressure at his company, Southern Energy Management, based in Raleigh. They install solar panels and make buildings more energy efficient. Our hourly team members that do our fieldwork in the last three years, we've focused heavily on how are we going to increase their wages so they can afford to live in a triangle area of North Carolina and or anywhere in North Carolina for that matter.

He is paying his employees more, but Kingery says overall he doesn't have trouble hiring and he hasn't had to put off any large purchases. We are optimistic. It's kind of rare to feel that way in the world around us in some ways. And there are signs in today's survey that the economy may not be as bad as some business owners feel it is. Liz Wilkie is an economist with payroll firm Gusto. The hard indicators have been pretty good and the soft indicators, people's expectations

and their assessment of the situation has gone way down. She says there's a growing gap between how business owners are actually doing and how they feel about the future. I'm Elizabeth Troval for Marketplace. Last week, the Biden administration proposed a new rule that would require employers to provide employees with water and breaks when temperatures hit 80 degrees. If approved, this would be the first federal rule to protect workers from extreme heat. Meanwhile, this year is already on track to becoming the hottest

year on record. And as heat waves become more common, the dangers for people are only going to get worse. Umair Erfan wrote about heat waves for Vox the other day. Umair, welcome to the program. Thanks for having me. Well, let's start with the basics. What is actually a heat wave? A heat wave is defined typically as the temperatures that are in the 90th percentile or higher for a given region.

So what that means is that the threshold for a heat wave changes depending on where you are. The temperatures that are required to can be considered a heat wave in Phoenix, Arizona are going to be much higher than the temperatures that will be considered a heat wave in Portland, Oregon. But that sustained temperature in the 90th percentile basically in the top 10% of typically expected temperatures, stays for several days at a time.

And that's the wave part of the heat wave. Kaitlin Luna And you, in your story, talk about how there's actually less relief happening at night that heat waves kind of continue on in the evening. Aaron Ross Right. So one of the distinct signals we're seeing in recent years is that temperatures are not cooling off as much at night as they used to. And that has really important health consequences because one of the ways that we cope with extreme heat is finding relief in the evening time and at nighttime. And that means that the effects of heat accumulate faster in people

over a period of time. Yeah, you write about some of those risks, some very direct and some pretty indirect. What are some of those odd health effects? Right, we find out that heat influences our body in a lot of direct and indirect ways. Some of the indirect ways are things like how heat influences our medications. There are a lot of drugs that are actually less effective when temperatures go up, and there are also a lot of medicines that make us more vulnerable to extreme heat. So things like diuretics, things like blood pressure drugs, and then of course there are the direct effects of extreme heat. You know, it's just simply being dehydrated, hyperthermia, where your body temperature

accumulates to a dangerously high temperature. All those things are at play when we see temperatures rising. Lauren Henry There is of course the economic piece of this too, not just for households but also cities. What are cities doing to counteract this? Jason Kuznicki At a large scale, I mean, I think the big public health thing is to generate awareness, to make sure that people understand the risks of extreme heat, how to understand their own vulnerabilities and then the precautions that they should be proactive about taking. As far as trying to stay cool, you know, we find that urban areas tend to accumulate heat faster and to higher levels than surrounding rural areas.

This is a phenomenon known as the urban heat island effect. And so some cities are working on ways to try to mitigate that with things like tree cover and then also things like you know Being more energy efficient with how we use things like air conditioning You know one of the ways that air conditioning works is that they reject heat outdoors And so while it cools off an indoor space it can heat up an outdoor space and so being more thoughtful about how we generate electricity and how we use electricity and how we condition our indoor spaces are all things that we can do to help reduce the overall impact of heat. Yeah.

Well, I feel a little stressed out now. So I'm wondering if last year was the hottest year on record, this year is set to surpass that. Is there a way that things can get better? In a few ways, yes. I mean, one is that we can reduce our overall exposure to the heat by understanding the risks that we face and then taking steps to mitigate them.

In the United States, for instance, there is right now no federal workplace heat safety standard. Right now, workplaces are pretty late to the game as far as mitigating and reducing the harms from heat. And we're not just talking about people who work outdoors in construction sites or farm workers who are very vulnerable, but people who work in warehouses, delivery workers, and even people who work in kitchens. There's a lot we can be doing to reduce their exposure.

And then in terms of the overall big picture of planet planetary things that we can be doing, obviously, the big one is to reduce our impact on the climate that's to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions over time to mitigate the rate of warming and then in the more Intermediate term there are things that we can be doing as far as how we design our cities to have more green spaces more More reflective surfaces and that can also help reduce some of these risks from extreme heat. Yeah. Umair Irfan, writing about heat waves in Vox.

Umair, thanks for being here. My pleasure. Thank you for having me. Coming up… Just like kids used to collect baseball cards and, you know, Beanie Babies. I remember when the Beanie Baby Bears were an especially hot commodity. But first, let's do the numbers. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 52 points, 1 tenth percent, to finish at 39,291. The Nasdaq rose 25 points, 1 tenth percent, to close at 18,429.

And the S&P 500 added 4 points, less than 1 tenth percent, to end at 5576. Goldman Sachs banked up nearly 2 percent, ditto for Bank of America, nearly 2 percent. Wells Fargo inched up almost 1.5 percent. Nvidia charged up 2.5 percent. We told you yesterday about Boeing and the agreement to plead guilty and pay a nearly $250 million fine for criminal fraud for its two 737 Max crashes. The deal still needs the approval of a judge. Boeing lost 1.5% today.

Bonds fell. The yield on the 10-year T-note rose to 4.30%. You're listening to Marketplace. I'm Kristin Schwab. We talked earlier about heat waves, how they're a financial burden for cities and residents, also how they increase risks to people's health. Well, hotter temperatures also increase the risk of wildfires. The National Interagency Fire Center says wildfires have burned nearly 3 million acres so far this year. That's more acreage than all but one of the past five years during the same period. The repercussions

of wildfires, though, they continue long after the flames go out. Take the quiet rural community of Blue River, Oregon, population of about 800. Almost four years ago, the Holiday Farm Fire nearly burned the town off the map. KLCC's Brian Bull has more on the lengthy and expensive path to rebuilding. Brian Bull In the little town of Blue River, there's a pristine new fire station of shiny gray siding and a sloping black roof.

It sits in a valley flanked by hills covered with thousands of charred trees that used to be lush fir and pine forest. When the Holiday Farm Fire raged through here, it destroyed the old station. Today, the community is dedicating a new $3 million fire station, rebuilt with the help of state grants. Firefighters push a new $3 million fire station rebuilt with the help of state grants. Firefighters push a new engine into the garage. It's a widespread tradition dating back to the days of horse-drawn engines. Crew members high-five and hug each other. It's symbolic of how Blue River locals have responded since those in most of their town unite, pull, or push

together. You know, it's a piece at a time. Melanie Stanley is a longtime resident and fire department board member. As people line up for cake and nachos at the grand opening, Stanley takes off the challenges to rebuild her town. Between supply chains, county building codes, permits being issued, contractors not being available because of the number of structures that were being built all simultaneously. If you name it, we've probably faced it.

Progress inches along. The new post office opened three years ago, and a health clinic and library are opening this fall. And up the highway, crews are rebuilding the Lazy Days mobile home and RV park. 80 residents, many working-class families, fled during the holiday farm fire. Every single home was leveled. The park is now owned by a non-profit called Homes for Good. Executive Director Jacob Fox remembers how the park looked in the aftermath of the fire.

When I first came back, getting a little emotional here, there was basically just metal chassis of homes that were burned completely, broken dolls, tricycles, like everything was just scorched. Come August, 20 modular homes and 10 tiny houses will be installed here at the park. The project cost $12 million, funded by a mix of state, federal and local dollars. The goal is that most residents will own their home with special priority. We would love for someone that was displaced from the Lazy Days Mobile Home Park to return to this community, and I personally look forward to welcoming those folks back.

How many will return is anyone's guess. Many disuased locals moved in with relatives or sheltered in hotels or maybe even left the community altogether. Still, it's one thing to rebuild city facilities and put up new houses for local residents, but Blue River relies on tourism, and the community has worked to convince travelers to make a stop here. Ken Engelman, Chairman, Blue River Community Council, New York City They should stop in each one of these communities and generate support for the whole area. Ken Engelman heads up the local Chamber of Commerce and has lived here since 1976.

Fishing, rafting and hiking are but a few draws. Engelman says there's a new attraction on the horizon. The old Mackenzie Fish Hatchery site, which is now called the Mackenzie River Discovery Center, which is going to be a world-class attraction, that is going to be coming on board next year. Or 2025, meaning locals who are waiting for an economic boost will need to hold on a little longer. In Blue River, Oregon, I'm Brian Bull for Marketplace. We start this story with an economic indicator of sorts. Steel prices have fallen 40% since

the beginning of the year, steel being a commodity impacted by construction and manufacturing. And those prices, they're way down from the unprecedented highs of a few years ago, when the economy emerged from pandemic lockdowns. Marketplace's Henry Epp has more on what's dragging steel down and what the falling price means for the global economy. Steel prices have been on this roller coaster since 2020, says Josh Spores with the research firm CRU. We've seen just these really incredible price spikes, and then prices would crash, and then they jump back up again,

as there's just the slightest mismatch between supply and demand. But with interest rates as high as they are, the industries that rely on steel aren't demanding as much of it now. Construction spending has slowed down this year and manufacturing activity has been kind of flat. So now Spore says steel prices have dropped again. Coming back into more of an equilibrium stage.

Which isn't great for all the new steel mills just now coming online in the US. Sporis says those high prices a few years ago led a lot of domestic steel makers to build new plants. New tariffs were also making imported steel less affordable. We've seen a little bit more competition emerge between the mills, and that's been depressing prices

So has competition from outside the US China is a much bigger producer and consumer of steels as Gordon Johnson head of GLJ research And as the Chinese real estate market has cratered so has the country's steel demand. He says China Because their economy is fostering so significantly, yet they're still producing a lot of steel, they're exporting their steel market weakness to the rest of the world. But economies in the rest of the world aren't really in a position to buy up that steel either, says Ian Lang at the Colorado School of Mines. There's just not another place around the world that looks like there's going to be

strong demand and so the prices kind of take it on the chin. And back in the US it could be a while before demand picks up again he says. I think a lot of companies are in a holding pattern just waiting to see what's gonna happen with the election or also with interest rates. Which could keep them from investing in big projects, so it's possible steel prices have more room to fall. I'm Henry App for Marketplace. Whenever I log onto Instagram, I am bombarded by videos of people sharing their skincare

routines. Which, as a millennial woman, makes sense. I'm sort of the target market for this kind of thing. But it turns out younger people, we're talking really young. Like elementary and middle school young. They're watching these videos and creating their own routines. This trend has a name. They're called Sephora kids, after the chain of cosmetic stores. And for some of these kids, their obsession with face masks and serums is damaging more than their parents' bank accounts. Marketplace's Kaylee Wells has the story. The Century City Mall Sephora in West Los Angeles on a Saturday afternoon is a sea of

perfect tweenage complexion. A couple dozen girls wander the aisles. Among them are ten-year-old friends Tallulah and Mykin with their moms following dutifully behind. Mykin was coy about her skincare routine. I probably just brush my teeth and put on lip balm. Her mom Dana Michaels set the record straight. You're kidding. We have all the masks, the eye masks, the scrubs. They see it all on TikTok.

And then want to come here and go buy everything they see. It's really effective. Countless influencers on TikTok recommend these products, including wrinkle creams. And elementary-aged kids like Tallulah and Mykin can't get enough. They're packaged in neon-colored bottles and tubes. Even their applicators are fun and satisfying to use. Products can cost $70 a pop.

Michael says she can barely keep up with her daughter's requests. It's, I mean, it's bananas. I feel like I'm fighting a losing battle. I don't know if it's a battle, but just a reality, yeah. The reality is a result not just of social media, but also of old-fashioned social pressures. Tallulah has no problem identifying those. Everybody at school is also wearing it. And another.

I don't know, it makes me feel maybe more grown up, I guess. More grown up, yeah, that makes sense. Neither of those explanations surprises Karen North, who's a psychologist and a social media professor at USC. Pretty much forever we've seen kids try to act a little bit more grown up, try on the fancy clothes, put on mom's shoes, put on makeup. But times have changed. Now it's not copying mom or an older sibling.

Now we have TikTok as the older sibling to emulate. North says these cosmetics have become collectible status symbols. Just like kids used to collect baseball cards and, you know, beanie babies. The stakes are higher than just bragging rights because you got the new Nintendo DS or the expensive true religion jeans. Speaking from middle school experience here, some kids are actually hurting their skin with certain products. Just ask dermatologist Yvette Ramsey. You get irritation, redness, burning, and also photosensitivity or sensitivity to the sun, which then can lead to sunburn. All of those can be side effects of anti-aging products.

They are designed to increase cell turnover rate, which is great if you're a teenager or adult with acne or want to soften wrinkles. Not great for a young child's more sensitive skin. They're used too often by an inappropriate age group, and they are using too many combinations of products that can be irritating together. Those combinations even have a name. The kids call them skin care smoothies. California Assemblymember Alex Lee wants to protect these kids. He wrote a bill this year to ban the

sale of some products, especially the anti-aging ones, to kids under the age of 13. That's a really concerted effort to be like, you know, if we get them hooked on our product at age 9 when they have no wrinkles, when they're nice and wrinkly at 39, then they'll have been spending hundreds of dollars every month, you know? A cosmetics industry group called the Personal Care Products Council opposed the bill. The group said in a statement that the law was well-intentioned, but that it isn't realistic to make cashiers verify kids' ages to enforce it. Lee says he may tweak the language and reintroduce the bill next year. In Los Angeles, I'm Kaylee Wells for Marketplace.

This final note on the way out today, it is the beginning of the end of an era. Target says starting next week it will no longer accept personal checks, joining chain's Whole Foods and Aldi. According to the Federal Reserve, Americans wrote just over 3 billion checks last year compared to nearly 16 billion a couple decades ago. Come to think of it, I really can't remember the last time I wrote a check. I'm gonna think of it. I really can't remember the last time I wrote a check. Our digital and on-demand team includes Carrie Barber, Jordan Mangy, Dylan Mietinen, Janet Nguyen, Olga Oxman, Ellen Rolfus, Virginia K. Smith, and Tony Wagner. Francesca Levy is the Executive Director of Digital and On-Demand, and I'm Kristin Schwab. We'll be back tomorrow. This is APM.

Got a business problem? There's a TED Talk for that. Stay updated on Everything Business on TED Business, a podcast hosted by Columbia Business School Professor Modupe Akinola. Every week, she'll introduce you to leaders with unique insights on work, answering questions like how do four-day work weeks work? Do will a machine ever take my job? Get some surprising answers on Ted Business wherever you listen to podcasts.