Marketplace - Less-than-great expectations for upcoming jobs data

Episode Date: February 9, 2026

The January jobs report and consumer price index come out this week, and experts expect both employment and inflation to hold relatively steady. But that jobs report will also include revisions to 2025 data. Will that show a net loss of jobs over the last year? Also in this episode: Foreign investment in U.S. Treasurys stays strong, Hollywood prepares to renegotiate key labor agreement with SAG-AFTRA, and Michigan wants to sue Big Oil for antitrust violations.Every story has an economic angle. Want some in your inbox? Subscribe to our daily or weekly newsletter.Marketplace is more than a radio show. Check out our original reporting and financial literacy content at marketplace.org — and consider making an investment in our future.

Are you ready for a life-changing opportunity? BC Cancer is actively hiring for all health care roles across all its regional centers in beautiful British Columbia. Join a dedicated team committed to ending cancer for good. And experience the lifestyle you've always dreamed of in stunning BC. We're curing cancer here. Are you in? Apply now at jobs.bcancor.bcancor.bc.c.c.c.c.a. The days of delayed government data aren't over. Up this week, jobs and inflation.

From American Public Media, this is Marketplace. In Los Angeles, I'm Amy Scott in for Kai Rizdal. It's Monday, February 9th. Good to have you with us. I want to call your attention to two items to watch on the economic calendar this week. First, the January jobs report, delayed by last week's partial government shutdown, comes out Wednesday, followed by the latest consumer price index, also delayed, now scheduled for Friday. Both are key readings on the health of the economy, and both are expected to be okay, as in modest but not great job growth, and moderating but not yet low enough inflation.

Marketplace's Mitchell Hartman has more. The economy has been adding an anemic 50,000 jobs a month on average over the last year, just one third of the rate in. in 2024. And more of the same is expected for January, says Boston College economist Brian Bithune. The whole employment market has been sort of put on hold. Limits at hiring going on by large business, actually reductions in employment levels in the small business world. What's more, the January jobs report also comes with something called annual benchmark revisions, which are expected to reduce the number of jobs added to the economy last year by six to 900,000, says economist Joe Brouswellis at consulting firm RSM.

Meaning, we're probably going to see a net decline in jobs for the entire year of 2025. Brosewellis says there are a bunch of reasons why the job market has stagnated, starting with a declining supply of workers for employers to hire. You've got the long-run demographic issues caused by the retirement of the boomers. Second, very tight immigration policy, which is a choice on the part of the Trump administration. Also, he says, companies over-hired during the post-pandemic recovery, and now they're slimming down. Plus, they've invested heavily in automation and AI, which is increasing productivity and reducing their need for more workers right now. Turning to the inflation data we'll get later this week, economists expect a decline in headline consumer price inflation for January from 2.7 to 2.5% year over year.

But for consumers in the real economy, it might not feel like that, says Joe Bursuelas. Most Americans would say there's a common baseline around rent prices, electricity is increasing, and food is increasing. So for them, that means inflation is probably closer to 3.5% to 4%. And with wages rising about the same amount on average, that means most workers, even if they can hold onto their jobs, don't feel like they're getting ahead in this economy. I'm Mitchell Hartman for Marketplace. Another economic indicator coming out of Washington this week will be investor demand when the Treasury Department auctions off a wave of government bonds with a big batch of 10-year bonds on Wednesday and 30-year bonds on Thursday. In advance of those auctions, Bloomberg reports today that the Chinese government has been advising banks to hold off on buying any more U.S. treasuries and in some cases to trim their holdings. The worry is that holding too many T-bills and notes in a volatile market could expose banks to losses.

Marketplaces Justin Ho spent the day looking into those concerns. Over the past a year or so, a lot of foreign investors have either sold or threatened to sell U.S. treasuries. This has been a perennial theme in a period of geopolitical volatility. Gila Ba is chief fixed income strategist at Jenny Montgomery Scott. Some European investors said they'd pull away from treasuries after President Trump's threat. to take over Greenland. Many foreign investors sold treasuries after the president's Liberation Day tariff announcement. Laban says that matters because demand for government bonds affects bond yields. So if the United States Treasury sells bonds and foreigners don't show up at the auctions to buy

bonds, that means that domestic purchasers are probably going to require higher interest rates to choose to buy those bonds. In other words, the federal government is going to have to pay more interest on the national debt. That said, foreign demand for U.S. treasuries has been holding steady over the last several months. It's not accelerating, but it hasn't really slowed down either. Chris Lowe at FHN Financial says one reason is because tariffs haven't been as extreme as investors worried they might be. Another reason, he says, is that treasuries are still more attractive than bonds from the

rest of the world. Interest rates in other countries have been rising, in Japan and the UK. You know, the thing is that when interest rates go up, the price of those bonds, their value goes down. And that makes U.S. bonds look more attractive, despite all of the ongoing uncertainty in this economy. It's like being the tallest kid in the kindergarten class. Still not very tall, but it looks taller than the rest. Bottom line, the U.S. Treasury market has been stable over the last few months, says Gila Bha, Janie Montgomery Scott. I'm looking at a chart, part of my Monday morning meeting packet that charts yields and interest rates have barely moved.

since August. And sometimes a stable market isn't such a bad thing. I'm Justin Howe for Marketplace. Green was the color on Wall Street today. We'll have the details when we do the numbers. More than 70 city and state governments have tried in recent years to take big oil to court over damage caused by climate change. The latest lawsuit brought by the state of Michigan takes a different tack by accusing the oil giants of antitrust violations. Emily Ponte Corvo is a staff writer at HeatMap, where she had this story. Welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me, Amy. First, can you talk about what states and cities are trying to accomplish with these lawsuits against fossil fuel companies? Yeah, so over the last about 10 years, dozens of cities and states have filed lawsuits against oil companies for their role in climate change. And in all of these cases, they're basically asking for money for help to adapt to future climate change. damages and often also to pay for past and present climate damages from floods, from wildfires. So we saw like New York City sue for damages from Hurricane Sandy, for example. And in a lot of these cases, they're arguing that the companies either deceived the public or created a public nuisance.

Even though they knew about the harms the fossil fuels would cause, they did it anyway and should now pay for the damages. And what makes this Michigan lawsuit different? This Michigan case is arguing that the companies violated antitrust law. So they're alleging that basically a bunch of fossil fuel companies all got together and coordinated a strategy to prevent the country from transitioning away from fossil fuels. And they allege that they did things like they bought up patents and then restricted their use, basically all in a ploy to protect their market share. Why do you think Michigan is making this argument? Is it that these other lawsuits have not so far really gone anywhere? I think there's a few reasons. In general, there's been this kind of constant challenge for them where they're filed in state court and then fossil fuel companies will argue that these need to be fought out in federal court and that kind of delays actually getting into the substance of the case. Another part of that argument, it has to do with the Federal Clean Air Act, which basically preempts states from enacting their own regulations of fossil fuels or really have greenhouse gas emissions.

That's one reason I think Michigan is trying this new route is to say, you know, we're not talking about emissions. We're not talking about climate damages. We're talking about a cartel getting together and stifling competition. As a result, our energy costs are much higher than they otherwise would be. So I understand that proving antitrust or proving collusion among companies can be pretty difficult. Based on your reporting, do you think the state has a good chance? Yeah, you know, if you read the complaint, it doesn't have some kind of like smoking gun where it says we have, you know, a letter that all the companies signed that said that they were going to work. work together to kill electric vehicles. There's nothing like that. But it does tell this kind of

compelling story. There was a climate task force that was formed by the American Petroleum Institute, the kind of trade group that all of these companies are a part of. And when this task force was formed kind of after that, all these companies started to take similar actions. You know, they shut down internal research programs for alternative energy and they withheld products from the market. If they hadn't been working together, they might have, you know, individually tried to, it would have made more sense for them to kind of lead the way into the future with these other technologies. But so it kind of makes the case that their behavior can only be explained by a conspiracy. And so I think listeners might be wondering what, what's the end

goal here? Is it to hold fossil fuel companies accountable to make them take climate, action more seriously or is it really just about paying for the damage that these, you know, states and municipalities are already experiencing and only see rising in the future? The explicit, you know, goal, the explicit kind of ask in these cases is funding for adaptation, funding for damages. This Michigan case is no different. But it's a little bit different in that it also asks for compensation for high energy costs. for this difference in how much they think they've overpaid essentially for energy over the past decade. All right. Emily Ponticorvo is a staff writer at HeatMap. Thanks so much for sharing your reporting.

Thanks for having me. Coming up. So it was like, I want to go on a trip or I wanted to travel more. So I would put it on my credit card. So tempting, right? But first, let's do the numbers. The Dow Jones Industrial Average found 20 points. pretty much flat to close at 50,135. The NASDAQ picked up 207.910% to finish at 23,238. And the S&P 500 climbed 32 points, almost half a percent, and at 6964. Chairs Intelah Health Company, Hymns and hers, health plummeted 16% today after its plans to sell a copycat GLP1 weight loss drug unraveled.

On Friday, the FDA signaled it took a dim view of the knockoff. On Saturday, Day Hymns pulled its plan to offer it. Then today, the company got hit with a patent infringement lawsuit filed by Novo Nordisk. The Danish drugmaker perked up 5.5% and a quarter percent. Bonds rose. The yield on the 10-year T-note fell to 4.20%. You're listening to Marketplace. Are you ready for a life-changing opportunity?

BC Cancer is actively hiring for all health care roles across all its regional centers in beautiful British Columbia. Join a dedicated team committed to ending cancer for good and experience the lifestyle you've always dreamed of in stunning BC. We're curing cancer here. Are you in? Apply now at jobs.bcancer.bcancor.bcac.cac.c.c.c.c.c. This is Marketplace. I'm Amy Scott. Remember that big Hollywood strike more than two years ago now when both writers and actors walked off the job and productions pretty much ground to a halt.

The industry is still recovering, and yet film and TV actors and producers were back in the negotiating table today to hammer out a new labor contract. Many of the key issues are the same, the rise of artificial intelligence and how streaming has changed the business. But the landscape in which these talks take place is different. Marketplace's Nova Sappho has the story. The writers and actors' strikes in 2023 were punishing, and the industry in the aftermath has shrunk. Jobs are dwindling. Kate Fort Miller at Georgia State University is writing a book on the subject. I've talked to a lot of people who felt like they were really just kind of barely scraping by and trying to figure out what they wanted to do because this just doesn't feel sustainable to them. Studios have been cutting costs amid intense competition. Overseas tax breaks are pulling jobs elsewhere. Todd Holmes teaches entertainment media management at Cal State Northridge.

Streaming now is a dominant distribution platform now over broadcasting cable TV. Just as the streamers now, you know, for the longest time, we're just trying to ramp up their subscriber numbers, whereas now they're more focused on profitability. Against this backdrop, the studios and SAGAFTRA, which also represents Marketplace employees, are planning to talk initially over the next four weeks. The biggest areas to be hammered out between the two sides are thought to be similar to last time. improving compensation over streaming content, as well as... AI, AI, AI.

That's entertainment industry lawyer, Skylar Moore. People don't want to admit it, but AI is replacing below-the-line crew. It's replacing special effects houses. It's replacing the need for directors on a lot of shoots. And the cost-savings, Moore says, are too enticing for studios. He says actors and writers may have no choice but to strike again. I really don't think that the will is there for that. Tom Newnan is an independent film producer.

The combo platter of the pandemic and then the labor strikes, the fires in Los Angeles, and then all of this consolidation, it's really just been an overwhelming, uncertain, and awful time. Noonan says how negotiations go will ultimately depend a lot on tone. And so far, all sides have been sounding more conciliatory than they had prior to. to the strikes in 2023. I'm Novosafo for Marketplace. Ever shelled out a bunch of money for a tool or a piece of equipment that you might need around the house just occasionally? Or maybe wished you could just borrow that shop vac or chainsaw?

More communities are adding. tool libraries for just that purpose. And lately, they've been playing another role in disaster response. Michael Friedrich wrote a story about it in Bloomberg. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me, Amy. So for someone who's never been to a tool library, what are they? Is it pretty self-explanatory? It is. They are independent organizations in the community that lend their members' tools. Everything from Hacksaw to a long mower to a weed whacker to cookware, and they operate on a pay-what-you-will or sliding-scale basis for the most part. So you wrote specifically about the tool library in Asheville, North Carolina, which, you know, as listeners will remember, was struck by Hurricane Helene in the fall of 2024. What role did the library play in the recovery?

Well, Hurricane Helene was pretty severe and did a lot of damage. It knocked out power, you know, a lot of roads were blocked and people were trying to chainsaw trees off the roads and off their homes. The tool library came together with what's called the West North Carolina Repair Cafe, a partner that shares the same space. And because they have this network of volunteers, they were able to respond very quickly. They set up by the next day. They were in the parking lot of a local bookstore. And they brought in their organizers and volunteers to sharpen chainsaws, repair generators, and provide training for people who maybe hadn't used a chainsaw in quite a long time or ever before. With FEMA pulling back federal disaster aid and leaving more to

states and local governments, do you see this kind of mutual aid organization playing a bigger role in disaster recovery? I think we can expect it to. You know, all the disasters I profiled in my piece, Asheville, as well as a flood in Chicago and hurricane-related flooding in central Florida, they happened before the current Trump administration and the FEMA rollbacks that have come along with it. But I think that they make a really promising model for communities that are suffering from disasters where aid hasn't been forthcoming. There is some research you cite about the benefits of community-led response. Can you talk about that?

I spoke to the researcher Daniel Aldrich at Northeastern University. Through data and survey, all across the world, he's found that communities that have a high density, which is to say a lot of community organizations and service. and services are much more likely to retain population. People are much more likely to rebuild and stay in place instead of picking up and leaving. These community organizations seem to be much more important than even a formal government response.

Wow. But formal governments, you know, have a lot more money, right? I mean, I assume that these can't totally replace the role of government in terms of long-term recovery? Certainly. And look, I think we absolutely need the state to provide repair for infrastructure, roads, get the water and the electric turn back on. But there are services that government can't necessarily provide. These kinds of immediate responses where a community comes together, and clear the trees off the road, provide a shoulder for somebody to lean on and cry on when they're overwhelmed by the magnitude of the disaster. These are the gaps that community members

can really fill while people are waiting for FEMA funding to trickle in. Michael Friedrich wrote about tool libraries in Bloomberg. Thank you so much for sharing your reporting. Thank you so much for having me, Amy. If you want to hear more about solutions for a changing climate, check out the podcast I host. It's called How We Survive. The latest season looks at how our food is changing. You can find it now wherever you get your podcast. There was a trend going around social media last month.

Maybe you saw it, called No Spend January. It's a challenge to only spend money on the bare necessity. like groceries and rent for 31 days. No takeout, no coffee runs, no shopping sprees, all in the name of saving a little cash to start off the new year. And given that more than a third of Americans say they wouldn't be able to cover an unexpected $400 expense, it makes sense why some might want to take up the challenge. With that in mind, here's the latest installment of our series, My Economy. My name is Chula Sam Mercedes. I'm 28. I live in San Diego. and I participated in no spend January. I do have a job that pays me six figures. Like I work as a financial analyst, but even at that point,

it doesn't mean that I'm able to essentially like spend my money as I really want to. This is my second time doing no spend January. I essentially started off pretty strong. I incorporated some hobbies. So for me, it's like pickleball. In the beginning and the, the month, it was pretty strong. I didn't have any urges to go out and spend. But midway through the month of January, I had an injury. So I did kind of buy some takeout and some like coffees just

because I wasn't able to move around for a couple days because of the injury. I was able to see that with my no spend, I had about like over $1,000 that I was able to not spend because of my no span January. I put that towards my emergency savings, which I'm slowly building up. but my main priority for essentially 2026 is paying off my debt. It's about like $18,000 that I'm trying to pretty much pay off by the end of 2026. If I'm being honest with you, when I was in my early mid-20s, like 25-26, I would see a lot of people going on trips and doing those type of things and like buying. So it was like, I want to go on a trip or I wanted to travel more.

so I would put it on my credit card. When you add all those things together, it became thousands and thousands of dollars. I was like, I'll pay it later. I'll pay it. And so it just kind of like snowballed slowly but surely. And I was like, okay, I got to stop. I got into budgeting and doing more of the spreadsheets. I was just kind of building habits to be better in my finances because I come from a lower income background.

I'm also a first-gen as well. I didn't grow up with any personal finance understanding. or I didn't grow up with any understand about investing or savings. I think now as an adult, now that I can do that for myself, I really wanted to make sure that 1A that I'm getting better in my personal finances, it's not just going to happen for me. Like, I had to take actual time and educate myself as well to try and reach certain goals that I'm trying to do for myself. I would consider this month a success for my no spend.

I didn't feel completely like strapped for cash or I didn't feel like I was able to go out and do things that I wanted to do. I still had a pretty enjoyable month and I was able to save and invest for the month. For me, that was a win-win. Julissa Mercedes in San Diego, California. She says she's thinking about trying a no-spend quarter next year. As we always say, we cannot do this series without you. So tell us what's happening in your economy. You can do that at marketplace.org slash my economy.

This final note on the way out today with a hat tip to axios, homeowners are staying put longer than they have in at least 25 years. Data provider Adam says home sellers at the end of last year had been in their homes an average of 8.6 years. That's more than twice the average at the beginning of the century of 4.2 years. I probably don't have to tell you why, but one big reason, the golden handcuffs of those ultra-low interest rates we had a few years back. Amir Bibawi, Caitlin Esh, John Gordon, Noia Carr, and Stephanie Seek are the Marketplace editing staff. Kelly Silvera is the news director, and I'm Amy Scott.

Hope to see you back here tomorrow. This is APN. Have you ever kept a financial secret from a partner? I'm Rima Grace, and this week on This Is Uncomfortable, I sit down with a divorce lawyer who shares some pretty extreme cases of financial secrecy. They had a forensic account, went through the numbers, and they calculated that he spent $250,000 in a year on strip clubs. And I also chat with a couples counselor about how financial issues in a relationship are often

really about trust and power. I find that like a lot of dudes typically are like I know how to spend the money the right way. I should be the one that has all the control over it and you. with your girl brain, don't understand. Listen to This is Uncomfortable on your favorite podcast app.