The Daily Show: Ears Edition - Labor Sec. Marty Walsh - The Future of Work in America

Episode Date: September 11, 2022

Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh shares his perspective on the current U.S. labor market, discusses what U.S. companies can learn from how workers are trained and treated in other countries, and offers his antidote to “quiet quitting.”See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to Comedy Central. Please welcome Labor Secretary Marty Walsh. Secretary Marty Walsh. Secretary Walsh, welcome back to the Daily Show. It's great to be. A lot's happened in five years. It really has. I mean, the last time you were here you were the Daily Show. It's great to be. A lot's happened in five years.

It really has. I mean, the last time you were here, you were the mayor of Boston, and now you have come back and you are the labor of secretary, which means that you do what exactly? I run all the jobs in America. Yeah, yeah. It seems like America's doing a good job right now. Obviously COVID was the jobs. tha. tha. tha. tha. tha. tha. tha. tha. tha. tha. tha. tha. thiii. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. thia. thia. thia. thia. their thia. their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their their. their thi. thi. thi. thi. thi. ti. ta. ta. ta. ta. ta. ta. ta. ta. ta. ta. ta. ta. the last last ta. their their t one of the worst periods that the world has seen. You know, millions of people lost their jobs. The economy was in taxes. Now things are coming up, but it's an interesting time. The administration wants to get people working, and more importantly, the administration wants to get people working in jobs that actually allow them to earn a living,

which is key. Because I think many people have jobs. Not every they have. It's a true statement. You know, and so at the same time you have the Fed who is trying to shrink how much money people can earn. It's a really good time to be in the job market right now because you can earn a lot of money, but it seems like in trying to control interest rates there are conflicting interests. How do you how do you deal with the Fed? Well, the Fed is their own plan, and they's is their their. their their. their. their. their. their. their. their. th. th. th. th. thrian. thrian. thrian. thrian. thi. thrue. thrue. thrue. thrue. thrue. thr-in. thi. thi. It's thi. It's thi. It is is thi. It is thi. It is thi. It is thi. It is thi. It is thi. It is thi. It is thi. It is thi. It is th. It is th. It is th. It is th. It is th. It is th. It is th. It is th. It is thr. It is thr. It is thr. It is thr. It's is thr. It's tr. It's tr. It's try. try. try. try. try. try. try. try. the. the. thr. the. th everyone in this audience and around the country are feeling and President Biden rolled out a plan as well to deal with inflation. One is gas and we've seen for nine straight weeks in a row gas prices come down. I'm of the camp that you know a good paying job is important for America. It's good for people. And I know that there's some, the Fed has said at some point having a little bit unemployment might be good. I actually want to do everything I can to get more people working. We've had two amazing months in a row of job gain in the United States. I want to continue to see that trend. I want to move from jobs that are paying mediocre into better

paying jobs. I want to see people to use their power with their companies to earn better wages. At the end of the day, it's about keeping people working. And th. It's th. It's their th. It's their thapapapapapapapapapapapapap an th. th. th. th. I th. I their their th. I thi thi. I their the, I the, I want to move to move to move to the their to move to move to move to move to move to move to move to move to move to move to move to move to move to move to move to move to to to to to to to to to to to to to the the the the the the the the the the the the thea thea thea thea tree tree tree the tree tree tha thae. I thae. I want thae. I want thae. I want thae. I want te. te thae. te thae. I te thae And I think the president wants to see these jobs still being created. Is America's focus on protecting the jobs or protecting the people who are meant to be in those jobs? And the reason I ask that is because I've noticed that different countries have different approaches when it comes to this. For instance, in Sweden and in some Scandinavian countries, they're really proud of saying, look, we don't actually care about the jobs themselves. We care about the people and we just want to make sure that people can earn a living wage and we'll move them around.

In America, it feels like a lot of the conflict comes from the fact that people are trying to protect the jobs. I'm a coal miner. You know what I mean? I'm a railway worker. I'm a policeman. is almost entrenched when in fact the person is the thing you're trying to protect. How do you find that balance? Are you trying to protect the job or the person? It's very different.

I mean, in Europe, a lot of European countries, when the pandemic began, people were sent home, they were paid a salary from their employer, and they didn't lose their work. Here in the United States, here, here, their, their, their, their, their, their, to. to. to. thea, thea, thea, thea, thea, thea, thea, thea, thea, thea, thea, thea, thea, thea, thea, thea, thea, their. their. their. their, their. their. their, their. their, their. their. their. their, their. their. their, the. the. the. the. t. t. t. t. t. t. t. t. ttttttttttttttttttttthe. tthe. the. tttry. tttoda. ttoday. tttttoday. tttoday. the. the. the. the. think in the United States we're tatting a shift towards making sure that we're treating people fairly and creating good opportunities for those folks that they're not concerned about that particular job that if they lose that job their life is over. And I think that we have to do a better job of scaling and then you trilling people up and we're looking at the apprentice apprentice apprentice apprentice apprentice apprentice apprentice apprentice apprentice apprentice apprentice apprentice apprentice apprentice apprentice apprentice apprentice apprentice apprentice apprentice apprentice apprentice apprentice.. that Switzerland has and Denmark has, all these countries have.

You know, they're more into apprenticeships than we are. We're more into job training and then you get thrown into the job and you better do it. If you don't do it, you don't work there. You know, having these apprenticeships and changing that mindset so we're catching young people to thea to then't go to college collegethose young people into apprenticeships to get into good paying jobs moving forward. Also, in America, we tend to, we get a two weeks vacation

and we work 50 weeks a year, we get that two weeks vacation. If you go to another country in the world, European country, they get five, six, seven weeks, holiday. And they go out of these companies that are making big money, realizing that you need to spend some of that on your employees because if you have good employees and strong employees and happy employees, it'll benefit the company overall. It's all great talking to you. Before I let you go, though, I would love to know your opinion on this. Gen Z has been leading the charge in reestablishing what work should be and how people should

think about it in their lives. You know, and one of the terms that's become quite buzzy now is quiet quitting. People say, I only need to work as much as I need to work to get my salary. For too long, people in America have no actually I will work for what I am paid for and then I will go and I will live my life many companies are saying this is the worst thing that could happen where do you stand on this as the secretary of labor let me just say the first time I was asked the question about about quiet quitting I really had. And it was that I looked like a complete moron in it.

But and then I looked up what it was after the fact. You know, again, that goes back to, I think it goes back to employers understanding about how they need to know their workforce, and need to have conversations with their workforce, and need to make sure that that has to happen. When I became the mayor of Boston, you know, the biggest group of folks I brought in was millennials. And millennials quite honestly in the beginning, if you might jump from job to job to job to the job they're here for 10 minutes to go to a job after that. And it took me some time to sit down and talk about what is it exactly that we can we can we can we can we can we can we can we can we can that we can that we can that we can that we can that we can that we can that we can th. th. th. th. th. the thi the thi the is quite quite quite quite quite quite quite quite quite quite quite quite quite quite quite the can quite quite quite the can quite quite the the is quite quite quite quite quite to tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho tho the the th. quite quite quite quite quite quite quite quite quite quite quite quite quite quite quite quite quite quite quite quite quite quite quite quite quite quite quite quite quite quite quite quite quite quite to to to the the the the to the the th. thi. thi. thi. the, quite the. to to to to to to to to the. quite to to to to thea. quite thea. quite the the. quite the an those conversations with your employees is so important for a corporation,

or even for government. If somebody like me, myself, or other elected officials, we need to have those conversations because the quiet quitting piece, you know, you're expecting when you hire somebody to work hard and do the right thing. But if they're not, andnights at 11, 10th Central on Comedy Central and stream full episodes anytime on Paramount Plus.

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