US Loses 23k Jobs in Surprising(ly bad) Employment Report & John Oliver Takes on Buc-ee's

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
Whether you're hitting the road this summer, or just parking for some peace of mind, AT&T Connected Car turns your vehicle into a Wi-Fi hotspot with fast, reliable, and secure internet access. You can connect multiple devices to stream, browse, play games, or get a little work done, all inside or in proximity outside of your vehicle. To learn more, head to att.com/morningbrew.
That's att.com/morningbrew. Requires eligible vehicle, service and coverage not available everywhere.

**Neal Freyman** (0:34)
Good Morning Brew Daily show. I'm Neal Freyman.

**Toby Howell** (0:37)
And I'm Toby Howell.

**Neal Freyman** (0:38)
Today, that wasn't supposed to happen. The US is now losing jobs.

**Toby Howell** (0:43)
Then Buc-E's versus John Oliver is the trademark battle you did not see coming. It's Monday, August 10th. Let's ride.

**Neal Freyman** (0:58)
Y'all are going to hate me for this, but it's something you should be aware of. Tonight in New York City, the sun will set at 8 p.m. The last 8 p.m. or later sunset until next May. It was a good run while it lasted. If there's a silver lining, it's that this brutal heat and humidity looks to be on the way out. And we'll see below normal temperatures through the end of August.
Toby, you know what they say. Winter is coming.

**Toby Howell** (1:23)
It's at this point of the year that I realize I have not been picnic maxing enough or rooftop maxing or waterfront stroll maxing. I mistook a season for a permanent state of being. And in that folly, I miss what the daylight was whispering to enjoy. Do not repeat my mistakes, everyone. Gather your fruits while they are ripe. And now a word from our sponsor, Rubrik.

**Neal Freyman** (1:46)
Cybersecurity as we know it is dead.

**Toby Howell** (1:49)
But it was so young.

**Neal Freyman** (1:50)
It's a figure of speech, Toby, no one died. But the truth is the old model was built on protection, safety nets, recovery plan, systems designed to withstand the last era and maintain the status quo.

**Toby Howell** (2:00)
The AI era demands confidence that you can secure and accelerate your business operations so nothing stops your momentum. Rubrik can give you all that confidence.

**Neal Freyman** (2:09)
Their platform helps you keep going by securing your data, controlling your AI and protecting your identity built as one architecture, not stitched together after the fact.

**Toby Howell** (2:18)
To learn more about how Rubrik rewrote the industry rulebook, head to rubrik.com/mb. That's R U B R I k.com/mb.

**Neal Freyman** (2:30)
The monthly jobs report dropped on Friday and it was really quite bad. However, there's a lot going on beyond the headline numbers, so we're going to have to make like your therapist and unpack a few things to find out what's really going on in this labor market. First, the headline numbers, a huge miss. The US economy lost 23,000 positions in July, whereas expectations heading in were that up to 85,000 jobs would be added. Meanwhile, the reports for May and June were worse than initially thought, revised down by a combined 103,000 jobs. The unemployment rate, 4.1% down from 4.2%.
That's historically low and an indication that pretty much everyone who wants a job in America can get a job.
Here's the problem, a whole load of people aren't looking for a job anymore. They've vanished from the workforce. Probably the biggest takeaway from this jobs report was the decrease in the labor force. The labor participation rate, which is the share of the population working or seeking work, fell to its lowest level outside of the pandemic since the 1970s. This year alone, 1.4 million Americans have dropped out of the labor force, likely driven by two factors, Trump's immigration crackdown and a bunch of boomers holding their retirement parties. That makes that 4.1% unemployment rate look a little worse than it appears, since there's just fewer people actively on the hunt for a job. Toby, I feel like I was reading Dostoyevsky with his jobs report. A lot to parse through, but ultimately, still depressing.

**Toby Howell** (3:56)
Let's go talk about the average monthly job gain that we've seen over the past six months. It's just 44,000, and if you look at the grand scheme of history in the United States, that would have been looked at as alarmingly low. But a lot of economists are saying, actually, do not panic, and not only should we not panic, 44,000 may just be a relic of times gone by. Some are saying that the economy only needs 15,000 jobs per month to keep unemployment stable. Where are those numbers coming from? As you mentioned, a lot of people are leaving the labor force.