Cornering The Job Market

Pete and Peter promised something lighter this week, and for the most part, they deliver. They open with a new Goldman Sachs report weighing whether an "AI jobs apocalypse" is actually coming. Goldman's answer is more measured than the headlines: disruption spread over roughly 10 years, concentrated mostly in entry-level roles. MIT economist and Nobel laureate Daron Acemoglu takes a...

Pete and Peter are back after a short summer break, and June's jobs report didn't make for an easy return. The U.S. added just 57,000 jobs against a forecast of roughly 110,000, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics quietly revised away 74,000 previously reported jobs from April and May. Add that to 2025's total revisions of over a million jobs, and Pete and Peter dig into why the mont...

CEO confidence dropped in the latest survey data, and that kind of news travels fast. We break down what the numbers actually show, how "wait and see" behavior spreads from leadership to budgets to open reqs, and why geopolitical uncertainty is doing most of the driving right now. Then we get into AI, specifically the shifting public statements from major industry leaders. We ask what&ap...

AI job cuts aren't a future threat. They're this week's news, and the layoffs are starting to blend into the background. That might be the most dangerous part. This episode covers California Governor Gavin Newsom's executive order on AI displacement, including proposed subsidies, risk analysis, and retraining plans for white-collar workers being pushed out. Then we contrast tha...

When a commencement speaker dropped a single line about AI, the crowd booed, and the reaction said a lot more than people might think. We're based in Orlando, so the UCF graduation clip hit close to home and opened up a bigger question: why does "AI is the next industrial revolution" sound like hope to some people and like a threat to others? We dig into the growing divide between A...

The jobs report beats expectations, and the headlines scream “strong labor market,” but the real story lives in the messy details. We break down what a big payroll number can hide, why revisions matter, and how you should read the data if you’re hiring, job searching, or running a business that lives and dies by demand. We dig into the uneven economy beneath the averages: healthcare continues to d...

AI isn't coming for work someday. It's already sitting in the seat next to you, quietly handling tasks, writing drafts, and redefining what good performance looks like. We talk with Ricky Baez about what he's seeing from HR and business leaders right now: faster adoption, bigger expectations, and a widening gap between people building AI skills and people waiting for the wave to pas...

Profitable companies are handing out pink slips, and the explanations are starting to feel like a second insult. This week, we dig into Meta's 14,000 cuts, the wave rolling through Wall Street, and why "we're investing in AI" has become the corporate equivalent of it's not you, it's me , even when revenue and profits are healthy. The real damage isn't just in the...

Layoffs are starting to come with a familiar punchline: “AI made us do it.” We talk through what that story means when companies like Snap cut staff and still get rewarded by the market, and why Disney’s more traditional “restructuring” explanation ends up in the same place for the people affected. If you’ve been trying to reconcile upbeat headlines with a job search that feels brutal, we’re right...

The headline jobs numbers look reassuring... until you dig into the revisions.  We break down what the new BLS report actually says, why the quiet corrections matter, and how ADP payroll data shifts the picture. Then the bigger question: what does a healthy monthly jobs number even mean when some economists think we may need near-zero net new jobs to stay stable? We get specific about where the la...

The mainstream narrative says the economy is holding steady, but the data underneath says something different. The US labor force participation rate just hit its lowest point since 1977, and the forces driving it down (aging retirements, declining immigration, shrinking workforce entry) aren't going to reverse themselves. In today's episode, host Pete Newsome breaks down what's actu...

Two data points just dropped that seem to contradict each other, and host Pete Newsome breaks down what's actually going on behind both of them. Glassdoor just recorded the largest year over year confidence decline it has ever measured in any industry, and it happened in tech. At the same time, ADP's weekly hiring data shows three consecutive weeks of improvement and the biggest single w...

LinkedIn detected 83 million fake profiles and 117 million scam incidents in just the first half of 2025. Job scam losses have increased fivefold since 2020 to more than $500 million annually. In today's episode, host Pete Newsome breaks down how these scams work, who they target most, and the specific red flags every job seeker needs to know. He also covers Boston Consulting Group's lat...

The March BLS jobs report headline looks decent. The reality underneath it doesn't. In today's episode, host Pete Newsome breaks down what the mainstream coverage will gloss over: a shrinking labor force, surging discouraged workers, falling hours, and a February revision that turned an already soft month into an outright loss. If you want to actually understand what the job market is do...

AI just became the number one stated reason US employers are cutting jobs, and the speed of that shift is what makes this moment worth paying attention to. In today's episode, host Pete Newsome breaks down the Challenger Gray and Christmas March report, what the acceleration from 5% to 25% in just months actually signals, and why the real number of AI-driven cuts is almost certainly higher th...

Oracle just laid off up to 30,000 workers and delivered the news via a 6am email with no manager warning and immediate system access cutoff. In today's episode, Pete Newsome breaks down the details: what Oracle says the money will fund and what the handling of these cuts reveals about corporate culture at the highest levels. He also covers ADP's March employment report, which shows priva...

The February JOLTS report just dropped, and the headline number demands attention. Hires fell to 4.8 million, down nearly 500,000 in a single month, pushing the hires rate to 3.1%, the lowest reading since April 2020.  In today's episode, host Pete Newsome breaks down what's driving the disconnect between 6.9 million job openings and only 4.8 million actual hires, which sectors took the...

A major new study just mapped AI job risk across every metro area and every state in the country, and the findings are more alarming than most coverage suggests. The cities facing the largest projected losses are the innovation capitals everyone assumed were untouchable. New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Dallas, and Boston each face at least $20 billion in annual income losses, with t...

Goldman Sachs is projecting that rising oil prices could shave roughly 10,000 jobs a month from US payroll growth through the end of 2026, with unemployment expected to climb to 4.6% by Q3. Host Pete Newsome breaks down the sectors most at risk, why the energy industry won't offset those losses the way it historically has, and what this forecast means for a labor market already moving in the...

One of the job market's longest-standing assumptions just got flipped. A new Randstad analysis of more than 150 million job postings found that skilled trades roles now take longer to fill than software developer positions, and the demand gap is accelerating. Robotics technicians, HVAC engineers, and industrial automation specialists are among the fastest-growing roles in the entire labor mar...

Today's headlines cover three stories that together paint a clear picture of exactly where the workforce stands right now. Host Pete Newsome starts with a new ADP Research report, the largest of its kind, surveying more than 39,000 workers across 36 countries. Only 22% strongly believe their job is safe from elimination. Despite near-historic low unemployment worldwide, the workforce is opera...

Gallup just released findings that should have every employer paying close attention. For the first time on record, more American workers say they're struggling than thriving, and the reasons go deeper than job dissatisfaction. Host Pete Newsome breaks down why 30% of workers feel stuck, why engagement has hit a ten-year low, and what employers need to do before the market shifts and their pe...

Today's headlines all tell the same story from different angles: AI is reshaping the workforce faster than most people are prepared for, and the workers feeling it first are the ones just getting started. Host Pete Newsome breaks down new data showing a measurable employment decline for workers aged 22 to 25 in AI-exposed roles, why vocational enrollment is surging, and what it means that nea...

New data reveals where AI is actually taking over inside corporate America, and it's happening faster than most workers realize. In this episode, host Pete Newsome breaks down a major new Gallup survey showing why accountability is the one leadership skill driving a 3x difference in employee engagement, plus findings from the CHRO Association that show 91% of top HR leaders say AI and workpla...

AI is already changing how careers begin, and the data is starting to prove it. In today’s episode of Cornering the Job Market, host Pete Newsome breaks down new research from a panel of economists at Stanford University showing that hiring for entry-level professional roles is declining in areas with heavy AI exposure. Software developer hiring for workers ages 22–26 is already down 20%, and call...