ECONOMY

Big Jobs Report Whiff

Yesterday’s April jobs report was more disappointing than a Starburst pack filled only with yellow. 

Whereas economists had forecasted upwards of 1 million jobs added in April...the Labor Department said the US created just 266,000. And the unemployment rate, which had been steadily dropping since last May, ticked up from 6% to 6.1%. Those numbers shocked pretty much everyone, given all the recent signs of a rapidly improving economy. 

Digging into the numbers...

• Temporary-help employment lost 111,000 jobs, manufacturing 18,000, and retail 15,000. 
• Travel and leisure continued to fuel the gains after getting TKO’d early in the pandemic, adding 331,000 jobs in April. 

Big picture: The economy is still down more than 8 million jobs from pre-pandemic levels and 29% of unemployed Americans have now been out of work for at least a year.

What happened?

It’s not so clear. What we do know is that there is no shortage of job openings in certain industries like retail, manufacturing, and construction. So the question economists are sorting out right now is why more people aren’t going to work. 

There are a few hypotheses...

• Covid reasons: Despite a blazing vaccination rollout in the US, many people might still fear getting infected with the virus at work. Plus, with some schools still opting for remote learning, parents might be taking care of their kids instead of job hunting.
• Skills mismatch: Perhaps the people looking for jobs don’t have the experience necessary to fill the types of jobs that are open.
• Enhanced unemployment benefits: This, of course, is the most controversial hypothesis. Biden’s aid package extended extra unemployment benefits through the summer, and Republicans and many business owners have blamed the extra money for disincentivizing work. After the jobs report was released, the US Chamber of Commerce asked lawmakers to end the extra benefits.

Looking ahead...economists hope this jobs report was just a bizarre one-off, like Michael Jordan playing baseball. But President Biden said the labor market struggle bus is evidence that the US economy needs his twin infrastructure bills to return to full strength. 

COVID

Vaccine Tracker

In the US…the rate of vaccinations continues to decline. The US is averaging 2.09 million doses a day, a 21% decrease from the week before. 

Around the world...enough doses have been administered to fully vaccinate 8.1% of the global population, but wealthier countries are vaccinating their citizens at a rate 25x faster than lower income countries. 

The latest headlines

Getting the green light: The WHO authorized China’s Sinopharm vaccine for emergency use, the sixth vaccine to have gotten a stamp of approval from the organization. Pfizer-BioNTech became the first vaccine maker to apply for full FDA approval on top of emergency use. 

Vaccine incentives: States are pulling out their bag of tricks to spur more demand for vaccinations. West Virginia is offering young adults a $100 savings bond in exchange for a shot, Maryland will give state workers $100, and NJ, which is already running a “shot and a beer” program, is considering handing out cash.    

+ Further reading: How to vaccinate the world Part 1 and Part 2. 

SPACE

The Odds of Rocket Fragments Falling on You Are Low...But Not Zero

Debris from the Chinese rocket Long March-5B are expected to fall back to Earth this weekend, just over a week after it was launched into space. The craft’s husk is almost 100 feet long, and will be one of the largest objects to ever come back into the planet’s atmosphere on an uncontrolled reentry.

This type of reentry is like ordering a swimsuit you saw on TikTok: There’s no way of knowing what you’re going to get. Scientists say there’s a 32-hour window over the weekend when it could hit, but aren’t sure where. There’s only a small chance of it hurting a person, but with some close calls like a huge piece of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket ending up on a Washington farm in April, experts are calling the actions of China’s space program irresponsible.

Big picture: With lax international laws around space debris, countries can do things like send rockets into space and cause a minor freak out. Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics told the WaPo, “What there isn’t at the moment is what I call a ‘reckless driving law.’ You only get to complain if it actually crashes.”

SPONSORED BY AMAZON

Benefits from A to Z

While you know Amazon as the company who sells _____ (insert pretty much anything here), their employees know them as a company who offers both comprehensive benefits and upward career trajectories.  

For starters, Amazon offers its employees a starting pay of at least $15 per hour—that’s more than double the federal minimum wage—as well as comprehensive benefits like health insurance, paid leave, and ways to save for the future.

But Amazon doesn’t just stop at “for starters.” They also provide technical upskilling training programs to those interested in honing their technical know-how in the workplace—at Amazon or wherever their careers take them next.

In fact, Amazon is dedicating more than $700 million to provide 100,000 employees with access to training programs by 2025. That’s a lotta new skillz that the world needs.

Read more about all the benefits Amazon believes in, right here.

GRAB BAG

Key Performance Indicators

Stat: About 45% of store openings announced so far this year by large retail chains are dollar stores, CNN Business reports. Dollar General accounts for almost a third by itself.

Quote: “My friends are leaving California.” 

Caitlyn Jenner, speaking to Fox News, has a point: In 2020, California’s population declined for the first time in the state’s recorded history. 

Read: How much energy does bitcoin actually consume? (Harvard Business Review)

ENTERTAINMENT

We’ve Got Some Sketch Pitches

Elon Musk hosts SNL tonight, and last weekend he took to Twitter to crowdsource some sketch ideas for the show. And while “Irony Man” is...a fine suggestion, we think some of the best ways to showcase the Technoking’s subtle, grounded performance style would be to just rewrite some of the moments in Musk’s life that have felt like SNL sketches:

When he sold flamethrowers. In a promotional stunt to sell more hats, Musk’s tunnel construction company, The Boring Company, introduced “Not-A-Flamethrower” (the product’s official name) and it sold out in five days. In the SNL version, Bill Hader’s Stefon would be on “Weekend Update” discussing his favorite places to use the flamethrower.

When he released a song about Harambe. It’s not easy to listen to, but maybe Lonely Island could do something with it?

When he had a Tesla designer named Franz throw a metal ball at a Cybertruck window...and it shattered. It’s SNL’s duty to give us interviews with everyone involved in this incident. Someone in the audience, Franz, and of course the truck itself. All played by Melissa Villaseñor.

WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• The Texas House of Representatives passed a voting bill opposed by more than 50 companies and business groups on the grounds that it curbs voting access. 
• Elon Musk’s statements around Tesla’s driverless tech don’t always “match engineering reality,” the company’s director of Autopilot software told the California DMV.
• Goldman Sachs’s cryptocurrency trading desk is officially up and running.
• NBC, CBS, ABC, and Fox will broadcast soccer games on the same weekend for the first time ever.
• The US can’t just flip a switch and make more chips to address the shortage.

BREW'S BETS

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Conversation starters:

• Is irony dead? 
• Would you want to get paid to watch home improvement shows? (Yes.)
• Lake house or beach house?
• Wawa or Sheetz? Of course, it depends where you live

GAMES

Brew Crossword

Back by popular demand...Morning Brew Minis! As always, you can take your pick of difficulty:

• Easy
• Medium
• Hard

Happy puzzling. And don't forget you can submit full-size crosswords as well. Read up on our submission guidelines here.