Afford Anything – First Friday: Jobs Fell by 92,000. But the Economy Is Still Growing?

Host: Paula Pant
Guest: Dr. Ben Zweig, CEO of Revelio Labs
Date: March 6, 2026

Episode Overview

In this First Friday episode, Paula Pant breaks down confusing and seemingly contradictory labor market data: while official BLS statistics report a stunning loss of 92,000 jobs in February, others (like ADP) suggest job growth. The episode is organized into three analytical “layers” to give listeners a framework for understanding today’s economic environment: the household economy, markets and policy, and long-term structural forces (like AI).

Paula covers headline numbers on jobs, wages, housing, gas, and markets; explores why different reports show conflicting trends; discusses the Supreme Court ruling on tariffs and implications for business; and details how AI cost dynamics are reshaping work itself. Special guest Dr. Ben Zweig joins in the latter half, offering expert interpretation of the BLS jobs report and its implications for U.S. labor markets.

Key Segments & Discussion Points

1. Making Sense of Conflicting Jobs Data

[00:00–11:48]

• BLS vs. ADP:
  • BLS: U.S. lost 92,000 jobs in February, unemployment up to 4.4%.
  • ADP: Private employers added 63,000 jobs (best since Nov 2025).
• Why the discrepancy?
  • BLS covers public and private, ADP only private.
  • ADP shows concentrated hiring: education/health (+58k), construction (+19k).
    Other sectors like business services (–30k) and manufacturing (–5k) lost jobs.
  • “Job hopping” wage gains are at a record low (job switchers up 6.3% vs. 4.5% for stayers) — less of a salary incentive to jump jobs now.
• Other indicators:
  • JOLTS: Measures open positions, not employment. Job openings at 6.54 million (lowest since the pandemic), mainly falling in business services, retail, and finance.
  • Challenger, Gray & Christmas: Job cuts at 48,000 (55% lower than January), but layoffs concentrate in tech, education, manufacturing, transportation—AI cited in ~10% of layoffs.

"We see that the labor market is still growing, but there are signs of cooling. It's a low hire, low fire environment. That growth is becoming more uneven. It's more sector specific."
— Paula Pant [09:41]

2. Macro Layer One: Household Economy Updates

[11:48–15:32]

• Mortgage Rates:
  • 30-year fixed mortgage just hit 6% (up from 5.98%, down from 6.6% last year).
  • Driven by higher 10-year Treasury yields after military operations vs. Iran.
• Gas Prices:
  • Jumped $0.26/gallon in a week (now ~$3.25), diesel up $0.40.
  • Caused by Middle East conflict (Strait of Hormuz disruption) and usual spring demand.
  • Good news: prices have been at four-year lows; current rise is from a lower base.
• Stock Markets:
  • All major indices down amid inflation and growth worries.
  • Sectors hit hardest: airlines (fuel costs), retail (spending squeeze), small caps.
  • Historical pattern: “Markets tend to recover quickly from shocks associated with geopolitical conflicts.”
    — Paula Pant [10:55]
  • Long-term: Stock market up double digits three years in a row; productivity keeps case for future growth but recession risk remains.

3. Macro Layer Two: Policy and Markets

[15:32–23:05]

• 401(k) Hardship Withdrawals:
  • 6% of Vanguard participants took hardship withdrawals in 2025 (up from 5% prior year).
  • Automatic enrollment boosts participation; higher balances due to years of stock gains.
  • Used as emergency buffers—“retirement systems… are becoming short-term financial buffers.”
• Asset Owners vs. Non-owners:
  • Owners feel more secure (rising assets, real estate, 401k), but still squeeze on day-to-day cash flow.
  • Non-owners just see higher prices: “There's this bifurcation where people who own assets feel more secure... Meanwhile, people who don't own, all they've seen is that prices are higher.”
    — Paula Pant [17:44]
• Tariff Supreme Court Decision:
  • Strikes down Trump-era tariffs under 1977 law.
  • Lower court has ruled companies are entitled to refunds (~$200B possible).
  • Justice Kavanaugh: “IEEPA tariffs have helped facilitate trade deals worth trillions… The Court's decision could generate uncertainty regarding various trade agreements.” [21:53]

4. Macro Layer Three: The AI Revolution

[23:05–26:00]

• AI Cost Plummets, Usage Soars:
  • GPT-4 cost per million tokens fell ~98% in two years, from $60 to <$1.
  • OpenAI: Revenue soared from $1B to $12B in ARR.
  • Jevons Paradox in action: Lower costs drive much higher consumption, not less.
  • This creates new categories of work: “AI doesn't just replace human work... More work gets done because more work can get done.”
    — Paula Pant [24:10]
• Future Workforce:
  • Highest-value, “scarce” human skills: judgment, vision, taste, relationships, orchestration.
  • AI expansion now bottlenecked by energy and data center capacity.

5. Real-Time Reactions to the Jobs Report

[26:00–29:02]

• Official Commentary:
  • Kevin Hassett (White House): February snowstorms may explain weak jobs.
  • Mary Daly (SF Fed): Report “undermines” labor stabilization narrative but is “hard to interpret” due to weather.
  • Austan Goolsbee (Chicago Fed): “The time at which it makes sense to act [on rate cuts] keeps getting pushed back.”
  • Rick Rieder (BlackRock): Q1 GDP growth still expected at 2.5–3% despite jobs drop; suggests productivity gains.

6. Expert Interview: Dr. Ben Zweig Breaks Down the Jobs "Shock"

[33:49–48:14]

Headline Takeaways

• The Job Loss:
  • BLS shows –92,000 jobs; Zweig’s Revelio Labs –16,000; ADP +63,000.
  • Paula: “How do we square a month in which ADP is telling us a very positive story, but the BLS is telling us a very negative story?” [39:30]
  • Dr. Zweig: “If you just average [ADP, Revelio, BLS] together, it’s close to flat… That’s the best read.”
• Sector Analysis:
  • Healthcare & Education: Previously the main sources of job growth; now “shed 90,000 jobs alone... That’s kind of the big story.”
    — Dr. Ben Zweig [34:33]
  • Major layoffs: HCA, Kaiser Permanente led the drop.
  • Structural cause: Possibly due to unwinding of pandemic-era public investment and “Baumol’s cost disease”—resources shift to less productive sectors (like healthcare) as others become more efficient.

“Healthcare has been consistently the dominant source of new job creation. Is this signaling the beginning of the end of that?”
— Paula Pant [35:25]
“I think so, yeah... It always seemed a little bit unsustainable.”
— Dr. Ben Zweig [35:41]

Data Methodology Explained

• BLS: Government sample surveys.
• ADP: Private payrolls.
• Revelio: Big-data pulls from online profiles (LinkedIn, resumes, etc), tracks job changes and restatements of employment.
  • “When you average them together… you get a really good cohesive story about basic flatness, you know, slight weakening...”
    — Dr. Ben Zweig [41:31]

Why the Data Differs

• Layoffs & Hiring:
  • Layoff trackers (Challenger, Revelio) showed fewer announced layoffs—possibly positive for March.
  • JOLTS and job postings are backward looking.
  • The “headline” employment numbers disagree due to coverage (private/public), timing, and data source variation.
• Hiring vs. Attrition:
  • “We are in a low hire, low fire environment. Attrition rates have stabilized... Hiring rates are ticking lower.”
    — Dr. Ben Zweig [44:14]
  • Weakness now leans toward demand (fewer jobs posted/hired for) vs. just fewer people participating (“supply constraint”).
  • Dr. Zweig signals concern: “That [demand weakness] is a little bit more worrisome from a macro health perspective.” [45:46]

Demand vs. Supply Weakness

• Supply-driven: Fewer people in or entering labor market, immigration restricted, aging workforce, retired early, disheartened job seekers.
• Demand-driven: Companies pulling back on hiring due to weak sales outlook—a recession warning sign.

“I think probably deceptively healthy [unemployment rate] because we do have less employment, more clear weaknesses, and yet the unemployment rate hasn't really budged—which should make us think that there are people not even trying, maybe waiting and seeing, maybe retiring early.”
— Dr. Ben Zweig [47:22]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “It's a low hire, low fire environment. That growth is becoming more uneven. It’s more sector specific.”
  — Paula Pant [09:41]

• “So ADP has plus 63 [thousand jobs], we have negative 16, BLS has negative 92. If you just average those together, it’s close to flat. … That’s close to optimal because they all come from different sources.”
  — Dr. Ben Zweig [41:19]

• “We're seeing higher savings rates and higher participation in 401ks, and we're also seeing a higher rate of hardship withdrawals... retirement systems ...are becoming short term financial buffers.”
  — Paula Pant [16:18 and 17:18]

• “AI doesn't just replace human work. It goes beyond that. It begins performing categories of work that previously were too expensive to attempt.”
  — Paula Pant [24:10]

• “Attrition rates have stabilized at a low level. Hiring rates are ticking lower. … It’s really a lack of inflows, less about separations and layoffs.”
  — Dr. Ben Zweig [44:14]

Timestamps of Key Segments

• [00:00] — Why the jobs numbers are shocking and contradictory
• [03:00] — Three layers of economic analysis
• [05:00] — Breakdown of BLS, ADP, JOLTS, and Challenger reports
• [09:00] — Big picture: signs of labor market cooling
• [11:48] — Mortgage and gas price impacts from geopolitical events
• [15:32] — Surge in 401(k) hardship withdrawals and wealth inequality
• [19:00] — Supreme Court tariff decision and potential billions in refunds
• [23:05] — The AI revolution: costs, adoption, Jevons Paradox, and future of work
• [26:00] — Real-time hot takes from top economists on jobs data and inflation
• [33:49] — Dr. Ben Zweig interview: sector breakdown, methodology, reconciling conflicting reports, demand vs. supply-driven weakness

Final Takeaways

• Labor market appears flatter and weaker than official numbers suggest. The “headlines” each miss part of the picture; combining private, public, survey, and big-data estimates gives the truest sense—flat or slightly declining jobs.
• Healthcare’s era as the jobs engine may be ending. Dependence on healthcare sector job growth is unsustainable.
• Demand-side weakness is a red flag. Declining pay growth and hiring point to risk of recession, not just labor force shrinking.
• Asset owners and non-owners are experiencing the economy very differently. Top-line gains coexist with day-to-day financial stress for many.
• AI is in a phase of exponential adoption and new business formation, not just displacement.
• Major policy moves (Supreme Court, tariffs) and global shocks (Middle East conflict) are hitting household budgets and investments.
• Listeners should watch for more job market volatility, keep an eye on sectors beyond healthcare, and anticipate continued rapid change from AI and global events.

To hear directly from Dr. Zweig and Paula on how to interpret these wild jobs numbers, listen from [33:49] onward.