Just how bad are these job numbers?

Summary

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The Indicator from Planet Money: "Just how bad are these job numbers?"

Date: February 6, 2026
Hosts: Darren Woods and Waylon Wong
Guest: Guy Berger (Burning Glass Institute)
Featured Story: Alessandro Negrete

Episode Overview

This episode tackles the unexpectedly low January jobs numbers amidst a partial government shutdown and explores why weaker job growth doesn't necessarily spell disaster for the U.S. economy. Through expert commentary and the personal journey of Alessandro Negrete, the hosts examine how population trends—especially immigration and demographic shifts—are transforming what counts as a "good" jobs report, and why the U.S. labor market's break-even point is changing.

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Key Points & Insights

1. Jobs Numbers in Limbo: Interpreting the Data

• Context: The Bureau of Labor Statistics couldn't release official jobs data due to the government shutdown.
• Alternative Estimates:
  • Chicago Fed places U.S. unemployment at 4.4%, "essentially unchanged from December." (Darren Woods, 00:27)
  • Private sector estimates:
    • Revelio Labs: Loss of 13,000 jobs
    • ADP: Gain of 22,000 jobs
• The contrast: These numbers are far smaller than the six-figure monthly changes seen a year ago.

2. What Makes a 'Good' Jobs Number Now?

• Shift in Standards:
  • "A good jobs number is not what it used to be. The standard has fallen a lot." (Guy Berger, 02:19)
• Understanding Unemployment Rate Calculations:
  • Unemployment rate = Number of jobless people actively looking ÷ Total labor force
  • Slower labor force growth means fewer new jobs are needed to maintain the same unemployment rate.
  • "You might need very little, you might not need it. You might be able to lose jobs and still keep the unemployment rate steady." (Guy Berger, 02:48)
• Global Comparison:
  • The U.S. is beginning to resemble aging countries like Japan or parts of Southern Europe.
• Break-even Jobs Number:
  • Previously: 100,000–200,000 new jobs/month
  • Now: “In the low tens of thousands.” (Guy Berger, 03:15)
  • Tied to low immigration, population stagnation, and fewer people entering the workforce.

3. Population Trends Affecting Labor Data

• Americans saw the lowest population increase since the pandemic. Main factors:
  • Reduced immigration
  • Higher outflows (people leaving or being deported)
• A growing phenomenon: forced and voluntary departures of undocumented residents.
• "We know that the number of undocumented people leaving the US voluntarily is significant and growing." (Waylon Wong, 03:56)

4. Personal Story: Alessandro Negrete

• Background:
  • Came to the U.S. as an infant, grew up undocumented, did not initially know his legal status.
• Turning Point:
  • Realized limitations when offered a scholarship to UC Berkeley, but couldn't accept due to lack of a Social Security number.
  • “You don’t have a Social Security. ... it means you’re legal here... we don’t belong here.” (Alessandro Negrete, 04:55)
• Work and Education:
  • Community college, then Cal State LA for a bachelor's in sociology.
  • Early career: social justice organizations, fundraising, strategy.
• Impact of Politics:
  • Immigration crackdowns under first Trump administration heightened personal and professional risk.
  • “The broader immigrant community is under attack. Like all these things are just forms of weaponized mental anguish.” (Alessandro Negrete, 07:07)
• Recent Decisions:
  • Stayed for family (mother had cancer); left for Mexico once she received residency and recovered.
  • Joined "millions of others leaving the U.S." in 2025.
• Life After Departure:
  • Settled with his dog in Guadalajara, Mexico, working to build new community and stability.
  • “I've created a sense of normalcy and community.” (Alessandro Negrete, 07:39)
• Emotional Notes:
  • Misses aspects of LA—especially bagels:
    • “There are no bagels in Guadalajara except in Costco and they're not that great.” (Alessandro Negrete, 09:02)

5. Big Picture: Economic Implications

• Human Capital Loss:
  • The U.S. is losing experienced, educated workers like Alessandro, potentially impacting innovation and productivity.
  • “All that education and work experience that Alessandro gained over four decades is now out of the country.” (Waylon Wong, 08:07)
• Demographic Debate:
  • Is a larger population always better for the economy? More people can mean more innovation, but also strains on infrastructure.
• Changing Labor Market Metrics:
  • The threshold for a “good” jobs report is fundamentally shifting with these population dynamics.
• Cultural Touchstones:
  • The show suggests retiring the “air horn” segment, reflecting the new ambiguity around jobs reports.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "A good jobs number is not what it used to be. The standard has fallen a lot."
  — Guy Berger, 02:19

• “You might be able to lose jobs and still keep the unemployment rate steady.”
  — Guy Berger, 02:48

• "After that news from my mom that I was just like, you know what, I'm doing it."
  — Alessandro Negrete, 07:25

• "The broader immigrant community is under attack. Like all these things are just forms of weaponized mental anguish."
  — Alessandro Negrete, 07:07

• “I've created a sense of normalcy and community.”
  — Alessandro Negrete, 07:39

• Bagel nostalgia:
  — “There are no bagels in Guadalajara except in Costco and they're not that great.”
  — Alessandro Negrete, 09:02

• Air horn retirement salute:
  — "Should we do like a 21 air horn salute to commemorate?"
  — Waylon Wong, 09:38

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Important Timestamps

• 00:27: Jobs numbers and unemployment rate estimates
• 02:08: Introduction of Guy Berger and discussion of changing labor force dynamics
• 03:15: Explanation of break-even jobs number
• 04:21: Alessandro Negrete shares his experience as an undocumented student
• 06:39: Impact of immigration policy changes on Alessandro and his decision to leave
• 07:25: Alessandro decides to move to Mexico
• 09:02: Bagel nostalgia and cultural adjustment

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Episode Tone

The episode balances explanatory clarity and data-driven insight with empathy and personal storytelling. The hosts’ tone is conversational, occasionally light-hearted (air horn jokes, bagel banter), but the subject matter is approached with seriousness and respect, especially in Alessandro’s narrative.

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Summary

"Just how bad are these job numbers?" reveals that traditional economic metrics—like monthly job gains—are being reshaped by demographic stagnation, declining immigration, and the voluntary or forced departure of millions of workers. The result: the meaning of a “good” jobs number is fundamentally shifting. Through both expert analysis and compelling first-person experience, the episode makes the economic headwinds deeply personal, highlighting the lived reality behind the numbers.

Transcript

[Adobe Advertiser]

Npr.

[Darren Woods]

This is the indicator from Planet Money. I'm Darren Woods.

[Waylon Wong]

And I'm Waylon Wong. And it's what should be jobs. Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics was scheduled to give us the jobs numbers for January, but due to the partial government shutdown, we're going to have to wait.

[Darren Woods]

We still have some jobs numbers. We have the Chicago fed estimate of US unemployment for January. That rate is 4.4%, and it's an unemployment rate that is essentially unchanged from December. We also have private sector estimates of how many jobs were added to the economy in January. Revelio Labs, which is a workforce analytics company, it estimated that the economy lost 13,000 jobs. HR and payroll company ADP though estimated the US gained 22,000 jobs.

[Waylon Wong]

Now you might be wondering, do those numbers really justify an air horn? About a year ago, we were announcing numbers like 140,000, 260,000 that we were saying meant a pretty strong labor market.

[Darren Woods]

Yeah, losing 13,000 jobs or gaining 22,000. That doesn't necessarily mean that the jobs market is going down the drain. Today on the show, we speak with somebody whose story sheds light on what's happening with all these topsy turvy jobs indicators. And we learn about what economists call the break even jobs number.

[Waylon Wong]

We'll explain after the break.

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[Darren Woods]

To better understand why lower jobs numbers aren't meaning spiking US Unemployment, we spoke to Guy Berger. Guy is a senior fellow at the Burning Glass Institute, which is a labour market think tank.

[Guy Berger]

You know, a good jobs number is not what it used to be. The standard has fallen a lot.

[Waylon Wong]

That's because the unemployment rate has two parts. It has the numerator, the number of people out of work and looking for a job. And it has the denominator. What you divide that unemployment number by. You divide it by the total number of people in America in the labor force.

[Darren Woods]

And when the total American labor force isn't growing by as much, you don't need as many new jobs to keep a steady unemployment rate.

[Guy Berger]

You might need very little, you might not need it. You might be able to lose jobs and, and still keep the unemployment rate steady. I mean, if you look at places with, you know, with really rapidly aging populations, like parts of Southern Europe or Japan, that's the kind of world they're already in.

[Darren Woods]

That seems to be the population trend that the US Is hurtling towards.

[Guy Berger]

We have very few people coming into the country, maybe some people leaving, and our working age population is, you know, has probably peaked.

[Waylon Wong]

And this is where the break even jobs number comes in. Guy explains that this number is the amount of jobs needed each month to stop the unemployment rate from rising. He says it used to be one or 200,000 new jobs a month. That's how much you needed to keep the economy on an even keel. Now it could be in the low tens of thousands.

[Guy Berger]

One thing that's hard is we actually don't have very good real time estimates of population.

[Darren Woods]

The US Census just released its population estimates and it reckons we've seen the lowest increase in the American population since the pandemic. It's caused by fewer people coming into the country and people being deported or leaving voluntarily.

[Waylon Wong]

And that's something we're gonna focus on today. We know that the number of undocumented people leaving the US Voluntarily is significant and growing. We spoke with the group that works with this population.

[Darren Woods]

Yeah, when I did a call out to hear people's stories, I was flooded with people wanting to share. One of those people was Alessandro Negrete. Alessandro and Angelino through and through, is wearing his Cal State LA sweater.

[Alessandro Negrete]

Hey, Darian. Good morning.

[Darren Woods]

Alessandro's mother brought him across the border from Mexico when he was three months old. Alessandro grew up in inner city, Louisiana, undocumented. He says this was never on his mind as he went to school.

[Alessandro Negrete]

My status hadn't really come up. It wasn't something that we openly talked about, but it wasn't also something that I openly noticed that made a difference.

[Waylon Wong]

Until one day, it really did. Alessandro received a scholarship to go to the University of California, Berkeley, sometimes known as a public Ivy. He proudly showed his mother the acceptance letter.

[Alessandro Negrete]

Hey, I'm really excited. And she starts to cry and I'm like, what? What's wrong? She's like, you don't, you don't have a Social Security. And I'm like, I don't have a Social Security. Well, what's a Social Security? And she's just like, it's a number. And, you know, it means you're legal here. And obviously my mom, being undocumented herself, didn't really understand the legalities of it. And what it meant in the broader context, except for we don't belong here.

[Darren Woods]

This was around the year 2000, years before Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, made life easier for some undocumented kids. Alessandro learned that he couldn't easily accept that UC Berkeley scholarship and head off to college. He'd possibly have to pay international fees, which wasn't feasible.

[Alessandro Negrete]

And so it hit me a bit deeper. I was like, oh, okay.

[Waylon Wong]

So Alessandro instead got an under the table job working in LA's garment district.

[Alessandro Negrete]

I was just a receptionist and just helping people process their orders or direct them to the designs that they wanted.

[Darren Woods]

And working for the clothing company meant Alessandro could help pay his way through a local community college where he got his associate's degree. He'd only have to pay in state tuition and could save money by living at home. He then enrolled at California State University in LA for his Bachelor's in sociology. Alessandro went on to work as a contractor for social justice organizations, helping with fundraising and strategy.

[Waylon Wong]

So career wise, he was doing well, even though he never went to UC Berkeley. But in the first Trump administration, he started noticing an immigration crackdown. His workplace even made preparations for any potential immigration raids nearby.

[Alessandro Negrete]

And that's when I started having those thoughts, like, you know, I am pretty capable, I have a natural hustle in me and, you know, I can do this, I can leave and I'll be okay. But what kept me around during that time of the administration was my mom. Like, I wanted to help her and she, she had cancer.

[Darren Woods]

She was also undocumented, so I couldn't just leave. Fast forward to 2025. President Trump was inaugurated a second time, bringing an even stronger anti immigration push.

[Alessandro Negrete]

The broader immigrant community is under attack. Like all these things are just forms of weaponized mental anguish.

[Waylon Wong]

But there was a ray of some good news for Alessandro. His mom's cancer was in remission and she finally received residency. This cleared an obstacle for him to leave.

[Alessandro Negrete]

After that news from my mom that I was just like, you know what, I'm doing it.

[Darren Woods]

Alessandro joined the millions of others leaving the US over the last year. In September, Alessandro boarded a plane to the city of Guadalajara in Jalisco.

[Alessandro Negrete]

It wasn't until I boarded the plane that I'm like, I'm having a panic attack. You know, it really hit me, like, the magnitude of this decision, like, I'm not going to see a lot of people for some time. And, you know, that first week was rough, but once I found a place to live in, I've been in my new apartment for two months. I brought my dog with me. She's been a saving grace. Like I've created a sense of normalcy and community.

[Waylon Wong]

The anti immigration push has had enormous costs for Alessandro and for the US economy as a whole. He represents a skilled worker that the country is losing. All that education and work experience that Alessandro gained over four decades is now out of the country and widening the.

[Darren Woods]

Lens as people leave the US and have fewer babies. Economists are debating whether a larger population is good overall for the economy. Some point out that innovation is more likely when we have more people in the workforce sharing ideas. Others point out that there are real adjustment costs in getting more roads and houses and schools built if the population is growing.

[Waylon Wong]

As for Alessandro, he's feeling more relaxed being out of the us but he's thinking of everyone in la. He says it will always feel like home to him.

[Darren Woods]

On a smaller scale. Was there something that you missed from home?

[Alessandro Negrete]

Bagels.

[Darren Woods]

There are no bagels where you are.

[Alessandro Negrete]

There are no bagels in Guadalajara except in Costco and they're not that great.

[Waylon Wong]

I was very intrigued to hear there's Costco in Guadalajara, though. I wonder how much the hot dogs cost.

[Darren Woods]

Yeah. Don't forget your card when you go and visit. This episode was produced by Cooper Katz McKim with engineering by Robert Rodriguez. It was fact checked by Cierra Juarez. Caitlin Cannon is our editor and the indicator is a production of npr. So with all this subtlety about what even is a good jobs number, we thought we'd retire the air horn. You know, it's been a good eight years.

[Waylon Wong]

Ah, what a run. Should we do like a 21 air horn salute to commemorate?

[Alessandro Negrete]

Let's do it.

[Waylon Wong]

Okay. Maybe that was too many air horns.

[Darren Woods]

Yeah, we've truly saturated air horn desire. And now put to rest.

[Waylon Wong]

I'm overstimulated.