How states are scooping up federal workers

The Indicator from Planet Money

NPR

Business

4.7 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 4 April 2025

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It's Jobs Friday and all eyes are on government workers. Will the Trump administration's layoffs finally show up in the latest jobs report? Today on the show, we look at the numbers for federal workers and who's trying to hire them.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	NPR.
0:11.7	This is the indicator for plan of money.
0:13.3	I'm Adrienne Ma.
0:14.2	I'm Waylon Wong.
0:15.2	And I'm Darian Woods.
0:16.6	What a week, guys.
0:18.0	I'm exhausted.
0:19.4	Now, we have to at least acknowledge the end of the global trading order as we once knew it.
0:24.4	Woo.
0:24.8	RIP.
0:25.6	Skull emoji.
0:26.8	We are, of course, talking about the huge announcement from the Trump administration this week, a cornucopia of new tariffs, which we are going to dig into a lot more next week.
0:38.2	But for now, we have another important set of numbers out today that gives us a snapshot of how
0:43.4	the American worker is doing. You all know this hallowed ritual. We call it Jobs Friday.
0:52.3	That's right. Today, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its monthly jobs report. It shows
0:57.8	the unemployment rate in March edged up to 4.2 percent, and the economy added 228,000 jobs.
1:06.1	On the surface, this is a strong jobs number, but after the break, we'll dig into why the good times may not last.
1:14.6	I'll dive into who's actually seeing an opportunity with all the federal job cuts.
1:19.2	And now look at why part-time workers might be signaling broader economic trouble ahead.
1:36.0	This message comes from Wise, the app for doing things in other currencies.
1:40.3	Sending or spending money abroad, hidden fees may be taking a cut.
1:45.7	With Wise, you can convert between up to 40 currencies at the mid-market exchange rate.
	...

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