Skilled Labor Crisis Deepens Amid BLS Data Blackout

Additional Resources

• US Labor Market Quarterly Verticals for Q3 2025
• White House Says the October Jobs Report May Never Be Released
• Ford CEO Talks About the Shortage of Manually Skilled Workers

Transcript

Pete Newsome: 0:00

Today’s job market headlines include a wake-up call from Ford’s CEO and a breakdown of labor market verticals by Indeed. But before we get to those, for the first time in modern history, the U.S. Jobs report may never be released. White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt said that the October employment and inflation data will likely never be published because of the government shutdown. The Labor Department confirmed that it stopped collecting economic data, including the monthly jobs and CPI reports that guide nearly every major economic decision in the country. The last time a shutdown delayed a jobs report was 2013. But this time it’s very different because this data might be lost altogether.

0:39

And without it, economists, investors, and even the Federal Reserve are effectively flying blind. Private firms are stepping in with their own analysis, most showing the same thing, which everyone who’s paying attention already knows. Hiring is slowing and layoffs in October hit recession-like levels. But this is unprecedented. The BLS data isn’t just numbers on a spreadsheet. It’s foundational for how employers plan and economist forecasts and even the Fed uses it to set policy. So if we lose even one month of official data, it sets back workforce planning everywhere. So for now, we’ll have to rely on private information that’s published from firms like Indeed, ADP, and Challenger Gray and Christmas.

1:19

That’s what’s telling us the pulse of the job market right now. Or you could listen to podcasts from staffing people who live it every day because I can tell you what I see, what my peers all see, is very consistent with what these private companies have been reporting. But still, make no mistake, this creates massive uncertainty for anyone who relies on it for hiring and investment decisions. Next, Ford’s CEO Jim Farley says America is in trouble. And it’s not about cars, it’s about people. He said this as a guest on the Office Hours Business Edition podcast, where he revealed that Ford has 5,000 open mechanic positions it can’t fill, even though they pay up to $120,000 a year. He said this reflects a national crisis.

2:01

We have over 1 million unfilled skilled trade jobs across the country, which is everything from truck drivers and factory workers to plumbers and electricians. He said we don’t have trade schools and we are not investing in educating the next generation. Farley pointed out that learning to properly remove a diesel engine from a Ford super duty truck can take up to five years, but the training infrastructure simply isn’t there. And that’s despite Ford raising wages significantly by 25% in its most recent deal with the United Auto Workers. And Farley says it’s just not enough without rebuilding America’s pipeline for skilled labor. I think it’s really good and necessary to see a major employer CEO pushing back on the current education system. But it’s just bigger than that. Our labor force is shrinking.

2:46

The supply of skilled labor and service workers just isn’t meeting the demand today, and it’s only going to get worse. And because of that, this is one of the most important conversations in the labor market today that we could have, and really in the country. For decades, we told young people the only path to success is a four-year degree. And along the way, we’ve neglected vocational programs and apprenticeships. And now we’re going to have to deal with that. And when a company like Ford can’t fill high-paying jobs, that tells us it’s not a wage issue, it’s a skill issue, a training issue, an education issue. And so the future of America’s middle class really depends on correcting this mistake. And it is a mistake because we were just selling kids a dream that was misguided, quite frankly, in many cases.

3:36

And we just have to develop the skills we need for the future. Finally, for today, what does a job market look like across verticals? According to new data from Indeed Hiring Lab, employer demand in Q3 slowed across nearly every major industry. Job postings were down 8.5% year over year. And wage growth remains slightly positive, but it’s very uneven. It varies greatly by sector. Here’s a quick breakdown. Technology is still struggling. Job postings are more than 30% below pre-pandemic levels, with data and analytics roles specifically dropping 15% just year over year. So you think AI is having an impact? This data tells me that it does, because those are two areas where AI definitely plays a big part.

4:20

Healthcare remains the strongest sector with therapy and physician postings, about 85% higher than 2020 levels, but the growth there is starting to slow. B2B industries like accounting and finance show mixed mixed results. Postings are down, but wages are up. There’s a 3.6% growth in accounting pay. So that’s a trend in the right direction, although it’s still, you could argue, maybe that’s not even able to keep up with inflation, at least real inflation. And retail continues to slide with postings down 16%, and food service uh jobs are down 13.8%. Transportation cooled more, but wage growth is up in in that area, so that’s slightly good news. But look, these numbers tell what’s become an ongoing story.

5:04

Employers just have become really cautious. They aren’t moving, nothing significant is happening. And that comes after years of aggressive post-pandemic hiring. I mean, we saw that to a significant degree. I mean, you could just any chart you look at about the labor market, it just jumps off the uh the page when you see the big dip and then the big increase. And now you could argue we’re starting to see a return to balance, but I think it’s more of just a reset that’s happening on the in the market right now. And what I say uh almost every day lately is what we need the most is stability. So the shutdown looks like it’s over.

5:40

That’s great. Now we can take a step in a positive direction. And before we go, here’s your fun fact for today. On this day, November 13th, in 2020, Kem Eng became the first female Major League Baseball General Manager when she was hired by the Mar Miami Marlins. In fact, she was uh hired as the first GM of any major men’s uh sports franchise in the US. So huge accomplishment. Really good stuff uh to close the episode with. So thank you for listening. Please like, subscribe, share with anyone who you think might be interested, and if you have feedback, let me know that too. Talk to you tomorrow.