Employment data released this week showing underlying weakness in America’s jobs market may be the foundation for new interest rate cuts from the Fed early next year, according to UBS.
The release from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics yesterday, delayed due to the government shutdown, showed nonfarm payroll employment added just 64,000 jobs in November, relatively unchanged from April. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate continued its steady climb higher in the latter part of this year, and now sits at 4.6%.
The data painted a strained picture as we round out the year. For example, the number of people employed part-time involuntarily was 5.5 million in November, an increase of 909,000 on the month prior. These individuals, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) explained, would have preferred full-time employment but are working part-time because their hours were reduced or they were unable to find full-time jobs.
Elsewhere, the unemployment rate among teenagers was up month-on-month to 16.3%, while the number of people jobless for less than five weeks was 2.5 million in November, up by 316,000 from September. This suggests that labor market entrants and those bouncing from job to job are having a tough time landing more sustainable roles.
Likewise, although a full employment release wasn’t shared for October, this week’s data included the fact that Federal government employment declined by 162,000 in October.
As such, the data “raised several red flags” said UBS’s Paul Donovan in a note to clients this morning. He added that the quality of the data itself must be taken with a pinch of salt, because the government shutdown compounded the issue of lower response rates to BLS surveys.
But “the report does not raise too many concerns about the resilience of the U.S. consumer,” he added. “Employment in restaurants continues to grow, suggesting the trend to spending on having fun continues.”
“However, there are probably enough concerns about the health of the labor market to justify an insurance rate cut by the Federal Reserve next year.”
Currently, investors aren’t expecting that cut to come anytime soon. The next meeting at the end of January is unlikely to yield a further reduction to the base rate, according to CME’s FedWatch barometer. At the time of writing, the odds of a 25bps cut sit at 22%, though past meetings have seen odds shift dramatically as the meeting approaches.
The October figure was especially “jarring” chimed Elyse Ausenbaugh, head of investment strategy at J.P. Morgan Wealth Management. In a note shared with Fortune, Ausenbaugh echoed Donovan: “This report bolsters the way we have been thinking about the Fed’s current policy approach. The delivery of ‘insurance’ cuts over the past few months was prudent and brought rates to a more neutral level.
“One additional cut may be appropriate in the first quarter of 2026, but the economy looks stable enough to heed patience in taking additional action.”
Cautious optimism
Despite the data providing a jump-scare or two, Macquarie’s David Doyle sees some green shoots.
“While data are mixed, overall they support the notion of a likely bottom in hiring in the summer months with potential improvement lying ahead in 2026,” he wrote in a note to clients. Government employment was a drag on the figures overall, he argued, meaning that this should reverse itself in December data after the shutdown had ended.
Not everyone is so optimistic. ADP chief economist Nela Richardson told Fortune in an exclusive interview that she was not yet seeing a “rosy picture” in private payroll data. Per ADP’s most recent results, U.S. private employment dropped by 32,000 roles in November, led by weakness from smaller businesses. Companies with between one and 19 employees axed 46,000 roles, while those with 20 to 49 employees cut 74,000. Conversely, companies with 500-plus staff added 39,000 employees.
She explained: “Tiny firms are a big chunk of employment, but the tiny firms are making tiny moves, and they’re moving all in the same direction. It could be as small as not hiring two teenagers at the bakery or forgoing that delivery driver over a certain season, it doesn’t mean it’s a big, huge layoff, it’s not replacing a worker here or there, and those changes add up.”
Earlier this year, Ford CEO Jim Farley said that America needed a wake-up call. Five thousand mechanic jobs at Ford had gone unfilled. They all offered six-figure salaries—well above the average American worker’s wage—but people weren’t applying.
And Ford isn’t the only employer struggling with a shortfall of workers. For over a decade, numerous blue-collar professions—careers that include manual labor ranging from manufacturing and automotive technicians to construction—have struggled to attract young people.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that more than 400,000 skilled trade jobs are currently unfilled, a gap expected to widen as demand for labor continues to grow. The Manufacturing Institute and Deloitte estimated that 3.8 million additional workers will be needed over the next decade.
Myriam Sullivan, senior director at Jobs for the Future’s Center for Apprenticeship & Work-Based Learning, says the shortages stem from a “perfect storm,” in which an aging workforce collides with cultural stigma around the work and increased competition for specialized labor.
However, there is some evidence that Gen Z is reconsidering the stigma around blue-collar work as a frankly brutal economy pushes them to reevaluate their options. About 78% of Americans have noticed a rising interest in trade jobs among young adults, according to a 2024 Harris Poll survey for Intuit Credit Karma. With rising tuition costs, these debt-burdened Gen Zers are interested in well-paying careers that allow them to skip a traditional four-year college education. Enrollment in vocation-focused community college has increased by 16% in this last year, according to the National Student Clearinghouse’s tracking data, which also found a 23% rise in Gen Z studying construction trades from 2022 to 2023.
But, as white-collar entry-level jobs disappear, employers and educators have failed to build credible pathways into blue-collar work—leaving high-paying roles unfilled and Gen Z shut out.
The Stigma Around Blue-Collar Work
Clinton Crawford, a 55-year-old automotive technician in Arkansas, told Fortune the system fails from the outset to support young people interested in work like his. Crawford’s high school–aged children were never presented with blue-collar work as a viable option. Instead, nearly every student was encouraged to prepare for a four-year college education. “That’s good, if that’s for you,” Crawford said, “but I don’t think it’s for everyone.”
A similar exchange took place within the household of Ford’s chief executive. At the Ford Pro Accelerate event organized by Farley this fall, with an emphasis on what Farley calls the “essential economy” and the many missing roles to fill there, he spoke with Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer and Mike Rowe of the Mike Rowe Works Foundation. Farley told them about his son’s summertime work as a mechanic, and his plaintive statement to his parents afterward: “I don’t know why I need to go to college.” Farley said his son found those experiences under the hood of a car more worthwhile than what he believed college could offer him, and that should be welcomed. “It should be a debate.” A few months earlier, Farley told the Aspen Ideas Institute that some of his workers were taking Amazon shifts to make ends meet and he’d heard that “none of the young people want to work here.”
For Farley, the issue stems from a culture that doesn’t value blue-collar labor. A 2025 survey conducted by home services software maker Jobber found that only 7% of parents would prefer their children to pursue vocational education and related work, while a majority of Gen Z students said vocational education carries a cultural stigma compared with a college education.
“If you were to meet a doctor, or someone in a four-year program, or you were to meet someone who is in a four year program, or you met someone who was working on your car, think of the different impressions you would have of all three,” Crawford said.
The Pew Research Center found that only three in 10 blue-collar workers believe that most Americans have “a great deal” or “a fair amount” of respect for the work they do. And academics like Harvard professor Michael Sandel have also long raised concerns that the value blue-collar workers bring to the economy has not translated into how they are treated in society.
Crawford pushes back against stereotypes that frame blue-collar labor as unskilled, pointing to the intelligence required to understand the technical aspects of complex systems while translating that knowledge to customers. According to Crawford, these trades are not “for those who can’t do well.” To him, this work is deeply fulfilling, and he finds meaning in helping people get back on the road.
“I’ve been able to help someone when life has given them a bad situation.”
Limited Pathways Into Skilled Trades
Employers have struggled to build and sustain the pathways needed to meet increasing demand for skilled labor. In her role at Jobs for the Future (JFF), a national nonprofit focused on workforce development, Myriam Sullivan works with employers to build apprenticeship pipelines. She said, employers “expect people to come to work job-ready.”
“Oftentimes our conversations with employers center around, like, ‘you’re never going to find that,’” Sullivan said. “So how might we flip that and help you build the workforce that you want to see?”
JFF has found success by helping small and mid-sized firms subsidize training costs, encouraging companies to take a more active role in building the workforce they seek. The organization has also identified gaps in awareness among high school students about the pipelines available to young people interested in this work and collaborates with educators as an intermediary.
Some economists say the barriers to pursuing skilled trades remain primarily financial. Joe Mahon, director of regional outreach at the Minneapolis Fed, said he struggles with characterizations of Gen Z as lacking the work ethic or disposition to see training programs through—claims that he hears often from employers. Instead, Mahon said there is “a tremendous disconnect” between that rhetoric and what actually hinders young people from pursuing the trades.
In his conversations with workers, he said candidates may be offered as little as $11 an hour while training, prompting many to choose immediately higher-paying work instead. If workers are “being paid quite a bit less than what they’re hoping to eventually make, that can be a hard decision to make, especially if you’re cash-strapped,” Mahon said.
Kyle Knapp, a 38-year-old shop foreman in California, told Fortune that his work enabled him to earn “a great living.” He has bought a house and has been able to comfortably raise a family. The average age of a homebuyer is now 40 years old— it has become a milestone that Gen Z workers now view as nearly impossible.
Educators and employers still face significant challenges in creating clearer pathways for young people to enter these critical and lucrative careers. But it’s an effort Crawford sees as necessary: “Everybody works in this economy together.”
For Josie Lauducci and her husband Christian, home isn’t tied to a zip code—it moves with the tides, literally.
For the past decade, the couple has lived aboard a 13-meter-long sailing yacht, traveling across the Pacific and at times raising their three children at sea. Their floating home has taken them from San Francisco to South America and as far as New Zealand.
They aren’t retired early or backed by generational wealth. Instead, their nomadic life is powered by something far more practical: Lauducci’s flexible nursing job in San Francisco.
About every five or six weeks, Lauducci flies from wherever the boat is docked—most recently in Mexico—back to the Bay Area. She works eight 12-hour shifts as a per diem neonatal intensive care unit nurse, making over $100 an hour. While per diem roles don’t guarantee shifts, they offer far more control over scheduling—and in Lauducci’s case, enough pay to cover her family’s expenses.
“That rhythm is what makes this life possible,” the 44-year-old told Fortune from the airport, en route back to Luana, the family’s newest vessel.
The arrangement might sound extreme, but it’s increasingly familiar at hospitals across high-cost cities like San Francisco. In fact, there’s a growing class of workers who live far from where they’re employed, compress their schedules, and travel long distances to make the math work.
Lauducci is one of them: a supercommuter.
The rise of supercommuting
Lauducci has worked as a nurse for more than 20 years and started out full-time, with stints as a travel nurse along the way. But as she gained seniority at her Bay Area hospital, she began to notice a different path emerging, one taken by per diem nurses who traded predictability for flexibility.
Some would fly overseas after completing their required shifts. Others lived out of vans, exploring the U.S. between work stints. What they shared was a willingness to reorganize their lives around compressed schedules.
This idea of supercommuting has long existed across the corporate ladder, from interns to CEOs. But its popularity soared during the pandemic, when workers got a glimpse of a calmer, cheaper life outside major cities.
Researchers from Stanford found that the share of workers in the 10 largest U.S. cities who commuted more than 75 miles each way had grown more than 32% since the pandemic. In the U.K., Trainline found that the number of Brits spending more than three hours getting to work and back has doubled since before COVID.
Work-life balance also now matters more than ever. A report released last month found that it has overtaken both pay and job security as the most important factor for job seekers.
The healthcare system—under pressure to fill critical roles while reducing burnout—has thus increasingly made room for flexibility, particularly for experienced nurses whom hospitals are eager to retain. For Lauducci, that means if she miscalculates time to port and misses her flight, preventing her from working a shift, it’s not the end of the world.
“You can self-cancel (a shift) and they don’t cry about it,” Lauducci said.
Courtney El Refai is another example. She is also a nurse working in the Bay Area, but her home is some 5,000 miles away in Sweden.
She stacks the four-shifts-a-month requirement together at the end of one month and the beginning of the next. So she spends about 10 days working eight shifts in California before heading back to Europe.
“The commute is absolutely outrageous, but imagine having six weeks off after working 10 days on a repeated pattern,” she said in a TikTok video that’s racked up over 500,000 views.
Moreover, since her husband and daughter made the move to Europe last year, she said she’s been enjoying an enhanced work-life balance.
“It basically feels like I am a stay-at-home mom, but I’m still a working mom…” El Refai said. “That is something no 9-to-5 job will ever give me.”
Life on the open waters
With the median sale price for a home in San Francisco being $1.48 million—241% higher than the national average—living almost anywhere else is going to be financially lower, including a sailboat.
Lauducci said the low-consumption lifestyle was part of what drew her to her husband, who grew up sailing and once lived in a low-income artist co-op. Today, the couple is intentional about keeping costs down.
“We don’t spend much time in marinas, so when we anchor, it’s free. We sail, so we’re not using much energy. We create energy through solar power. We make our own water through a desalinator,” she said.
Josie Lauducci and her family once sailed from San Francisco to New Zealand, a trip that took over three years. (Photo courtesy of Josie Lauducci)
One of the most common criticisms she hears is about retirement. Lauducci understands the concern but rejects the idea that security must come from “the golden handcuffs of the pension.” She still contributes to a retirement account and worked long enough full-time to become vested.
While two of their three children have since grown older and moved on to college or careers, she said life at sea gave them a rare perspective.
“Your kids aren’t just out there by themselves,” she said. “You end up on the same sailing trajectory as other families, and you meet up at the beach, or you do potlucks on each other’s boats, and it’s just a real, instant community.”
And thanks to Starlink satellite internet, staying connected—when they want to be—is easier than ever, whether that means downloading a school project for their 12-year-old, checking the weather, or mapping out the route to their next adventure.
The Justice Department released thousands of files Friday about convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, but the incomplete document dump did not break significant ground about the long-running criminal investigations of the financier or his ties to wealthy and powerful individuals.
The files included photographs of famous people who spent time with Epstein in the years before he came under suspicion, including some candid snapshots of Bill Clinton, who flew on Epstein’s jet and invited him to the White House in the years before the financier was accused of wrongdoing. But there was almost no material related to another old Epstein friend, President Donald Trump, aside from a few well-known images, sparing the White House from having to confront fresh questions about a relationship the administration has tried in vain to minimize.
The records, consisting largely of pictures but also including call logs, grand jury testimony, interview transcripts and other documents, arrived amid extraordinary anticipation that they might offer the most detailed look yet at nearly two decades worth of government scrutiny of Epstein’s sexual abuse of young women and underage girls. Yet the release, replete with redactions, seemed unlikely to satisfy the clamor for information given how many records had yet to be released and because some of the materials had already been made public.
Democrats and some Republicans seized on the limited release to accuse the Justice Department of failing to meet a congressionally set deadline to produce the files, while White House officials on social media gleefully promoted a photo of Clinton in a hot tub with a woman with a blacked-out face. The Trump administration touted the release as proof of its commitment to transparency, ignoring that the Justice Department just months ago said no more files would be released. Congress then passed a law mandating it.
In a letter to Congress, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche wrote that the Justice Department was continuing to review files in its possession, was withholding some documents under exemptions meant to protect victims and expected additional disclosures by the end of the year.
Trump, who was friends with Epstein for years before the two had a falling-out, tried for months to keep the records sealed.
But bowing to political pressure from fellow Republicans, Trump last month signed a bill giving the Justice Department 30 days to release most of its files and communications related to Epstein, including information about the investigation into his death in a federal jail. The law set a deadline for Friday.
Limited details about Trump
Trump is hardly glimpsed in the files, with the small number of photos of him appearing to have been in the public domain for decades. Those include two in which Trump and Epstein are posing with now-first lady Melania Trump in February 2000 at an event at his Mar-a-Lago resort.
Trump’s connection to Epstein is well-documented, but he has sought to distance himself from his former friend. He has said he cut off ties with Epstein after the financier hired young female employees from Mar-a-Lago and has repeatedly denied knowledge of his crimes.
The FBI and Justice Department abruptly announced in July that they would not be releasing any additional records, a decision that was supported by Trump. But the president reversed course once it became clear that congressional action was inevitable. He insisted the Epstein matter had become a distraction to the Republican agenda and releasing the records was the best way to move on.
The White House, meanwhile, has moved to shift focus away from Trump’s ties to Epstein, with Attorney General Pam Bondi last month saying that she had ordered a federal prosecutor to investigate Epstein’s connections to Trump’s political foes, including Clinton.
Neither Trump nor Clinton has ever been accused of wrongdoing in connection with Epstein, and the mere inclusion of someone’s name in the files from the investigation does not imply otherwise.
Among other prominent Epstein contacts is the former Prince Andrew, who appears in a photograph released Friday wearing a tuxedo and lying on the laps of what appear to be several women who are seated, dressed in formalwear. Pop star Michael Jackson also appears in multiple photos, including one showing him standing next to a smiling Epstein.
New photos of Clinton
Unlike Trump, Clinton is featured prominently in the files, though the records included no explanation of how the photographs of the former president related to any investigation or the context surrounding them.
Some photos showed him on a private plane, including one with a woman, whose face is redacted, seated alongside him with her arm around him. Another shows him in a pool with Epstein’s longtime confidant, British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, and a person whose face was also redacted. He is also seen in a hot tub with a woman whose face was redacted.
This undated, redacted photo released by the U.S. Department of Justice shows Ghislaine Maxwell and former President Bill Clinton swimming with an unknown person.
U.S. Department of Justice via AP
Senior Trump White House aides took to X to promote the Clinton photos.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote “Oh my!” and added a shocked face emoji in response to a photo of Clinton in the hot tub.
“They can release as many grainy 20-plus-year-old photos as they want, but this isn’t about Bill Clinton,” Clinton spokesman Angel Ureña said in a statement.
“There are two types of people here,” he said. “The first group knew nothing and cut Epstein off before his crimes came to light. The second group continued relationships after that. We’re in the first. No amount of stalling by people in the second group will change that.”
The Epstein investigations
After nearly two decades of court action, a voluminous number of Epstein records had already been public before Friday, including flight logs, address books, email correspondence, police reports, grand jury records, courtroom testimony and deposition transcripts.
Besides public curiosity about whether any of Epstein’s associates knew about or participated in the abuse, Epstein’s accusers have also sought answers about why federal authorities shut down their initial investigation into the allegations in 2008.
“Just put out the files,” said Marina Lacerda, who says she survived sexual assault by Epstein. “And stop redacting names that don’t need to be redacted.”
One of the few revelations in the documents was a copy of the earliest known concern about Epstein’s behavior — a report taken by the FBI of a woman in 1996 who believed photos and negatives she had taken of her 12-year-old and 16-year-old sisters for a personal art project had been stolen by Epstein. The documents don’t show what, if anything, the agency did with that complaint.
Police in Palm Beach, Florida, began investigating Epstein in 2005 after the family of a 14-year-old girl reported being molested at his mansion. The FBI joined the investigation. Authorities gathered testimony from multiple underage girls who said they’d been hired to give Epstein sexual massages.
Ultimately, prosecutors gave Epstein a deal that allowed him to avoid federal prosecution. He pleaded guilty to state prostitution charges involving someone under age 18 and was sentenced to 18 months in jail.
Epstein’s accusers spent years in civil litigation trying to get that plea deal set aside. One of those women, Virginia Giuffre, accused Epstein of arranging for her to have sexual encounters, starting at age 17, with other men, including billionaires, famous academics, politicians and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, then known as Britain’s Prince Andrew.
Prosecutors never brought charges in connection with Giuffre’s claims, but her account fueled conspiracy theories about supposed government plots to protect the powerful. Giuffre died by suicide in April.
Federal prosecutors in New York brought new sex trafficking charges against Epstein in 2019, but he killed himself in jail after his arrest. Prosecutors then charged Maxwell, his longtime confidant, with recruiting underage girls for Epstein to abuse. She was convicted in 2021 and is serving a 20-year prison sentence.
Politics8 years ago