New Week, New Headlines: Are We Headed Back to Victorian Child Labor & A Tale of Two Job Markets

Friends! The news doesn’t stop. And neither do we (except for naps, Francesca loves a nap).

Here’s what we’re jamming about this week:

Topic 1: Are We Headed Back to Victorian Child Labor?
Could Florida's latest child labor law proposal (re: Tampa Bay Times) be the tipping point for teen workers? Authors of this bill are looking to allow teens to work more than 30 hours a week, and in riskier situations.  And, this isn’t just a Florida issue. Child Labor violations increased 44% last year alone.   

Topic #2: A Tale of Two Job Markets
The U.S. job market. On paper, according to Reuters, it's booming, but we're peeling back the layers to reveal what's really going on behind those low unemployment rates with a take from WSJ. We tackle the economic trifecta of halted interest rates, inflation highs, and wage growth that's throwing businesses and job seekers for a loop.

New! Job of the Week
We’re highlighting a job that just looks boss. This week, it’s Director of Snacks! Who wouldn’t want that on their name plate?

Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered professional advice. We are not responsible for any losses, damages, or liabilities that may arise from the use of this podcast. The views expressed in this podcast may not be those of the host or the management.

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Transcript

Francesca : 0:01

And remember the words of the great Dionne Sanders, which is look good, feel good, feel good, play good, play good, pay good, get yourself a haircut, get through the journey. Well, hello, friend, hello, welcome to your work. Friends, I'm Francesca and I'm Mel, and we're 2-HR leaders with no filter exposing the work stuff. You need to know. We're back this week with New Week, new Headline, a fun ad Mel what are you talking about this week?

Mel : 0:45

I am talking about a recent house bill in Florida that passed and it's looking at scaling back child labor laws.

Francesca : 0:56

Nice.

Mel : 0:57

And.

Francesca : 0:57

I'm talking about this US labor market seems to be sizzling. That's what everybody in every news source says, but why does it suck for job seekers? I want to talk about it. And, mel, we have a new ad called Job of the Week. We find cool jobs. We're going to talk about it. We're going to share them. Yeah, yeah, all right. Well, mel, you ready to talk about the news?

Mel : 1:19

I'm ready to talk about it.

Francesca : 1:20

Let's talk about it, yeah, yeah. So what's going on in Florida?

Mel : 1:31

Look, florida is a beautiful state, but man, florida man, ok, well a recent house.

Francesca : 1:37

Well, florida always has the news that you're driving the lawnmower shit, so it's something going on.

Mel : 1:42

Yeah yeah, this bill is a house bill. For anyone who is nerdy and likes to read bills, you can find it under HB 49. But this bill would allow 16 and 17-year-olds to work more than eight hours in a day, even if school is the next day. So with that in perspective, that could mean working all day on a Sunday, or a double shift on a Sunday, or working after school through closing and potentially later. You and I both worked in retail. We know when you have to change out the signage for different sales and everything. You could be working until midnight or two, three in the morning, right Easy.

Francesca : 2:21

Easy. So this doesn't make a lot of time for studying, does it no?

Mel : 2:25

It doesn't, especially if it's during the week. It also would allow them to work more than 30 hours a week when school is in session.

Francesca : 2:34

More than 30 hours a week.

Mel : 2:36

More than 30 hours a week. So essentially you're going. You have two full-time jobs school and work. It would allow for that, so oh my gosh OK. Yeah, it's just, it's a lot. It's a lot, but there's a lot of things to add here.

Francesca : 2:50

Because right now we cap it at 30, right, you cannot work more than 30 hours a week for children.

Mel : 2:55

For children. Ok, yeah, well, teenagers starting at six is supposed to be starting at 16 years of age, right. That said, they also started to add construction to this list. Initially it was proposed that children could be roofers or scaffolders and it was amended to take that off the table as well. It was the Home Builders Association in Florida. They were part of drafting part of this bill, so they had a little bit of a say or influence into some of this. But essentially, allowing teens to well, teens are allowed to work on construction sites today.

Mel : 3:35

As long as it's part of school programs, I have no issue with that. I think that's great, especially if you're in a high school. That's like the trade focus. That's fantastic. It gives you that exposure you're learning while going to school. That's great, but it's part of your learning, part of your program. This would allow them to just work further on construction sites, but they scaled that back as well. Where they cannot work on scaffolding, they cannot do roofing or cannot work on anything that involves a ladder over six feet. So there are people who are really pushing back on some of these pieces. There's also a proposal here. It would allow teams who are homeschooled or who attend virtual school or those who have dropped out of school to work during school hours. Yeah, that's interesting to me.

Francesca : 4:24

I would hope that every adult in this country would understand the value of giving teenagers and children an education and an educational experience as much as good of one as you can get, and part of that is allowing them time to study or have time to have extracurriculars. And I get really nervous when we start saying somebody can potentially even take advantage of a kid and have them work more than 30 hours a week, which is still a lot. It's a lot.

Mel : 4:58

It's a lot. We've talked about this before because we both worked young. I mean, I started working when I was 14, but I grew up with different financial circumstances, like not really good financial circumstances, so I was very aware of the need to make money at a young age. So it wasn't just about hey, learn how to get into the workforce, this is a good experience for you. It was, oh, I need to make money so I can pay for clothes, or if I want to do things with my friends, or if I want to go to college, I need to start saving now. And there are trade-offs to that and you're, at that age, put in a position. There are an entire. Let's be real these laws are going to prey on poor kids.

Francesca : 5:45

Yeah, absolutely, I mean you and I worked. I worked at 16. I worked for fun money. I didn't work before because I didn't have clothes.

Mel : 5:54

I worked to pay car insurance and a car payment and to save up for a car. So very different reasons.

Francesca : 6:00

Very different.

Mel : 6:01

There was certainly fun money in there, but my priority it was mainly things that you hope kids, the systemic issue that kids even need to worry about that stuff and they need to make these trade-offs and choices. And you do trade-off things. I can speak only to my personal experience, but I decided to walk away from being a part of the swim team my senior year so that I could take on a second part-time job To start to save up for college and to pay for college. And I had to give that up, something I really loved. And so you know those trade-offs suck Quite honestly. And then you add on to that. You know, luckily for me, I had some protections in place where you're not allowed to work past 9pm during a school week, and so I didn't have to do that.

Mel : 6:55

That's one of the things they're looking at scaling back, which I think is a huge no. The only thing that kept me on the honor roll was having that extra time to then come home and do schoolwork. I literally would leave school, go home for an hour, go straight to the mall, close, come back, do schoolwork, rinse and repeat During my senior year. So you know this is going to truly eat into an entire group of poor kids that are going to be really exploited with these new laws. Potentially, you know, certain kids are probably going to be easily influenced, so I worry about that kind of stuff. Who might be manipulated? Because your brain's not even fully formed at this point to make good decisions.

Francesca : 7:39

Yeah, it's like a short-term win, but long-term.

Mel : 7:43

Long-term what happens? Long-term, it's not.

Francesca : 7:45

Yeah, Education is still one of the great equalizers in this country. I mean, it just is. The thing for me on this bill is if the intent is to give kids more money, or more income coming in at the sake of their education and their educational experiences, then I think we're not solving the root issue here. We're putting it on kids to solve something that they should not have to solve 100%.

Mel : 8:16

The proponents of this bill use the two things they're saying this will give teenagers more opportunity and to boost the economy. And I just think, hey, let's not lean on teenagers to boost the economy.

Francesca : 8:31

Yeah, figure out a different way. Legalize weed Figure out a different way.

Mel : 8:36

I do think it's interesting that it was the Associated Builders and Contractors and Florida Home Builders Association, two of the highest-powered industry groups in Florida, who helped develop some of these bills' ideas. And this is after, if you recall, that tie-link immigration bill passed a few years ago, where they lost a ton of cheap labor. And I want to remind our folks listening in when we talked about federal minimum wage and the increase in federal minimum wage, one of the things that we covered is that there are certain subgroups who are not required to get paid federal minimum wage. Teenagers fall into that subgroup and that's not meant to be eradicated until 2028. And that's a goal, not a that's happening for certain. That's a goal that they have. So this is about cheap labor at the expense of children. That's what this bill is about, at least from my perspective it feels like it and I think that Are we really here?

Francesca : 9:41

that we're going to pull back child labor protections feels really lazy and not progressive at all in terms of doing what's right for our kids and their education and their livelihoods. My concern, too, is this could happen in other states.

Mel : 10:04

Absolutely so. I want to talk about some of the stats that I found.

Francesca : 10:09

Yeah, you know, we love the data. We love the data, yeah.

Mel : 10:12

I love data. Love it Data. Florida's child labor violations increased by nearly 60% 6% between 2021 and 2022, according, to In one year.

Mel : 10:28

In one year 60%, according to analysis of US Department of Labor data that was conducted by the Florida Policy Institute, so you can look some of that stuff up. So this got me going down a rabbit hole of okay, well, in Florida, if it was up by 60%. What's going on in the US as a whole? Child labor cases are jumping up everywhere. So I'll just give one statistic here.

Mel : 10:56

Between October of 2022 and July of 2023, the Department of Labor concluded 765 child labor cases and they found 4,474 children employed in violation of federal child labor laws, and they assessed more than $6.6 million in penalties against employers between that time frame. And what they saw is that there's a 44% increase in the number of children illegally employed and an 87% increase in penalties compared to the same period the year before. So that's significant and one of the examples that they highlighted, which was, for me, just heartbreaking to read. But you know this is happening at 16 McDonald's franchise locations in Louisiana and Texas. They found children as young as 14 operating dangerous equipment and working long and late hours. And two months prior to finding those 16 franchise locations, they found a McDonald's in Louisville, kentucky, that had two 10-year-olds working without pay until as late as 2 am. They were preparing and serving meals, they were working the drive-through in the cash register and they were cleaning the restaurants until 2 am. Two 10-year-olds that's fifth grade folks.

Francesca : 12:28

I think a lot of people when they think about this, they think, oh well, maybe it's just a kid working at his family's restaurant or two things. It just is egregious. I don't think people think it's happening at major chains in major cities and yeah, it's happening all over the place. The fact that it's increasing by 44% in one year this is a real issue.

Mel : 12:52

And what they're saying is this is on the rise in the tight job market, which cheap labor, essentially is what's happening here, so I do think this is something that's important. If this is passed in Florida, it is likely other states are going to try and potentially succeed at passing similar clawbacks of child labor protection, and that's really dangerous for kids. I'll end on as positive as I can with this article was that the Senate in Florida would like tighter restrictions here and will likely require that this is amended further, but it is something we should all be paying attention to, so look it up. We'll share the links in the show notes for everyone.

Francesca : 13:40

Well, let's talk about the labor market, because Reuters came out with an article this week that said US labor market sizzles with blowout job growth and solid wage gains, and they're stated to support that. But if you talk to a lot of job seekers, they don't feel that. What I want to do is basically lay a story out for everyone around why the job market is the way it is. I want to talk about the golden side of the story, which is giving you data that, yeah, job growth and wage gains are solid, and then I want to give you another set of data that says is it really because you may not be feeling like the job market's great, or you might be feeling like the job market's great? And I want to give a tale of two stories or two cities or whatever literary reference. That's what I would love to present today the tale of these two data stories. Oh, I love it, let's do it. It's interesting. Depending on who you talk to, this is either amazing or it sucks.

Mel : 14:40

Yeah, there's no middle ground here.

Francesca : 14:42

So let's just set the groundwork, the landscape in the job market sitting at the top of 2024, there were a significant amount of layoffs last year. Why you might see that are two things. One, companies overhired.

Francesca : 14:59

They absolutely did they did During COVID, expenses went way down. They were sitting on cash At that point in time. It was cheap to borrow cash as well, and so companies sometimes took big bets on new business ventures, that's Q and Metta and the Metaverse. You did a great example. Were they overhired? Just to be very frank, a lot of companies got really cocky about what they thought they could do, hired a bunch of people. This happens all the time. You guys that overhired.

Mel : 15:29

Just bad business decisions.

Francesca : 15:31

Yeah, business decisions that absolutely didn't pan out by making them the profit or the sales. The second thing that happened was what we call an economic trifecta. Last year, number one Federal Reserve Pause Interest Rate Hikes last July. Two, in 2022, inflation peaked In September.

Francesca : 15:50

We all remember what the cost of eggs was very expensive, yes. And then we had wage growth reaching record highs in 2023 too. So you have wages going up, you have inflation going up, you have interest rate hikes getting paused. All of that, basically, is saying that it's more expensive to run your business and it's more expensive to borrow money. Right, so now, as a business, you're sitting on a lot of people that are more expensive than they used to be, and it's way more expensive to borrow money as you need it. It's just everything's more expensive. So, when you had these layoffs in these recent years, we're happening for cost cutting. There's basically two ways that organizations can look really good to the market. One, they make a shit ton more sales, they're growing on the top line, or they can cut costs and look way more efficient. Right, and what did these businesses decide to do?

Mel : 16:49

Look way more efficient.

Francesca : 16:51

Yeah, that's why you see organizations continuing to cut people is because payroll again is the biggest cost. Highest cost Right, mm-hmm, and it looks good. It's. The easiest and most efficient way to look really good on the books is to cut your costs, so you cut your biggest expense. I share that because it's really important to understand that backend, to understand the tale of these two labor markets.

Mel : 17:18

I like the framing up of this story because it does feel like there's a disconnect here between two groups. Yes, yeah, on the one side you're hearing job growth, everything's amazing, and then we see very real examples, or even hearing from people who are just saying it's awful out there.

Francesca : 17:39

So here's my headline here. This is a Francesca idea I like.

Mel : 17:43

Francesca-isms.

Francesca : 17:44

I appreciate it, please. Thank you Thank you.

Francesca : 17:47

I think we all need to think about. This job market is more like the job market of 2018, 2019. We've gone through this hi-hi and this low-low and basically we're just course correcting back to 2018, 2019. In other words, don't get super freaked out. But also it's not as like rosy as everyone thinks it's going to be, and I've plucked out two stories that are really representative of the hi-hi and the cautionary tale. One is Reuters. The headline here is US labor market sizzles, with blowout job growth and solid wage gains. Couple stats that they're giving. One is that 353,000 jobs came on in January and accelerated in January Great. We also saw that the Labor Department report on Friday dropped a report that said unemployment is at 3.7% last month. Okay, remains under 4% for two consecutive years, which is the longest stretch in more than 50 years.

Mel : 18:44

Well, yeah, I mean that's significant.

Francesca : 18:46

Yes, so yes, a ton of layoffs got it understood, but we're still under that 4%, which is true, and more jobs were created in 2023 than people thought would be created. Okay, so again, it's looking better than we thought it would be. The other thing is that hourly earnings rose by 0.6% as well, so, again, unemployment is historically low, putting about 350K jobs on the books in one month, and then we see hourly earnings going up, so yeah the job market value looks good.

Mel : 19:27

Yeah, it looks good it looks good right.

Francesca : 19:30

If you're looking at those stats, it looks good. Those stats are true. Okay, and here is a report by Deon Rabon from the Wall Street Journal. The title here is the US Job Market Four Big Problems Hiding Under the Service. Because every time you look at data, the ideal state is that you're really looking at a wide variety of data and you're also looking at what goes into that data.

Francesca : 19:57

So he gives four examples that I think are really good to look at. One let's look at the labor force, because the jobs are afforded. In December show that 845,000 people dropped out of the workforce last year alone. This is the 10th largest increase since the report was created in 1975. 845,000 people.

Mel : 20:15

Let me keep that. It's a lot of people. It's a lot of people Just dropped out. Just dropped out, meaning they're not actively looking for a job so you could say Francesca.

Francesca : 20:24

Well, is that a bunch of retirees? No, because 694,000 of those workers are considered prime age workers 19 to 54. Notice, I didn't say 18.

Mel : 20:37

Oh wow, 19 to 54. Well, that's significant. I mean, what is that like 80% of those numbers roughly yeah About? I mean that's huge.

Francesca : 20:45

Yes, and that participation rate keeps on falling. It's been falling since September, so it's getting worse. The other reason why it's important to understand who has dropped out of the workforce and is not actively looking is because the unemployment rate remember that unemployment rate of 3.7 I talked about up above? Yeah, well, that unemployment rate does not track people that are not actively looking, it only tracks people that are actively looking.

Mel : 21:12

See, phos. This is why you need to look at more. You need to be patient, guys. That's huge to not include that number than I wouldn't believe. The unemployment number, that's not an inaccurate representation of unemployment. Right, correct, correct.

Francesca : 21:30

Because it's not counting. Let's just count even those prime age workers. It's not counting almost 694,000 people, right? That's significant. The third thing that he called out that I think is really important to look at is the jobs report. When they bring out the jobs report every single month, they release one every month. The jobs report every month is an estimation Okay, it's an estimation of how many people have jobs. For the most part, they'll get one or two months wrong, right, okay, they'll either underestimate it or overestimate it. I was just about to say.

Mel : 22:04

What are we talking here with the estimations like so far off. Can they be here? For the most part it's pretty well on track, but one or two months every year might be a little like you know, yeah, okay, but in 2023, every single month.

Francesca : 22:15

But October was over us, so it always looks like there were more jobs than there were One Mm-hmm and two. This is a very similar pattern to what happened in 2007 and 2000. Which do you remember?

Mel : 22:29

what happened then? Yeah, yeah, I was living in New York and lost a lot of friends working at Lehman. Watch them walk out the door. So recession time, recession time Right.

Francesca : 22:40

Different reasons for a recession, but recession, right Right, it was looming Right.

Mel : 22:44

Yeah.

Francesca : 22:46

The last thing you said that was really interesting is that hours and wages fell. So one thing that we track is how many hours in total were worked. It fell in December for the second time when you adjusted it for inflation. Employers are asking employees to work less hours.

Mel : 23:05

Yeah, they're cutting schedules for folks who are not salaried, which is going to be the most hurt group of people. Right, right.

Francesca : 23:14

You have to look at everything and balance. Yes, we've created some jobs. Yes, unemployment is still the way that they track. It is still low. But also, are these numbers solid and what else might be happening in the ether?

Mel : 23:29

Yeah, I think it's so important to make sure, when you're doing research on this stuff, that you're looking at multiple sources, because what you just told was a very different story. I see a lot of folks coming out and always referencing the jobs report, the jobs report. The jobs report isn't a full story. The jobs report isn't a full story. It's not the full story.

Francesca : 23:49

It's interesting. When I look at these data sets, what I think is listen, this is a big course correction that is happening in the labor market. I would think about it as look folks, we're going back to what 2019 was for a labor market. That's what's happening. It is not all doom and gloom, but it's also not like everything's fine and should not explode it. Yeah, it's not exploding Right? Let me plug two quick things, because I'm hearing from a lot of you. Some of you are looking for jobs for the last two months, three months, even longer. One is we did a pod about getting the right job with James Hudson. He offered some amazing tips to get into a job, and a job that's right for you not just any job, but a job that's right for you and to look at how do you contact hiring managers, how do you contact recruiters to get in the door faster. Take a look at that.

Mel : 24:43

Yeah, 100% James. He gave some really fantastic tips for folks, things I didn't know about as well the other thing is, I don't want people to lose their mojo.

Francesca : 24:53

Okay, so do what you need to do to feel good about yourself. Right, to feel amazing about yourself because you are amazing as you're going through this job search. Yeah, and remember the words of the great Dionne Sanders, which is look good, feel good, feel good, play good, play good, pay good, get yourself a haircut. Get yourself a haircut, get through the job market, it'll be fine.

Mel : 25:14

Yeah, don't let this job market or your experience, don't let this kill your spirit or make you feel less than it. I can promise you, as someone who used to work in talent acquisition, it is likely never you, I can't admit it. If you're struggling and I've also been there on the candidate side it's just not. So take care of yourself, do good things for yourself and don't lose your to your good point, francesca mojo, during this process. It'll all turn out Yep, yep.

Francesca : 25:52

We were looking at the job boards just for fun and found some. We wanted to find some fun jobs to highlight every week. Yeah, here's some fun things. You found a job that I was just like. Just by the title alone, I'm like I want that.

Mel : 26:05

I did and the title alone. I was like, well, this sounds fun. Of course it's a serious job, but I was searching and it's a director of snacks. It's a very serious job. Obviously it was on a recruiting agency's website, so unfortunately I don't know the name of the company that is hiring for director of snacks, but I will link in our show notes to the job description for anyone who might be interested in developing the go to market strategy and KPIs of tracking snacks and snack sales. I mean, what better job Like thinking about how to promote snacks? I don't know. I think that sounds like an awesome job.

Francesca : 26:42

I literally wish I was qualified for that job, because I would just want the title on the director of snacks, on the director of snacks.

Mel : 26:49

Yeah, we'll post it. We'll post it and let us know what you think about us adding these job highlights to new week, new headlines. We know it's tough out there and we're hoping to highlight some stuff for you guys.

Francesca : 27:05

Well, mel, amazing to talk with you today. As always you too, this has been delightful. Yeah, we'll be back next week with new week, new headlines. Thanks so much for joining us today. Like and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. You can come over and say hi to us on the tiktoks and LinkedIn community. It is up at yourworkfriendscom. We're always posting stuff on there and if you found this episode helpful, share with your work friends. Thanks, friend Bye.