New Jobs, Old Jobs, No Jobs, the Deficit, Workplace Etiquette, Waymo, Flag Day, and who was Paul Strassmann?
This Week, Economically
Jobless claims – seasonally adjusted - hit an 8-month high, at 247,000 for the week vs. 236,000 expected.
At this time of year, part of that can be attributed to the end of the school year.
This is good bad news. Bad, because the number is increasing. Good, because if the number keeps going up, the Fed may lower interest rates.
Overall, new claims are about where they were a year ago.
Total unemployment was at 7,200,000. Ouch. The good news is that the number of available jobs increased to 7,400,000. There just may not be a good match for the fellow who just got let go.
The unemployment rate stayed at 4.2%.
In a corollary, new job creation fell to 139,000 for May, a good-sized drop from April’s 147,000.
Health Care added 62,000 jobs – it averages 44,000.
Hospitals added 30,000, health care facilities added 29,000 and skilled nursing added 6,000.
Leisure and hospitality added 48,000 jobs, with restaurants and bars using 30,000 of those.
Growth in individual and family social services added 16,000 jobs.
While most other industries remained fairly static, federal government lost 22,000 jobs.
The trade deficit in April dropped from $138,300,000,000 to $61,600,000,000, a 55% reduction. That will happen with tariffs on Chinese goods.
This will impact the U.S. GDP – Gross Domestic Product – in a positive manner, but we won’t know until August.
The Workplace
Work-life balance and etiquette.
One of these is ‘in’ and one of these is ‘out’.
Let’s talk etiquette. This is the ‘in’ one.
In a recent survey (yes, another one), 6 in 10 business leaders said they were mandating etiquette lessons primarily to teach employees the art of “making polite conversation”.
That’s what happens when many people were hired in the last five years and have used Slack and Zoom as their primary method of communication.
Enter William Hanson, the proprietor of The English Manner etiquette training institute in London.
His book, “Just Good Manners”, has recently arrived in the U.S. and is sure to sell well.
A wonderful tidbit for a business meal: don’t order anything messy, and if it’s meat, make sure it's boneless. No one wants to see an autopsy on the table.
Classic.
Well, if etiquette is in, that must mean that work-life balance is… out?
Mostly. With the job pool of white-collar jobs shrinking amid the embrace or threat of AI, workplace negotiation power has come back over to the employer.
Or, at least in the words of the CEO of clothing label, Good American, in a comment to employees: “Work-Life balance is your problem.”
I guess that’s the end of foosball tables in the workplace, and coming in at whatever time.
In another example, the Shopify CEO will not let managers commit to new hires unless they can prove that AI can’t do the job of that employee.
Wow.
Yep, covid is out and accountability is in.
For small business owners, this is an opportunity to hire some talent that may be looking for a corporate job but can’t get it. They just may be open to working for a smaller company where they can make a difference.
BTW, California state employees up to this point have been required to come into the office only two days a week. Starting July 1, they will have to come in four days per week, per the California Governor.
That’ll put a dent in your five-day weekends.
Waymo
No, that’s not an expression you make after eight shots of tequila, as in “I’ve drunk waymo than I should’ve…”
Waymo is Google’s driverless taxi company; it’s an Uber without a driver. A human one, that is. The car just drives itself using LiDAR (Light Detection And Ranging).
In August 2023, it averaged 10,000 paid rides per week. By May 2024, it was up to 50,000 per week. In August 2024, it hit 100,000.
In March of 2025, it hit over 700,000 rides in California. In an electric Jaguar, no less.
By the end of this year, there will be over 10,000,000 rides since it started.
I have not been in one, but I am told it does cost a bit more than Uber or Lyft. At least you don’t have to tip.
The next time I’m in San Francisco, L.A., Phoenix or Austin, I’ll give it a shot. In the meantime, they are mapping out Boston for expansion there.
Who was Paul Strassmann?
As a 19-year-old immigrant in New York in 1948, he started as many immigrants started: he sold stuff while he got an education.
In this case, it was socks in Queens while getting a civil engineering degree.
But what did he do before he came to New York?
If he had a LinkedIn account at the time, it probably would have read something like this:
Age 15-16, World War II Resistance Fighter, fluent in Slovak. Able to work with a team or independently and adaptable to rapidly changing situations; skilled in chaos management. Knowledgeable in the use of explosives to disrupt communications and transportation of Nazi troops and equipment.
What were you doing at the age of 15?
Neither parent survived the holocaust.
In the mid-1950s, while pursuing an industrial engineering degree at MIT, he was one of only two students who took a new class teaching the use of computers in business. This would be pivotal in his career.
He was one of the original Chief Information Officers, rising to senior positions at Xerox, Kraft, and General Foods.
He was the first CIO for the Department of Defense in the 1990s.
He was in NASA in a similar role in the 2000s.
He studied hundreds of companies and found many were racing to keep up with rivals in a kind of technology arms race, without first thinking about what they really needed.
“It’s not computers but how a firm manages them that makes the difference”.
Mr. Strassmann died in April at the age of 96.
“What matters is not what people see on their computer screens, but what informed actions they take with what they learn.“
I wonder what he would have thought about the race to integrate AI.
Flag Day
Flag Day is Saturday, June 14. It’s also my mother-in-law's 99th birthday. She is also an avid reader of my Report. Happy birthday, Arlette!
When the Revolutionary War started in 1775, the flag George Washington flew had 13 alternating red and white stripes. But it had a Union Jack in the corner. Washington did not think it was inspiring to have a replica of the British flag on the colonists’ flag.
On June 14, 1777, the Second Continental Congress passed a resolution stating that “the flag of the United States be 13 stripes, alternate red and white” and that “the union be 13 stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.”
June 14 is one of the days that the American Legion states you should fly your flag in honor of Flag Day.
The American Legion also says you should fly the flag on Father’s Day.
If you don’t have an American flag, buy one. It’s that time of year when you can find Old Glory for sale just about anywhere, since July 4th is right around the corner.
Father’s Day is Sunday, so go get the old guy a card, make a phone call, or stop by because there will come a time when he won’t be around. He’ll appreciate it. Oh, and no matter how gruff he might be, dads always like hugs from their kids, so make it so.
