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CARL AZUZ: Jobs, shortages, and caver factor into
our first show of the week.
Happy to have you watching.
I'm Carl Azuz.
The reason the US economy gets so much media coverage,
especially in even numbered years is because those are
election years and the economy is
often one of if not the top issue on the minds
of American voters.
A new economic indicator came out last Friday.
It's the government's monthly jobs report.
It gives a snapshot of the US employment picture
from the previous month.
And for April, the Bureau of Labor statistics
says 428,000 jobs were added.
That's the same number that was added in March.
Each month this year, the economy
has grown by more than 400,000 new jobs and more than 700,000
in February.
There's also a low unemployment rate.
The new report says the percentage of American workers
who don't have a job is 3.6%.
It was also the same in April as it was in March.
And it's only 1/10 of a percentage point
higher than it was in 2019 before the COVID pandemic hit.
America still has 1.2 million fewer jobs
than it did before coronavirus but the economy
has been closing the gap since almost
22 million jobs were lost during the shutdowns of 2020.
There are challenges, though.
America's gross domestic product surprisingly
shrank in the first three months of the year.
That's not a good sign.
Inflation's been a persistent problem since 2021,
soaring gas and grocery prices have
put a dent in people's budgets.
Last week's decision by the Federal Reserve
to raise interest rates by half a percentage point
could eventually help bring down inflation
but it'll make it more expensive for Americans
to borrow money for a house, pay down credit cards,
pay back student loans, and borrow
money for cars and businesses.
The stock market, another economic indicator,
took a hit last week.
It was at its lowest point of the year on Friday.
In the midst of these mixed economic messages,
we've reported on the great resignation.
Record numbers of Americans leaving their jobs.
Some are finding their way back to the positions they left.
JIM KLIMAS: I am officially a boomerang.
VANESSA YURKEVICH: And so are millions of
other American workers today.
A boomerang, someone who left an employer
before choosing to return.
Boomerangs like Jim Klimas, made up 4.3% of all US job
switches last year, up from 3.3% pre-pandemic
according to LinkedIn.
Was there any resistance on your end initially?
JIM KLIMAS: Definitely.
Just being concerned that it would feel
like a step backwards.
VANESSA YURKEVICH: Klimas worked in HR at Adobe.
But in 2020, he left for a new opportunity.
Last year, he returned to Adobe after just 18 months.
The average time Americans boomerang back is down
from 22 months to 17 months.
JIM KLIMAS: Part of it was during the pandemic
it was harder to sink roots into a company.
I missed some of the colleagues and the confidence
that I could do important work and add value and have impact
was the most important thing.
VANESSA YURKEVICH: Boomeranging often
carries a negative connotation but that is changing,
likely due to the more than 11 and 1/2 million unfilled jobs
in the US, while a record 4.5 million
Americans quit in March.
The balance of power has shifted to the employee.
LAURA MAZZULLO: Historically, boomeranging was
not seen as a positive thing.
I think it's the first time we've seen employers really
welcoming that trend as well to say we'd
love to have you back here.
VANESSA YURKEVICH: But is it desperation too?
LAURA MAZZULLO: Of course, part of it
is that they're so aware of the competition
and they don't want to lose out.
VANESSA YURKEVICH: Will Staney any CEO of Proactive Talent,
a recruiting firm, says he has three boomerangs working
at his 50-person company and calls
them the best untapped secret.
WILL STANEY: They've gone and gathered other skill sets
elsewhere with the context of what
they learned at your company.
The onboarding is smoother, the training, the culture fit
is already determined.
I think it's a great low cost and high quality way of hiring.
VANESSA YURKEVICH: It's also a gut check on the company's
value and culture.
WILL STANEY: A boomerang represents that we're achieving
our goals as a company, that we're scaling
and improving and growing.
VANESSA YURKEVICH: Like many Americans,
Klimas had options when he was looking for his next move
but ultimately, the familiarity of Adobe, the impact he felt he
could make, and remote work helped him seal the deal.
Were you surprised that you ended up back at Adobe?
JIM KLIMAS: Yes.
Yes, and a lot of it goes back to the worrier,
the being careful not to feel like I
was taking a step backwards.
So when I-- went it felt right, it was a surprise.
CARL AZUZ: 10-second trivia.
German chemist Justus von Liebig is credited with creating what?
Soda water, baby formula, plastic, or fertilizer.
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In the 1860s, von Liebig made, patented,
and marketed a powdered commercial baby formula.
His invention was considered the first of its kind.
It contained just a few ingredients--
milk, malt, and wheat flour, and potassium bicarbonate.
Within 20 years, there were reportedly
dozens of different brands of baby formula available.
And today, even the organic formulas
contain dozens more ingredients than von Liebig's invention.
But there's a problem, baby formula is getting harder
and harder to find in America.
In most states, between 40% and 50%
of the top selling formula brands
was sold out in recent weeks, that's according to grocery
research group Date Assembly.
And it says, in several states, more than half
of their formula stocks are unavailable.
This apparently started with supply
chain problems that welled up in the wake of the COVID pandemic.
And when it comes to formula, the issue
has only gotten worse because of a massive recall by one
of America's largest suppliers.
It doesn't just make major brands,
it also distributes specialty formulas
needed by babies with allergies or sensitive stomachs.
JACQUELINE HOWARD: Joy Greene in Springfield, Ohio
is one of the parents impacted by this.
Her five-month-old baby Weston had
grown accustomed to a particular Similac formula
as many babies do.
But a few months ago, Joy started noticing it was really
hard to find Weston's formula.
That's because in February, Abbott Nutrition, one
of the biggest baby formula producers in the country,
recalled several lots of its Similac,
Elementum, and Allocare.
Those recalled lots were linked to bacterial infections
and a preliminary assessment from the FDA determined
that Abbott did not take steps to prevent
products from becoming contaminated
during manufacturing.
This had made shortages of the formula even worse.
Here's Joy on what her family is going through right now.
JOY GREENE: It's been scary to like walk down the aisles
and see empty shelves, and honestly not be able to find
the exact formula that we need.
We have been trying different off brands, store brands,
things like that, and some of them he's tolerating OK
and some of them he's not.
But really, it's just been overwhelming and scary.
JACQUELINE HOWARD: So here's what
Abbott says they're doing to help alleviate the situation.
The company says they are increasing production
at other manufacturing sites and they've
started releasing some specialty formulas on a case
by case basis.
In the meantime, Abbott says parents can go to their website
and enter their zip code to find their preferred formula closest
to their area.
Now, the FDA says Abbott didn't take
steps to prevent contamination at their plant in Michigan.
Abbott says they tested the formula before distributing
and did not find any bacteria or salmonella.
They say they are working closely with the FDA
to restart operations at that Michigan plant.
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CARL AZUZ: Ancient Native American cave art has been
found somewhere in Alabama.
You can't go there to see it.
Researchers are keeping the location a secret
so people won't vandalize it.
And even if you could go, you can't
really see the drawings anyway.
They're practically invisible to the naked eye.
They were drawn on a very low ceiling
that's hidden from sunlight.
Scientists studying the cave had taken thousands of photos
of these ceilings, and three-dimensional images
of those photos revealed five previously
unknown cave drawings.
They're believed to date back over 1,000 years.
The biggest drawing is 11 feet long.
Researchers say it appears to show a Diamondback rattlesnake.
But exactly who drew these, why they
were drawn, the style they were drawn in,
it all remains a mystery.
It sure ain't nouveau or neon, it's not performance or pop.
It's way pre, pre, pre-impressionism,
and you could never call it modern.
But even if it's far from precisionism,
there's nothing avant garde about its expression.
The art decorates the cave with someone's favorite concepts
that still pop in post, postmodern times.
Today's shoutout goes out to Locust Grove Middle School
in Locust Grove, Virginia.
We can now mention middle schools,
but you've got to be at least 13 years old to make a request,
and the only place we look for those
requests is youtube.com/cnn10.
I'm Carl Azuz.