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I've spent the last three decades trying to better understand money across the boardroom, the newsroom and the trading floor.
That's longer than most podcast hosts have been alive.
But even I've got questions.
Join me, Meryn Subset-Webb, every week for my show Meryn Talks Money from Bloomberg Podcasts, where I have in-depth conversations with fund managers, strategists and experts about how markets really work.
And join me for a separate episode where I answer listener questions on how to make those markets work for you.
Follow Maren Talks Money on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.
Surprisingly, the US January jobs numbers look solid.
It's World Business Express from the BBC World Service.
I'm Leanna Byrne.
Heineken is cutting 6,000 jobs because of declining beer demand.
And why are consumers in China still not spending?
New US employment figures show hiring picked up more than expected in January, with 130000 jobs added and unemployment edging lower.
I've been speaking to Chris Eldridge, CEO of the recruitment firm Robert Walters, which has offices in New York, Austin and Jacksonville and around the world.
It's good to see wage growth go up by just under half a percent.
And what's really interesting, I think, is there's this decline of just about 400000 people not in the labour force who want a job.
You know, it suggests that more individuals have been actively searching for work and fingers crossed would be a more positive inventor in the market.
From your perspective, what have you found?
Are companies actively hiring?
Are they hesitating, quietly freezing roles until there's more economic clarity?
Or are they opening up their purse strings?
It's been a real kind of mixed bag.
It depends which sector you're in.
We've seen an uptick last month in construction jobs, for example, and healthcare jobs.
But everything else remains kind of relatively flat.
That isn't to say it's a bad thing.
We're not seeing big kind of step changes downwards.
But I'd say it remains steady as you go.
Companies are alert to pressures around tariff immigration.
And then, of course, the effect of the spectre, perhaps of AI.
Now the numbers are looking good, but we have heard from candidates sending out hundreds of applications and we're going to hear from one a little bit later and they're getting little response.
Is that something you're seeing?
Yes, it is.
And I think this is possibly down to the inclusion of AI in the process, either on the candidate side or on the employer side.
Employers are being inundated with job applications for roles.
So relevant, well-adapted CVs will be noticed and stand out more.
That was Chris Eldridge from Robert Walters.
See, the thing is, 2025 was a very weak year for job creation in America.
Employers only added 180,000 jobs in total.
That was the slowest pace outside the pandemic in more than two decades.
James Richardson is 33 years old and from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
He was an information security analyst in South Carolina until last October, when he was suddenly let go.
Since then, he's been applying for hundreds of roles with little success.
He spoke to me earlier about what it's been like to try to find work over the past few months.
One minute I was talking with my manager about you know the work we were doing and the next minute I was let go.
So it was pretty drastic and kind of came out of nowhere.
How many jobs have you applied for, James?
I would say somewhere between 1,200 and 1,500 jobs.
Wow, that is a lot of jobs.
And how many responses have you gotten?
About 10.
That's it?
That is it.
Why do you think that's the case?
I genuinely wish I knew.
I've done everything from mass applying to jobs to tailoring my resume, to hiring a resume service, to to having even people that are pretty high up in companies that have given me referrals.
And even from that point of view, they still have not even gotten me interviews.
It's almost one of the most demoralizing things, because it feels like there is no one on the other side even bothering to take in credentials.
I have 10 years of experience, I have a master's degree, I have a bunch of work in the government on the contractor side and because it's automated, you can't get feedback on it.
James, do you mind if I ask how your finances are at?
Because when people lose a job and they're out of work for a while and there's no income coming in, that can cause problems, right?
Oh, absolutely.
If it was not for the generosity of and the ability of my parents, I would be homeless.
That was James Richardson speaking to me earlier.
Now let's get the investor view on these US job figures.
Emma Wall, Chief Investment Strategist from Hartsbury's Lansdowne.
Emma, what do you think the Fed is thinking about these numbers?
Well, what the market is thinking is that the Fed will no longer have to make a cut, because it signals a very robust economy.
So we've seen stocks rise today and indeed bond yields rise today.
And the expectation that the Fed won't cut until July.
Previously, the market was baking in a cut in June.
However, a word of caution.
I think the market is focused very much on the months ahead figures and not on the downgrade through 2025, which is where actually your previous guests' experience, and these numbers are not at odds.
There is some expectation that January's strength is actually pent up demand and the longer term picture may not be as positive.
So we'll very much be watching this data and see how it rolls out in the next couple of months.
Another one for you, Emma.
Heineken says it's cutting up to 6,000 jobs, but its sharps are up more than 3.5% at the moment.
Bad news for staff, but investors are happy enough with that.
The Heineken CEOs a little while ago announced a strategy which was firstly about growth and secondly about efficiency.
This definitely falls into the efficiency bucket.
The market is reacting positively because, of course, fewer wages to pay means less money that it'll have to pay out.
And so that's better for kind of profits.
However, I would you know again, take pause here, because the reason they're having to cut jobs is because global beer demand is falling.
Heineken is pretty confident that actually demand in emerging markets where it is seeing very healthy demand will offset in the Western world where fewer people are drinking beer.
But if the long term global trend is down, that's a problem for Heineken.
OK, Emma Wall, thanks so much.
The British department store Harrods says more than 180 survivors of abuse by its former owner, Mohamed Al-Fayed, are now taking part in its compensation scheme.
Hundreds of women have accused the late Egyptian billionaire of rape and sexual assault while they were working at the luxury department store.
Last October, Harrods said it had set aside more than 80 million to compensate alleged victims of historical abuse.
So far, the company says more than 50 women have received compensation to China now, where consumers in the world's second largest economy still seem reluctant to spend.
The latest inflation figures are up just 0.2% compared to the same month last year.
Arjun Neel Alim, Asia financial correspondent for the Financial Times based in Hong Kong, explains what that means.
That means that year on year, a good or a service that you're buying costs basically the same amount.
Now that sounds like a good thing, but flat inflation or even deflation is actually a very bad thing.
And that's a big warning sign for economists and central banks.
Why are people not getting out and buying?
Well, China had a historic, enormous property boom over the last 20 years.
And that came to a sudden end when the property bubble burst.
And that hit sentiment, that hit investment, that hit local government finances.
There is just not the confidence and there's not the ability to invest in consumption in the same way as there was before.
It's interesting, isn't it?
When people might listen to this, they might say, you know, that's China's problem.
But what happens in China, it does have an impact around the world, doesn't it?
I mean, China is basically the workshop of the world now.
So when you have deflation, falling prices in China, companies that are very innovative, that are producing these products, like EVs, have to look abroad to sell.
And so we're going to have domestic markets in Europe and the US that are going to see huge competition from cheaper, highly competitive Chinese goods.
And eventually, countries are going to be faced with essentially the least bad option, which is to either artificially weaken their currencies to remain competitive in the export markets or put up tariffs against China.
Yeah, and this is what Donald Trump does not want.
He does not like a big trade deficit with China.
The same with the EU.
China last year had a trillion US dollar surplus in goods.
And that is on the back of this deflationary pressure.
And, you know, the Chinese government has tried to promote consumption.
They have various trade-in schemes, you know, for cars.
You could trade in an old car to get a new EV.
But personally I'm skeptical as to whether that's actually stimulated new consumption or or it's just allowed people to bring forward existing upgrade cycles.
That was Arjun Neel Alim from the Financial Times speaking to me from Hong Kong.
And that's it from World Business Express.
I'm Leanna Byrne.
Have a great day and thanks so much for listening.
I've spent the last three decades trying to better understand money across the boardroom, the newsroom and the trading floor.
That's longer than most podcast hosts have been alive.
But even I've got questions.
Join me, Maren Subset-Webb, every week for my show Maren Talks Money from Bloomberg Podcasts, where I have in-depth conversations with fund managers, strategists and experts about how markets really work.
And join me for a separate episode where I answer listener questions on how to make those markets work for you.
Follow Merrin Talks Money on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.
