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Available now on The Documentary from the BBC World Service.
A new law in Kazakhstan makes it illegal to force a woman into marriage, including by kidnapping her.
It's a breakthrough after 20 years of pressure.
I'm Monica Whitlock and I've just been to Kazakhstan meeting women who've been kidnapped and hearing their stories.
Listen now by searching for The Documentary wherever you get your BBC podcasts.
Getting laid off is always tough.
There are people who rely on me and losing my job during the holiday season there's an additional emotional weight because I have to pinch every penny.
But are some groups in America getting it worse than others?
Unemployment rates for black women in America have skyrocketed in the last year in ways that no one is really speaking about.
Black unemployment spikes?
This is World Business Report from the BBC World Service.
Music.
I'm Ed Butler, and today we're going to be looking at those latest US jobless numbers and how some groups, like African-American women, may be more in the firing line than others.
Also in the show, truckers reflect on self-driving trucks and why an 11-year-old farmer's son is riding a tractor to Brussels.
It has been a few weeks since the end of the government shutdown in the United States, but the legacy of that shutdown does remain, in one sense at least, because federal agencies were not working through that time.
Government data collection has therefore been suspended.
And today, well, it marked a long-awaited revelation.
The state of the US jobs market since September 2021
George Conboy is with us.
He's our markets guest.
George, I mean, what have we learned from these figures?
Well, what we've learned is we're up to the highest unemployment in the last four years.
We went to 4.6% unemployment in November from 4.4% in October.
Now the contrary indicator is that, depending on how you want to look at that, glass half full or glass half empty three out of the last six months we've lost jobs.
Of course, that means three out of the last six months, we've gained jobs.
Not a clear signal, but not a real good one.
Trending downwards?
Was that to some extent to do with layoffs because of the shutdown itself?
Maybe
Yeah, it could well be part of that job dislocation people who haven't gone back to those same jobs.
Still, it's a little bit troubling, but markets tend to view it through two lenses.
The slowdown aspect of that lens, the possible recessionary aspect, a negative view.
But of course, what all the traders want now is, gee, will the Fed cut rates again?
And the slowing economy tends to augur toward that.
OK, well, we're going to have more of that in a minute.
But for now, George, thanks very much.
One of the more striking figures in these numbers was the result for black unemployment.
The jobless rate for African-Americans hit 8.3% in November.
It's the highest reading for that since August 2021, after standing at 75 in September, according to Bureau of Labour Statistics.
Earlier, I spoke to two women, both sometime executives working in the area of equity and racial inclusion.
They say the job market for them has become impossible.
33-year-old Raven Rodriguez has been without a job for nearly a year now.
And along with her, I spoke to Amira Bajer.
She's from San Diego and she's just found herself freshly out of work.
One thing that I think is true is I'm receiving swift rejection emails because of the AI tools that companies use to screen resumes and cover letters.
But there's a market difference when an actual human recruiter or talent acquisition professional sees that you may have transferable skills or a very interesting background that can fit into an industry you may not traditionally have worked in.
And so This is very clearly, I think, an employer's market, and I feel it in every interview and application I put forward.
And there's this pressure to perform perfectly again and again in front of these panels, just for a chance at roles that probably pay less, carry downgraded titles and very much demand five days a week in an office, and I don't think that this job market is capturing a lot of the emotional toll this is taking on those who are seeking jobs.
Raven does that echo with you?
Oh, absolutely.
I remember there was a point in time where recruiters were reaching out constantly.
And what I find now is that I could apply to over 100 roles, let's say in a month, and receive rejection emails from almost all of them very immediately.
I also have noticed...
I very rarely communicate with recruiters anymore.
Organizations have really stepped away from talent acquisition and are just using AI or digital softwares to screen their applicants.
Obviously, I'm on the phone so you can't see me, but I'm a Black woman in America in 2025, and unemployment rates for Black women in America have skyrocketed in the last year in ways that no one is really speaking about.
When we speak about unemployment, we speak about it very universally.
Do you feel you're being targeted then?
Absolutely.
I think the target comes from the language that you'll see on my CV.
And I can't change that language, right?
So, when it comes to the work that I've done, the organizations that I've partnered with, I think that language is something that makes organizations very afraid.
And I think what makes it so insidious is that it's not so much a bias that they don't want to work with me or with other Black women.
I think it's a fear of being targeted by the administration.
Black women are 7 of the US population in terms of the workforce, but over 300000 of us have been actively pushed out of the workforce and there aren't enough jobs to replace the needs that we have.
And, on top of that, black women in America are 70 percent most likely to be the primary breadwinner, compared to the 40 percent of their white counterparts.
And so when a black woman is pushed out of the workforce, you don't just impact a single individual.
There's an entire ecosystem of people that rely on the salaries and the labor of black women from their children and family members.
They may list on their IRS statements, but there's a whole ecosystem of people that aren't listed.
For example, I help to subsidize my mother, who I can't list on my taxes, my disabled brother and other siblings.
When a car breaks down, when a tuition payment can't be made.
I'm one of the people in the family who quote unquote, made it out.
And there's a sociologist term for this.
It's called network poverty.
Is it taking its toll on you emotionally?
Oh, yes.
Emotionally because losing my job.
There are people who rely on me, and losing my job during the holiday season, when so many people are trying to be joyous and, you know, buy presents for one another and travel to see each other, there's an additional emotional weight of not being able to be with the ones that I love in this time because I have to pinch every penny.
And so it's not just me individually impacted when I lose a job.
There's a whole bevy of people who are now impacted, who are now scared of how we're going to put food on the table and keep a roof over our head.
I think something that's so interesting too is that language is really doing like the political groundwork in the United States around unemployment.
Usually what you'll see is you know, Black women are leaving the workforce or, in 2025, 300000 Black women left the workforce.
And it doesn't speak to the ways that so many of those women were pushed out.
So many of those women were targeted.
So many of those departments were shut down.
So many of those resources were reallocated.
When we use the language of leaving the workforce.
You're insinuating that someone else has filled that role in my absence.
And most of the roles that I've held on my resume no longer exist.
Unemployed executives Raven Rodriguez and Amira Bajer.
So why are black women struggling quite so much in the current jobs market?
I asked Janice Gasamassari.
She's a workplace equity consultant and psychologist.
So I think that people who are already just in general in any industry, people who are already disadvantaged in whatever ways, are often those most impacted when there are financial issues, for example, with companies, which a lot of companies in the US are experiencing financial issues because of things like tariffs, for example.
So companies have to conserve their costs.
And often those who are most impacted are those who are already experiencing.
You know, at the margins.
And so we often see that this is Black employees or employees who have other marginalized identities.
There may be wider trends at play here as well.
For an economic perspective, I'm now joined by Kristen Brodie.
She's a senior economist advisor and director of the Economic Mobility Project at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
Hi, Kristen.
I noticed that Fed Chair Jerome Powell was cautioning last week a couple of things.
First, that job figures could be worse than the numbers that have actually been reported today.
They could be higher.
This is a first survey estimate.
And also, that President Trump's immigration policies may themselves have hurt labour supply.
Let's just talk about the data itself first.
Is it your assumption this could be an underestimate of the real trend?
Well, first of all, thank you for having me.
I won't make an assumption, but I do want to give some context.
So if we look at the unemployment rate overall, we talked about that already.
I heard your earlier guests say that.
But the unemployment rate for teenagers was 16.3%, which is high in November.
And that's an increase from September.
And just as a comparison for adult men, it was 4.1%.
Adult women, 4.1%.
White people, 3.9%.
And then this jump for Black people at 83, Asian Americans at 36 and Hispanics at 5, just to kind of set the tone.
So is that showing you that entry-level jobs are the ones most being squeezed here?
So I can't say that yet.
That's just the unemployment rate reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the major groups.
Now, the one that really stands out for November is Black teens ages 16 to 19.
So in 2024, November of 24, it was 18.1%.
In November of 25, 30.7%, which is incredibly high.
And it was 18.6% in September.
And we would compare that to 16.3% for all teens.
So I just want to kind of put that in perspective first.
OK, we have been hearing a reaction from the administration to the latest data.
Kevin Hassett is the director of Donald Trump's National Economic Council.
He said that he thought that some of the spike that we've seen in the overall unemployment figures was down to federal workers leaving the payroll.
He was confident they'd find new jobs soon.
We saw an uptick in the unemployment rate, but we also saw an uptick a few months in a row of labour force participation.
So I think those government workers are out there looking for jobs.
And there's an academic literature that suggests that they'll be very successful at it, because government workers tend to be very well qualified when they hit the private sector.
So that's a reaction there from Kevin Hassett.
Obviously, he's a man touted to become the new Fed chair.
I guess the Fed is going to have a lot to think about, isn't it?
With regard to its next rate decision here, Kristen.
I would say, as an economist at the Chicago Fed, that we always have a lot to think about and that we are always thinking about our mission of maximum employment and stable prices.
Yeah, we're getting the prices figures on Thursday, right?
Is there a dilemma there?
I wouldn't say there is a dilemma.
The people who know, know, and that information will be announced.
I would also point out that two other industries where we've seen decreases two of the largest are professional and business services, and also manufacturing.
So we can look at those numbers.
And we know that women make up around half of the professional service area, and So that's part of the reason why we're seeing increases in the unemployment rate of black women.
OK, Christian Brody, thank you very much indeed.
Let's turn to the markets then.
George Conboy, we heard from you earlier.
Stock markets were falling on Tuesday with these jobless figures.
Partly, I guess, that was because oil prices were also slumping on renewed hopes of an end to the war in Ukraine.
Right.
You know, if we did have an end to the war in Ukraine, you'd expect more Russian crude to come on the market.
That's more supply with static demand.
But you've also got better efficiency of US pumpers pumping a lot more oil and a lot of oil coming out of OPEC.
The maybe silver lining there, although not for oil company profits, is that economically in general, lower oil prices, that's a big input in a lot of industries, lower prices should help a little bit, helped moderate the market decline today.
So we were down, but not down at our lowest all day.
OK, a quick thought.
The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times Bloomberg, they're all saying Warner's is now advising its shareholders to reject Paramount's offer.
This is the big debate about who's going to take over Warner Brothers, right?
Could it be Paramount or Netflix?
They're saying reject Paramount and accept the Netflix bid.
Yeah, I'm shocked.
I'm shocked that incumbent management would make a deal with an acquirer.
And then, when another acquirer comes in with a higher offer, tell shareholders to reject the higher offer.
Could it be that there are lucrative consulting contracts for the Warner people from the Netflix folks?
Maybe Paramount doesn't offer that.
Wouldn't be the first time I'd seen that.
This drama is not over yet.
And I think what you're going to see is Warner will probably get a higher offer from Paramount before this whole thing closes the curtain.
Netflix may still get it, but there's more money for shareholders that's going to come onto the table.
George Conboy, thanks very much.
Available now on The Documentary from the BBC World Service.
A new law in Kazakhstan makes it illegal to force a woman into marriage, including by kidnapping her.
It's a breakthrough after 20 years of pressure.
I'm Monica Whitlock and I've just been to Kazakhstan meeting women who've been kidnapped and hearing their stories.
Listen now by searching for The Documentary wherever you get your BBC podcasts.
Much indeed.
You're with World Business Report from the BBC World Service.
Now, climate campaigners have today been criticising the European Union's decision to water down its planned ban on new petrol and diesel cars.
Greenpeace described it as a backward step.
But the new plans focus on a target for emissions reductions.
Instead, the European Commission has described the change as a lifeline for the continent's car industry, which is facing intense competition from China.
Sigrid de Vries is Director General of the European Automobile Manufacturers Association.
She gave the new measures a qualified welcome.
The Commission has made a first important step to creating a more pragmatic and flexible pathway to align decarbonisation with competitiveness and resilience objectives.
It rightly recognises the need for more flexibility to make the transition a success.
The devil can still be very much in the detail.
And we do have a number of concerns.
For example, when it comes to facilitating the transition in the next few years.
We also see that some of the very strict conditionalities that have been proposed may actually have a counterproductive effect on technology openness and competitiveness.
On the positive side, there's special attention for light commercial vehicles, which is important.
That's a vehicle segment in a very dire situation.
And we've also noted positively that there is an amendment proposed for heavy-duty vehicles, which is very important as well, to help them in their transitions.
One view there from Sigrid de Vries of the European Automobile Manufacturers Association.
Let's go to Norway now, the world leaders of EV adoption, where almost 100 of new cars are electric.
Kristina Boo is the Secretary General of the Norwegian Electric Vehicle Association.
Understandably upset with this, I guess.
Kristina, what are your thoughts?
Well yeah, it's frankly surreal that Norway have achieved what some in Europe claim is unrealistic to accomplish in 10 years.
I would like to invite them here to see for themselves.
Yeah, I mean you are part of this because, although Norway is not in the EU, you're part of the European Economic Area, is that right?
Yes, we also are part of this part, yes.
Right.
And so where does this put European car manufacturers' competitiveness, for example, with China, which is one of the things cited there by the EU?
It's reopening the door to combustion cars after 2035 sends a very harmful signal to industry and consumers.
It means that they will allow combustion cars and hybrids to be sold after 2035.
And of course, this is not helping European industry, which is already in quite a distance up to China with their competitiveness and innovation and development.
They're very much ahead of Europe.
There is an argument that some vehicles like tractors, for example, large vehicles, heavy vehicles, vehicles working in very cold climates, these things which don't function very well on electric batteries all the time.
Yeah, but this is about cars and vans mostly.
And talking about 2035, we were not to sell any ICE vehicles, cars and vans after 2035 in Europe.
We are already there in Norway.
And of course, we also have to work on trucks and heavier vehicles as well.
We already drive these cars around in a very cold country, that being Norway.
Yeah, but Norway is a country with relatively very high levels of wealth as well, isn't it?
I mean electric cars tended to be quite expensive.
Is that what's made it possible?
Well, combustion engine cars are expensive in Norway because we tax them.
We tax cars that pollute and we promote cars that we want.
And that's what Europe should do as well.
We have a solution.
We have cars that work perfectly well for consumers.
You see that in many European countries with very high EV sales.
And this is just European OEMs doing what they can to weaken the target.
And this is not going to help them.
Might help them in a short run, but in a longer run this is just going to be really bad for European competitiveness.
Okay, Kristina Boo, we're going to have to leave it there.
Thank you very much indeed, Kristina Boo of The Norwegian.
EV Makers Association.
Canada.
Road freight is the backbone of the economy there, moving about four-fifths of all goods across that country.
With demand growing,
But trucking is changing for Canada, with digital freight matching platforms reshaping how drivers find work and how goods get delivered, with eight major digital platforms now operating there.
The BBC's Sam Gruitt reports from Vancouver.
It's a rainy day here in Vancouver, as I shelter underneath the awnings of a truck stop surrounded, as you can probably hear, by the grumbling of several large lorries, each of them coming here to fuel up before making their way onwards across Canada and North America.
Many of the people here will work for larger companies, and a good proportion of those will be owner-operated, ie driving their own trucks, owning their own business.
Something that's enabling that to happen is technology.
You know, back in the day you had to sit by a pay phone if you're on the road and call your dispatch or start calling people you've worked with.
Jared, who didn't want to give his surname, is one of an estimated 324000 truckers on Canada's roads.
And he's using digital platforms to grow his business.
Today it's so much easier from the comfort of a hotel room or your home or your truck.
I just post the truck so you can go online to different platforms and post your equipment.
At the port of Vancouver, I meet Eric Beckwitt, who runs one of Canada's online freight marketplaces, Freightera.
So when we started in 2014, there wasn't a single application programming interface among all the transportation companies in Canada.
Eric's firm is one of many so-called Uberized platforms digitally matching truckers with companies who need to move freight, working in a similar way to ride-hailing apps.
So we actually act as an intermediary, making certain the trucking companies get paid and having all their rates in a system and allowing the people searching for those rates to search 20 billion lanes in 5 or 10 seconds and find for that particular needle in a haystack, coming from that particular place, who has the least cost, lowest emission option that will guarantee that rate.
It's been made easier with the introduction of AI, automating matches between drivers and loads.
But there's concern over job security and the threat of artificial intelligence too.
Dr Zhaoyi Chen, former chief scientist at China's largest Uberized freight matching company, Full Truck Alliance, says driverless automation is already a reality.
Over time, I would say it's an inevitable disruption.
Eventually, it will fundamentally reship driver's role across the logistic industry.
For Eric Beckwith, that won't be in the immediate future.
But I think that we definitely have to address that.
The speed at which AI is improving, we're going to have to address how to actually manage that transition, for sure, because there's a transition coming.
For Jared, that's too far away to be of concern.
Transportation has been around for hundreds of years.
I mean, it's not going to end with people worrying about self-driving trucks.
That's going to take a while.
But whether it's AI apps or automation, for now tracking still depends on people like Jared behind the wheel.
Sam Grohe reporting there.
Now the president of the Irish Farmers Association, Francie Gorman, is today travelling with his 11-year-old son Tom, and other family members to Brussels.
They're travelling by tractor and ferry to support a Europe-wide protest over plans that it's feared may water down the EU's subsidy system known as the Common Agricultural Policy.
On a ferry somewhere in the English Channel, I spoke to Mr Gorman and to his son Tom.
I'd say halfway between the Isle of Wight and Dunkirk at the moment.
We're going to Brussels basically to highlight the concerns that we have, representing Irish farmers around the Mercosur trade deal, about the funding for the next MFF and particularly the Common Agricultural Policy in that area.
And also the regulation that's been imposed on farmers in various different ways from carbon taxes, from the possible CBAM in January, the EU Deforestation Regulation and, in general, how we're asked to compete with product been produced around the world with different products that we can't use and it makes us uncompetitive.
And now this next Common Agricultural Policy.
While it has a ring-fenced budget of sorts, the budget is back almost 90 billion from where it was in the previous Common Agricultural Policy.
And look, you can't deliver a greater level of ambition for farmers with less money.
Considering that the budget has basically been frozen in time with no indexation ever in it at any stage, and we've had enlargement in particularly huge ways since 2000.
You're bringing your son with you.
I have Tom here with me, who you know expresses a desire every day to come home and farm when he's finished in school and college.
If you want that next generation coming home to farm, you've got to have viable businesses there today that will give them the encouragement to come and do so.
So, Tom, how well-versed are you now in the Europe subsidy system for farm businesses?
It's posing a threat to the European market and beef and undermining our prices in Europe.
What are you most looking forward to about the next 48 hours?
I'm looking forward to get off the ferry.
That's what I'm looking forward to the most.
And I'm looking forward to see the... hopefully get a ride in the tractor on the way over.
I love farming.
I...
I already have plans for the future, what I want to do when I take over.
So I really like farming, so I do.
You've got plans for when you take over?
Yes.
I'll probably build on it to the yard.
It's a bit small and tight.
It's a bit tight for my like.
Apart from that, it's grand.
It's a nice little yard.
So it does the job in the end.
It does the job.
Tom, what's your favourite work on the farm? feeding the cattle or herding cattle.
Are you going to head the Irish Farmers Association when you grow up?
Look, I hope so.
I hope so.
Yes, I do.
I hope so.
A few of my friends are sons of people who are in IFA and they want to be in IFA when they grow up.
It's a real ambition of a lot of young people back home in Ireland to go farming and And I suppose the problem is that farm size is a challenged issue and the policies that have been implemented both at government and European level are really challenging that viability.
But we have a sucker beef and sheep farm at home and those supports that come to the Common Agricultural Policy are very, very important to the viability of those particular sectors.
Francis Gorman and his future farmer son, Tom.
That's it for World Business Report with me, Ed Butler.
Thanks very much for listening.
Take care.
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