The real reason companies are hiring less

The economy only added 22,000 jobs in August - here's what's behind the slowdown.

Transcript

00:00Do we have some insights into why companies are hiring less?

00:04Is it because of tariff uncertainty?

00:06Is it AI replacing jobs?

00:08What is it?

00:10Yeah, so there are a few things.

00:11The big question is how much of this is being driven by supply versus demand factors.

00:17So the supply factor being a sharp crackdown on immigration,

00:22deportations, and impediments to illegal immigrants showing up at work.

00:27That's probably weighing on the establishment survey somewhat.

00:32But then versus demand factors, which would be the employer's slowing hiring.

00:39Now, in terms of it's already been a slow hiring environment,

00:43and the JOLTS data from July pointed to more of the same

00:47as opposed to a step shift into lower demand.

00:52So I'd say it's a combination of supply and demand factors.

00:55The main question for policymakers is how much of this is supply-driven versus demand-driven.

01:00There's evidence on both sides.

01:02We would say that supply factor is probably the more dominant one at the moment.

01:08But, you know, that debate is certainly an open one.