Today's Job News: Unemployment Is UP, OpenAI Announces Jobs Platform, Amazon Having Hard Time Hiring

In today's episode of Cornering the Job Market, Pete discusses the August employment numbers released this morning by the BLS, OpenAI's new jobs platform that's coming in 2026, an Amazon memo that indicates they are having trouble recruiting AI talent, and why Gen Z is ditching office jobs for insurance and real estate.

News Articles:
1. Employment Situation Summary: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm
2. OpenAI blog: https://openai.com/index/expanding-economic-opportunity-with-ai/
3. TechCrunch on OpenAI's job platform taking on LinkedIn: https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/04/openai-announces-ai-powered-hiring-platform-to-take-on-linkedin/
4. Amazon's hiring woes: https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-ai-talent-wars-internal-document-2025-8
5. GenZ choosing insurance and real estate over office jobs: https://www.businessinsider.com/gen-z-real-estate-agents-insurance-carreer-trend-2025-8

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Episode Transcript

Pete Newsome (00:02):
The big headline for today are the undeniably bad
employment numbers that werereleased this morning for BLS.
Now these are August numbers.
Non-farm payroll increased byonly 22,000 jobs versus an
expected 75,000.
So yet another big miss whereexpectations don't match up to
reality.
And then unemployment increasedto 4.3%.

(00:25):
This is an awful trend.
It was 4.2% in July and 4.1% inJune.
So we are seeing the job marketand, by association of course,
the economy, heading in thewrong direction.
And if that wasn't bad enough,there was another oops, they did
it again moment for the BLS,where they revised down June

(00:45):
numbers by 27,000 from what wasoriginally reported.
So look, the labor market isjust heading in a wrong
direction right now and we havemore unemployed people than open
jobs.
That hasn't happened in a longtime.
So there's every reason toexpect a big rate cut from the
Fed when they meet on September17th.

(01:07):
Look for that coming very soon.
And then, if that's not enough,on September 9th so just in a
couple of days there's anotherbig jobs revision expected from
the BLS heading in the wrongdirection.
So I'll report on that as soonas it comes out.
But it's just a mess right nowin the labor market.
There's no question about that.

(01:27):
In other news, openai hasannounced that they will debut
the OpenAI Jobs platform inmid-2026.
Now this came from a blogyesterday by Fiji Simu, with
OpenAI.
He said that OpenAI has amission to make AI skills and
opportunities as accessible asair.
I'm not really sure what thatmeans and I'm also not really
sure we need open AI involved inthe hiring process.

(01:49):
It's already bad enough withwhat AI has done replacing
humans.
And look, call me old fashioned, but I don't want robots
recruiting people, I want peoplerecruiting people.
I think that's what we needmore of right now, and Tech
Crunch reported on this,suggesting that LinkedIn is who
they're going directly after,and I'm no fan of LinkedIn, but
this isn't the direction we needto go in right now, in my

(02:11):
opinion.
We already have X involved inthe job market.
They're trying to be a jobboard.
These technology companies dogreat with technology.
We need to let people continueto do what they do best with
recruiting.
That is my very strong opinionon that.
We'll see what happens.
There is so much that's goingto change between now and
mid-2026 in the job market, andwith AI specifically, so it's

(02:36):
hard to really know what thatwill end up looking like, but
it's coming.
According to OpenAI Next up,business Insider reports that
Amazon is having a tough timehiring AI talent.
Now, this is according to aconfidential internal HR
document not so confidential, Iguess where it specifies that
Amazon's unique pay structure,strict salary bans, rigid

(03:00):
in-office rules and lagging AIreputation have all been major
recruiting barriers.
The article quotes the internalmemo where it says Gen AI
hiring faces challenges likelocation, compensation and
Amazon's perceived lag in thespace.
Competitors often provide morecomprehensive and aggressive
packages.
Now, after the story broke,amazon's spokesperson first

(03:22):
claimed that the company wasevolving recruitment strategies
to remain competitive, but thenflipped and called the story's
premise wrong.
Without offering further detail, we'll see if more comes out on
this, but it was just yesterdaythat I shared CEO Andy Jassy
has been really ruthless aboutsome of his rules that he's put
in place since taking over.
Return to office, in particular, has upset a lot of Amazon

(03:45):
employees, and they're evengoing so far as to monitor the
employee's phone use forpersonal time.
They want them to track it andthen they're going to deduct how
much they can expense based onhow much personal use there is.
What is going on at Amazon?
I mean, this company was thedarling of employers for so long

(04:06):
.
Maybe not so much anymore.
I'm sure this story willcontinue to evolve and finally,
for today, it seems that what'sold may be new again, with real
estate and insurance emerging ashot career paths for gen z.
Business insider wrote anarticle saying that young
professionals are turning awayfrom office space jobs for these
industries because they allowthem hot career paths for Gen Z.
Business Insider wrote anarticle saying that young
professionals are turning awayfrom office space jobs for these

(04:28):
industries because they allowthem to work on their own terms.
Now, this makes sense to me,because these roles have a low
barrier to entry and offerincome that's tied to effort,
not just how long you've beenthere, because nobody wants that
these days Well, nobody'sprobably ever wanted that but
specifically not younger workers.
And while older generations sawthese as safe, steady jobs,

(04:50):
they give young people anopportunity to manage their
careers on their own terms,which is a really attractive
thing.
So it looks like that, insteadof ping pong tables and
kegerators in the office, whichwere the in thing five to 10
years ago, it's now aboutfreedom and ownership of your
time, which I believe makes muchmore sense.
This is a good trend, whichwere the end thing five to 10
years ago.
It's now about freedom andownership of your time, which I
believe makes much more sense.
This is a good trend and,before we go, the fun fact for

(05:12):
today the term rush houroriginated in the 1890s from, of
course, new York City, and itreferred to the chaotic surge of
workers commuting to and fromjobs during peak times.
I mean, we all know what itmeans, but it was a phenomenon
that highlighted the growingindustrialization and
urbanization of the US workforceat that time.
And I think about this all thetime when I drive during rush

(05:35):
hour and I work at home, butit's not really rush hour like
it used to be.
I think school starting affectsthe traffic more than jobs, so
maybe we should I don't knowchange the name.
I guess it's still rush hour,but for a different reason than
how it started.
So there you go.
Thanks for listening.
Please like, subscribe, give meyour feedback, argue with me if
you don't agree with anything Ishare.

(05:56):
I'd love that too.
Any comments are great and Ilook forward to talking to you
soon.
Have a great weekend.