The highly anticipated jobs report came out this morning, the highlight of this week’s economic news, and the stock markets have been notably down this week, led down by bank stocks.  And the second largest bank failure in US history happened today.

Economics

• Here are a few articles on this month’s jobs report. 311k jobs were added in February, unemployment increased to 3.6%, average hourly earnings were up 0.2% for the month, 4.6% y/y, and labor force participation rose to 62.5%. (It was 62.6%in March of 2020, for reference.)
  • CNBC (video)
  • Reuters
  • Yahoo Finance
  • BLS press release

• Job Openings in the US dropped in January to 10.8 million from 11.23 in Decemeber, but still are almost double the number of people looking for work. (CNN)
• We are experiencing a yield curve inversion. What does it mean? (Reuters)
• “Premiumization” is the new favorite trend among companies looking to continue getting consumers to pay more for its products as inflation wanes. (NYT)

Investing

• The second largest bank failure in US history happened over 48 hours. (CNBC)
• Why the impending failure (sale) of Silicon Valley Bank is taking a toll on the entire banking sector. (CNN)
• Yahoo Finance summarizes the state of the market at the end of the week.
• CNBC’s review of the week includes the 8% drop in bitcoin too.

Personal Finance

• How Americans went from record savings to record credit card debt in two years. (NPR)
• Money does buy happiness, up to a point. (WAPO – subscription may be required.)

Career

• Covid seems to have permanently changed employees’ preferences and expectations for their workplace. FiveThirtyEight pulls together this interesting view of the future of work.

Higher Ed

• Recent weeks have seen lots of headlines about ChatGPT, but is it catching on on college campuses? Morning Brew tackled that question.

Fun Fact

• Vinyl records topped CDs in sales for the first time since 1987 when CDs were just getting started. (Business Insider)

About the Author

Beth Tallman

Beth Tallman entered the working world armed with an MBA in finance and thoroughly enjoyed her first career working in manufacturing and telecommunications, including a stint overseas. She took advantage of an involuntary separation to try teaching high school math, something she had always dreamed of doing. When fate stepped in once again, Beth jumped on the opportunity to combine her passion for numbers, money, and education to develop curriculum and teach personal finance at Oberlin College. Beth now spends her time writing on personal finance and financial education, conducts student workshops, and develops finance curricula and educational content. She is also the Treasurer of Ohio Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy.

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