Support the fact-based journalism you rely on with a donation to Marketplace today. Give Now!

Why labor force participation has stayed about the same for years, apart from the pandemic

Oct 7, 2024
Friday's jobs report showed the percentage of working age people in a job or looking for one was holding at 62.7% last month.
Prime-age labor force participation — those ages 25 to 54 — are helping to prop up a strong job market.
Thomas Simonetti for The Washington Post via Getty Images

In the era of hand-drawn drafts, one landscape designer remembers: “I was creating a piece of art”

Jul 1, 2024
In the first installment of our series “My Analog Life,” a landscape architect reminisces about drafting by hand.
A hand-drawn landscape design by Eric Weishaar in 2001. The project was for a client whose son was in a wheelchair and wanted an accessible landscape on their home.
Courtesy Weishaar

Work from home rates have reached a new normal

Jun 28, 2024
BLS survey data showed that in 2023, 35% of employed people did some or all of their work at home.
A man works from his at-home office. If anything, work from home rates will only increase over time, says economist José María Barrero, thanks to technology that makes virtual collaboration possible.
Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images

What happens when AI goes to work

Jul 21, 2023
Whether this new technology is a crutch, a competitor or a useful tool is still up for debate.
Getty Images

More “hottest day evers” mean changing the way we work

Extreme heat affects our health, our morale and our productivity. Employers will need to adapt.
Contractor Prince Xavier Biabo, who's renovating a townhouse in Baltimore, says hydrating is key to getting through the heat.
Stephanie Hughes/Marketplace

After years of working from home, how has Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day evolved?

Apr 29, 2022
It started in the early '90s as a way to expose girls to their parents' professions. Boys are included now, too, and some say, it needs to broaden its approach even further.
Some parents began taking their children to work nearly 30 years ago to give them a firsthand look at their professions.
Tim Boyle/Newsmakers via Getty Images

Does universal basic income discourage work? Maybe not, new data says.

We're learning more about what happens when the government gives people money without conditions.
New data from the first year of a universal basic income program in Stockton, California, suggests worries over work incentives might be overblown.
Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty Images

For public good, not for profit.

Slack outage was either stressful or delightfully freeing

Jan 5, 2021
The popular messaging platform was down for most of the workday Monday.
Drew Angerer/Getty Images

For some, it may make more sense at this moment to quit a job

Sep 16, 2020
Some people may not feel their workplace is safe. Others may need to provide child care for their families.
Some people are quitting jobs because it's too dangerous to work during the pandemic.
Al Bello/Getty Images

"Scarcity" and why we don't have a 15-hour workweek

Feb 27, 2020
Boston College professor Juliet Schor explains why the U.S. has never had anything close to a 15-hour workweek.
English economist John Maynard Keynes, center, thought his grandchildren would be working 15-hour workweeks.
Hulton Archive/Getty Images