☕️ Take cover

Deconstructing the very bad jobs report May 08, 2021 [View Online]( | [Sign Up]( [Daily Brew]( TOGETHER WITH [Amazon]( Good morning and shoutout to all readers commemorating their Height Day today (5/8). Cherish it, because the people celebrating over the next few days will likely end up more successful. MARKETS Nasdaq 13,752.24 +0.88% S&P 4,232.60 +0.74% Dow 34,777.76 +0.66% Bitcoin $57,429.84 +2.03% 10-Year 1.577% +0.9 bps Roku $317.00 +11.55% *Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 5:00pm ET. [Here's what these numbers mean](. - Markets: Just by looking at what happened in the stock market yesterday, you wouldn’t know the jobs report was close to a total disaster. The Dow and S&P hit [all-time highs](, while everyone’s watching [dogecoin]( ahead of Elon Musk’s SNL appearance tonight (yes, a real sentence). Roku stock shot up after reporting blistering revenue growth in Q1. ECONOMY [Big Jobs Report Whiff]( [Swing and a miss gif] Giphy Yesterday’s April jobs report was more disappointing than a Starburst pack filled only with yellow. Whereas economists had forecasted upwards of 1 million jobs added in April...the Labor Department said the US created [just 266,000](. And the unemployment rate, which had been steadily dropping since last May, ticked up from 6% to 6.1%. Those numbers shocked pretty much everyone, given all the recent signs of a rapidly improving economy. Digging [into the numbers](... - Temporary-help employment lost 111,000 jobs, manufacturing 18,000, and retail 15,000. - Travel and leisure continued to fuel the gains after getting TKO’d early in the pandemic, adding 331,000 jobs in April. Big picture: The economy is still down more than 8 million jobs from pre-pandemic levels and [29% of unemployed Americans]( have now been out of work for at least a year. What happened? It’s not so clear. What we do know is that there is no shortage of job openings in certain industries like retail, manufacturing, and construction. So the question economists are sorting out right now is why more people aren’t going to work. There are a [few hypotheses](... - Covid reasons: Despite a blazing vaccination rollout in the US, many people might still fear getting infected with the virus at work. Plus, with some schools still opting for remote learning, parents might be taking care of their kids instead of job hunting. - Skills mismatch: Perhaps the people looking for jobs don’t have the experience necessary to fill the types of jobs that are open. - Enhanced unemployment benefits: This, of course, is the most controversial hypothesis. Biden’s aid package extended extra unemployment benefits through the summer, and Republicans and many business owners have blamed the extra money for disincentivizing work. After the jobs report was released, the US Chamber of Commerce asked lawmakers to [end the extra benefits](. Looking ahead...economists hope this jobs report was just a bizarre one-off, like Michael Jordan playing baseball. But President Biden said the labor market struggle bus is evidence that the US economy needs his twin infrastructure bills to return to full strength. �  �  �  mailto:?subject=Check%20out%20this%20story%20from%20Morning%20Brew%21&body=April%20Jobs%20Report%20Is%20a%20Big%20Whiff%20for%20the%20US%20Economy%3A%20https%3A%2F%2Fwww.morningbrew.com%2Fdaily%2Fstories%2F2021%2F05%2F07%2Fapril-jobs-report-big-whiff-us-economy%0A%0AWant%20more%20great%20content%3F%20Subscribe%20to%20Daily%20Brew%20%E2%80%94%20Delivering%20the%20latest%20business%20news%20from%20Wall%20St.%20to%20Silicon%20Valley%2C%20daily.%0Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.morningbrew.com%2Fdaily%2Fr%2F%3Fkid%3D4904f90a%26utm_source%3Demail_share%0A COVID [Vaccine Tracker]( [Vaccine tracker]( Francis Scialabba In the US…the rate of vaccinations continues to decline. The US is averaging 2.09 million doses a day, a [21% decrease]( from the week before. Around the world...enough doses have been administered to fully vaccinate 8.1% of the global population, but wealthier countries are vaccinating their citizens at a rate [25x faster]( than lower income countries. The latest headlines Getting the green light: The WHO [authorized]( China’s Sinopharm vaccine for emergency use, the sixth vaccine to have gotten a stamp of approval from the organization. Pfizer-BioNTech became the first vaccine maker to apply for full FDA approval on top of emergency use. Vaccine incentives: States are pulling out their [bag of tricks]( to spur more demand for vaccinations. West Virginia is offering young adults a $100 savings bond in exchange for a shot, Maryland will give state workers $100, and NJ, which is already running a “shot and a beer” program, is considering handing out cash.    + Further reading: How to vaccinate the world [Part 1]( and [Part 2](. �  �  �  mailto:?subject=Check%20out%20this%20story%20from%20Morning%20Brew%21&body=Vaccine%20Tracker%3A%20May%208%3A%20https%3A%2F%2Fwww.morningbrew.com%2Fdaily%2Fstories%2F2021%2F05%2F07%2Fvaccine-tracker-may-8%0A%0AWant%20more%20great%20content%3F%20Subscribe%20to%20Daily%20Brew%20%E2%80%94%20Delivering%20the%20latest%20business%20news%20from%20Wall%20St.%20to%20Silicon%20Valley%2C%20daily.%0Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.morningbrew.com%2Fdaily%2Fr%2F%3Fkid%3D4904f90a%26utm_source%3Demail_share%0A SPACE [The Odds of Rocket Fragments Falling on You Are Low...But Not Zero]( [Launch of Chinese rocket]( Xinhua/Guo Cheng via Getty Images Debris from the Chinese rocket Long March-5B are expected to [fall back to Earth]( this weekend, just over a week after it was launched into space. The craft’s husk is almost 100 feet long, and will be one of the largest objects to ever come back into the planet’s atmosphere on an uncontrolled reentry. This type of reentry is like ordering a swimsuit you saw on TikTok: There’s no way of knowing what you’re going to get. Scientists say there’s a 32-hour window over the weekend when it could hit, but aren’t sure where. There’s only a small chance of it hurting a person, but with some close calls like a [huge piece]( of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket ending up on a Washington farm in April, experts are calling the actions of China’s space program irresponsible. Big picture: With lax international laws around space debris, countries can do things like send rockets into space and cause a minor freak out. Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics told the WaPo, “What there isn’t at the moment is what I call a ‘reckless driving law.’ You only get to complain if it actually crashes.” �  �  �  mailto:?subject=Check%20out%20this%20story%20from%20Morning%20Brew%21&body=The%20Odds%20of%20Rocket%20Fragments%20Falling%20on%20You%20This%20Weekend%20are%20Low...But%20Not%20Zero%3A%20https%3A%2F%2Fwww.morningbrew.com%2Fdaily%2Fstories%2F2021%2F05%2F07%2Fodds-rocket-fragments-falling-weekend-lowbut-not-zero%0A%0AWant%20more%20great%20content%3F%20Subscribe%20to%20Daily%20Brew%20%E2%80%94%20Delivering%20the%20latest%20business%20news%20from%20Wall%20St.%20to%20Silicon%20Valley%2C%20daily.%0Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.morningbrew.com%2Fdaily%2Fr%2F%3Fkid%3D4904f90a%26utm_source%3Demail_share%0A SPONSORED BY AMAZON [Benefits from A to Z](#) [Amazon]( While you know Amazon as the company who sells _____ (insert pretty much anything here), their employees know them as a company who offers both comprehensive benefits and upward career trajectories.  For starters, [Amazon offers its employees a starting pay of at least $15 per hour](—that’s more than double the federal minimum wage—as well as comprehensive benefits like health insurance, paid leave, and ways to save for the future. But Amazon doesn’t just stop at “for starters.” They also provide technical upskilling training programs to those interested in honing their technical know-how in the workplace—at Amazon or wherever their careers take them next. In fact, Amazon is dedicating more than $700 million to provide 100,000 employees with access to training programs by 2025. That’s a lotta new skillz that the world needs. [Read more about all the benefits Amazon believes in, right here.]( GRAB BAG [Key Performance Indicators]( [NORTH ARLINGTON, NJ - SEPTEMBER 12: Atmosphere at the official opening ...]( Brian Killian/Getty Images Stat: About 45% of store openings announced so far this year by large retail chains are dollar stores, CNN Business [reports](. Dollar General accounts for almost a third by itself. Quote: “My friends are leaving California.” Caitlyn Jenner, [speaking to Fox News](, has a point: In 2020, California’s population [declined]( for the first time in the state’s recorded history. Read: How much energy does bitcoin actually consume? ([Harvard Business Review]() �  �  �  mailto:?subject=Check%20out%20this%20story%20from%20Morning%20Brew%21&body=Key%20Performance%20Indicators%3A%20May%208%3A%20https%3A%2F%2Fwww.morningbrew.com%2Fdaily%2Fstories%2F2021%2F05%2F07%2Fkey-performance-indicators-may-8%0A%0AWant%20more%20great%20content%3F%20Subscribe%20to%20Daily%20Brew%20%E2%80%94%20Delivering%20the%20latest%20business%20news%20from%20Wall%20St.%20to%20Silicon%20Valley%2C%20daily.%0Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.morningbrew.com%2Fdaily%2Fr%2F%3Fkid%3D4904f90a%26utm_source%3Demail_share%0A ENTERTAINMENT [We’ve Got Some Sketch Pitches]( [Musk on SNL]( SNL/NBC Elon Musk hosts SNL tonight, and last weekend he took to Twitter to [crowdsource]( some sketch ideas for the show. And while “Irony Man” is...a fine suggestion, we think some of the best ways to showcase the Technoking’s subtle, grounded performance style would be to just rewrite some of the moments in Musk’s life that have felt like SNL sketches: When he sold flamethrowers. In a promotional stunt to sell more hats, Musk’s tunnel construction company, The Boring Company, introduced “Not-A-Flamethrower” (the product’s official name) and it sold out in five days. In the SNL version, Bill Hader’s Stefon would be on “Weekend Update” [discussing]( his favorite places to use the flamethrower. When he released a song about Harambe. It’s not easy to [listen to](, but maybe Lonely Island could do something with it? When he had a Tesla designer named Franz throw a metal ball at a Cybertruck window...and it [shattered](. It’s SNL’s duty to give us interviews with everyone involved in this incident. Someone in the audience, Franz, and of course the truck itself. All played by Melissa Villaseñor. �  �  �  mailto:?subject=Check%20out%20this%20story%20from%20Morning%20Brew%21&body=Elon%20Musk%20Hosts%20SNL%20Even%20Though%20His%20Whole%20Life%20Feels%20Like%20an%20Episode%20of%20SNL%3A%20https%3A%2F%2Fwww.morningbrew.com%2Fdaily%2Fstories%2F2021%2F05%2F07%2Felon-musk-hosts-snl-even-though-whole-life-feels-like-episode-snl%0A%0AWant%20more%20great%20content%3F%20Subscribe%20to%20Daily%20Brew%20%E2%80%94%20Delivering%20the%20latest%20business%20news%20from%20Wall%20St.%20to%20Silicon%20Valley%2C%20daily.%0Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.morningbrew.com%2Fdaily%2Fr%2F%3Fkid%3D4904f90a%26utm_source%3Demail_share%0A WHAT ELSE IS BREWING - [The Texas House of Representatives]( passed a voting bill opposed by more than 50 companies and business groups on the grounds that it curbs voting access. - [Elon Musk’s statements]( around Tesla’s driverless tech don’t always “match engineering reality,” the company’s director of Autopilot software told the California DMV. - [Goldman Sachs’s]( cryptocurrency trading desk is officially up and running. - [NBC](, CBS, ABC, and Fox will broadcast soccer games on the same weekend for the first time ever. - [The US]( can’t just flip a switch and make more chips to address the shortage. BREW'S BETS Mow money. [Graze]( is the autonomous lawnmower disrupting the $100 billion commercial landscaping industry. And if you can't believe it, they're letting you invest in this grass game changer—they've already got $19 million in preorders. [Invest in Graze today](.* The Michelin star of wine subscriptions. [Wine Access]( has teamed up with one, two, and three-starred restaurants featured in the MICHELIN® Guide to curate an exclusive tour of the world’s best wines. [Reserve your spot today](.* Fantasy Investing Competition: Our fantasy stock market competition is almost full, so [secure your spot today](. As a reminder, you get $100,000 of fake money to spend on any stock or crypto you want, and the participants with the biggest portfolios at the end will receive a whole lot of Brew swag. It officially kicks off at the opening bell on Monday. Conversation starters: - Is [irony dead](? - Would you want to [get paid]( to watch home improvement shows? (Yes.) - Lake house or beach house? - Wawa or Sheetz? Of course, it [depends where you live]( *This is sponsored advertising content GAMES [Brew Crossword](#) [Crossword]( Francis Scialabba Back by popular demand...Morning Brew Minis! As always, you can take your pick of difficulty: - [Easy]( - [Medium]( - [Hard]( Happy puzzling. And don't forget you can submit full-size crosswords as well. Read up on our [submission guidelines here](. SHARE THE BREW When you share the Brew, you earn rewards. From Brew swag like t-shirts and coffee mugs to exclusive content, we've got something for everyone in our premier rewards program. [Click here to get free swag.]( Hit the button below to start sharing the Brew. [Click to Share]( Or copy & paste your referral link to others: [morningbrew.com/daily/r/?kid=4904f90a](             Written by [Matty Merritt]( and [Neal Freyman]( Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up [here](. 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