Will the Next Jobs Report Reveal the Real Cost of AI on Employment?
2/1/202634 min
In this week's episode of WSJ’s Take On the Week, co-hosts Telis Demos and Miriam Gottfried are joined by WSJ economics reporter Justin Lahart to discuss why gold has smashed records, and how global instability and the "Sell America" trade has fueled the rally. Next, they look ahead to Amazon’s earnings to see if the e-commerce giant can prove AI investments are boosting the bottom line, as Meta did, or if ongoing layoffs signal deeper issues in the labor market. Justin also previews this week’s jobs report and explains why an upcoming benchmark revision might rewrite our un...
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Miriam Gottfried· Host0:15
[upbeat music] Hi, Talis.
Telis Demos· Host0:19
Hi, Miriam.
Miriam Gottfried· Host0:19
Today we have our colleague, Justin Lahart, joining us.
Telis Demos· Host0:23
Hi, Justin.
Miriam Gottfried· Host0:23
He's an economics reporter.
Justin Lahart· Guest0:25
Hey.
Miriam Gottfried· Host0:25
Good to see you, Justin.
Justin Lahart· Guest0:26
Good to see you.
Miriam Gottfried· Host0:26
And we brought him here because we're gonna have a big conversation about AI and jobs, but first we wanna talk about the big thing that's roiling markets this week, and that is gold. Gold continues to surge.
Telis Demos· Host0:38
Gold. I can't s- I can't see. It's all that glittering gold. [laughs] As, as mom and pop backs up the truck and fills it with gold ETFs, Costco gold, everyone's buying gold.
Miriam Gottfried· Host0:52
Bullion.
Telis Demos· Host0:52
Bullion.
Miriam Gottfried· Host0:52
Under the bed. Under the mattress.
Telis Demos· Host0:53
Under the mattress. [laughs] [laughs] Um, it's, yeah, well, eh, all joking aside, it has been obviously an absurd run for gold these last few weeks. Really, I mean, over the past year or so. Uh, gold has now surged above... It's funny, when we prepared the episode, well, it was surging above 5,000, and then as we updated it, it was surging above 5,500.
Miriam Gottfried· Host1:12
What do you think is driving this big cr- gold rally?
Telis Demos· Host1:16
As our colleague Greg Ip put it in his column, uh, this past week, he said, "It is a tr- there are tremors shaking up assumptions about the global economy," and that has to do, I think, not just with, you know, Greenland and other geopolitical events, but the