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Cornering The Job Market: Job Openings Are Lower Than Expected & Fentanyl At Work
Is the job market losing its footing? July job openings fell to 7.18 million, which is 200,000 below expectations and part of a troubling pattern of downward revisions. These numbers not only raise doubts about government data but also hint at a cooling economy that could trigger another rate cut.
But that’s not the only red flag. Quest Diagnostics reports over 1% of workers are testing positive for fentanyl, with surprise screenings showing rates seven times higher than pre-employment tests. Employers are scrambling to tighten safety protocols as substance use collides with workplace performance.
Meanwhile, the AI debate is no longer hypothetical. Salesforce has cut 4,000 customer support jobs, replacing them with AI agents, a sobering reminder that automation is already reshaping careers. And federal employees just learned their proposed 1% raise for 2026 won’t even cover inflation, effectively shrinking their paychecks.
In this episode, we’ll explore what these signals mean for the future of work, from hidden risks in the labor market to the immediate impact of AI. Plus, a surprising fact: remote work’s roots actually trace back to the 1970s, not for productivity, but for the environment.
What industries do you think will feel AI’s impact next? Join the conversation and subscribe for more insights into the forces shaping the workplace.
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Today's big job news is a job opening and labor turnover survey that was released this morning by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and unfortunately the news isn't great. Job openings came in at 7.18 million for July versus an estimated 7.38 million. So we missed by 200,000 jobs and that's a really big number to miss by. We were also down from June where the job openings were 7.4 million. Although those were revised down, they were 80,000 more when the report originally came out a month ago. So here we go again with the BLS revising numbers. Now I don't anticipate that Trump will necessarily fire anyone this month because it all but seals the deal on a rate decrease, which he's been pushing really hard for, because it is a pretty clear indication based on this morning's numbers, that the job market is headed in the wrong direction. In somewhat better news, hires and separations were relatively flat, but separations they revised those numbers too from June and they jacked the number up by 281,000 over what was originally reported. So the BLS just can't get out of its own way lately with the numbers. Now, on the other side of the coin, they did revise up the number of hires over what was originally reported in June by 63,000. So we'll take the small win where we can get it, but not good numbers this morning, Unfortunately. Let's hope we see something better tomorrow when ADP releases their national employment report. I often say that I trust those private numbers a whole lot more than I trust what the BLS reports. I think everyone is coming around to that same thought lately, so fingers crossed that we get better news tomorrow morning from ADP.
Pete Newsome:In other news, the Wall Street Journal put out an article today titled More Fentanyl Shows Up in Random Workplace Tests. I mean, this is a headline that I did not anticipate seeing, but apparently a recent analysis of over 8 million drug tests by Quest Diagnostics shows that 1.13% of workers tested positive for fentanyl in random workplace screenings in 2024. Workers tested positive for fentanyl in random workplace screenings in 2024. So more than one out of 100 workers are testing positive for fentanyl. Freaking fentanyl. What is going on? I mean I just am shocked to see that we know how dangerous it is and yet one out of 100 people are still using it and apparently the random tests are revealing an unexpected issue. All of this is unexpected for me, but that fentanyl positives are seven times higher in surprise screenings than in pre-employment tests, which, of course applicants can prepare for. They know what's coming when they're applying for a job. So apparently, you temporarily kick your fentanyl habit when you're on the job market, but as soon as you get settled in, you start again. I mean, that's just nuts. I'm shocked by this. The director of science for workforce health solutions at Quest said that they're seeing trends that are outside of the norm that they see for other drugs. Historically, yes, I would hope this is outside of the norm, but, man, this is much bigger than I thought. Now, no surprise that employers are responding to this. Many are now expanding their testing protocols to include fentanyl in standard panels, although not so standard, in my opinion, where they'd have to do this.
Pete Newsome:As the owner of a staffing company for 20 years who has been responsible for tens of thousands of drug tests on behalf of our clients, Fentanyl was never a topic that we had to be concerned with, but here we are in 2025. I guess times have changed for the worst. Moving on to Salesforce, who has cut 4,000 customer support jobs and replaced them with artificial intelligence agents, so here we go more jobs being replaced by AI. Now this came directly from their CEO, Mark Benioff, who was on a podcast and he said that in an almost bragging way. I was able to rebalance my headcount on my support. I've reduced it from 9,000 heads to about 5,000, because I need less heads, and you could make the case that this makes sense from a business standpoint and perhaps it does and their shareholders will benefit, but that is 4,000 people that no longer have a job directly because of AI. We know it's inevitable that it's going to happen, but the main thing here is we can't pretend otherwise and we have to call this out so people can protect themselves and be aware of what is not just coming, but what is happening right now. Our AI czar, David Sachs, hasn't acknowledged this yet. He's gone on record saying things like the AI job loss narrative is overhyped. Well, you know what it's not overhyped for the 4,000 people who are now being replaced by robots at Salesforce. So I'm going to call this out. Wherever I see it. It's almost on a daily basis where I see another news report saying that AI is not going to replace jobs, but it is replacing jobs, and now it's happened at Salesforce.
Pete Newsome:Our final headline today is from the Federal News Network, reporting on the 2026 federal pay plan. It shows that the White House quietly proposed a 1% base pay increase for most federal civilian employees in 2026. It's the smallest raise since 2021, and it doesn't come even close to keeping up with core inflation, which is 3.1% over the past year. So they're going to miss being able to keep up with just the standard cost of living by 2%. That's a big miss if you're a federal employee. I doubt we'll see a big press conference on that. They reported it as being announced quietly. Yeah, I can see why they would do it quietly. It's going to be a lot of unhappy people. I mean, the federal government is the largest employer in the US by a very wide margin. So this is not great news bad news for a lot of federal employees. Now the silver lining is that federal law enforcement officers are going to get a 3.8% raise next year. So that's great for them, but not good for what appears to be pretty much everyone else. So I'm sure we'll see that report in the news in the very near future, even though it probably won't be coming from the Trump administration. So those are the headlines for today. But here's a fun fact before we go.
Pete Newsome:The term remote work gained traction in the 1970s. It came about when USC researcher and scientist, Jack Nils, coined the term telecommuting. I thought it was much more recent than that. Apparently, his goal was to reduce traffic. It wasn't about productivity or convenience of working at home. He noticed that most traffic was just people going to home and working back, and they weren't going to factories or places where they had to be, but they would get to their office, pick up the phone, talk to someone, and he concluded, like why can't they just do that from home in the first place? Why do they need to drive so? Remote work originally was about environment, not about increasing productivity. So there you go. Thanks for listening. I appreciate it. Please like, subscribe, comment. If you have any thoughts or feedback, I'd love to hear it and I'll look forward to talking to you soon.