2:00

in May, that being a big upside

2:02

surprise. Let's hear what Amy Glaser has

2:04

to say. She's senior vice president over

2:06

at Adecco. She joins us from Ponte

2:08

Vedra Beach, Florida. Amy, good to

2:10

have you on with us. Usually you join us

2:12

on days where we've already heard the numbers, but

2:14

give us a preview of what you're looking for

2:16

when it comes to payrolls on Friday. Yeah,

2:20

we're looking at another strong month. I don't

2:22

think it'll be quite as white hot as

2:24

May, but probably somewhere around the 200,000s. We're

2:26

still seeing employers actively post

2:29

for openings, and we're anticipating another solid

2:31

month. You

2:33

know, Amy, I saw an interesting chart

2:35

the other day that showed the ratio

2:37

of job openings to the number of

2:40

people seeking jobs. And, you know, the

2:42

gist of the takeaway of the chart

2:44

was that that ratio is back to

2:46

where it was before the pandemic. Does

2:50

that make sense to you? Is this

2:52

finally the quote unquote normalization of the

2:54

labor market after the pandemic, or is

2:56

there still work to be done to get

2:59

back to where we were? I

3:01

think we're definitely in our new normal.

3:03

I anticipate quarter three, quarter four more

3:05

stability in the market, but we're going

3:08

to remain at about a one to

3:10

one ratio of openings to job applicants.

3:12

The real question is, can we match

3:14

on a skills basis? And

3:18

what kind of skills are mismatched

3:20

right now? You know, if I'm a kid

3:22

graduating from college, what kind of jobs am

3:24

I looking for in this environment? Actually,

3:29

they're the ones that are going to have a great opportunity

3:31

because professional services, health

3:33

care, we even see technology

3:36

rebounding in the near future. So college degree

3:39

opportunities will continue to expand. I think the

3:41

real skills, the real skills gap that we

3:44

will continue to see is in manufacturing

3:46

skilled trades. And that should

3:48

be the focus for folks as they're looking

3:50

for future career paths. But should that be

3:53

the focus for people coming out

3:55

of high school or people coming out of college?

3:57

It's a big debate that's happening right now. This

3:59

idea of the quote unquote tool. about generation. It

4:02

is the big debate. And I can tell you as somebody

4:04

who has to write checks for for people who come over

4:06

and you know trim trees and fix air conditioners I can

4:08

understand why. Right

4:10

it's a great opportunity when you're in

4:13

high school to really decide do you

4:15

want that career track to move into

4:17

skilled trades or do you want to

4:19

take the college track and it's really

4:22

an individual decision for for students. Now

4:24

I will say oftentimes the career track

4:26

is much faster so depending upon as

4:28

that alpha generation starts coming due in

4:30

the next couple of years what's their

4:33

appetite to sit through years of schooling

4:35

versus having those more gratifying immediate results.

4:38

And Amy what are you expecting as far

4:40

as wage growth or average

4:43

hourly earnings as they call it in

4:45

the monthly jobs report. You know there

4:47

has been some cooling from

4:49

that really strong wage growth that we

4:51

saw in the last couple years still

4:54

above the rate of inflation so there

4:56

still is real wage growth but what

4:58

is the outlook there. Can we still

5:00

expect above inflation wage

5:02

growth going forward. I

5:05

think right now we'll still remain above but not

5:07

as white hot as it was. I see

5:10

continued reductions in fact in

5:12

that space we see that employees are

5:14

sticking more at their current

5:16

companies and focused on stability versus hopping

5:18

for a dollar or two more at

5:21

a competitor down the street. We

5:24

got the jolts numbers it's only

5:26

yesterday seems like a long week Mike but this

5:28

week's last it up I feel it has lasted

5:30

a month it's only Wednesday. I'm

5:34

wondering about the jolts number was it was it sort

5:36

of it wasn't it was not fed friendly because

5:39

it showed that there were actually more openings than

5:42

expected. What does that say

5:44

about what's going to happen on Friday.

5:46

Does it show that the labor market

5:48

is not cooling like we thought it

5:50

was. I think

5:53

again it's going to show it's not going

5:55

to be an explosion. I don't anticipate huge

5:57

surprises on Friday but do you change your

5:59

view. on the jolts figure? No,

6:02

not necessarily. Okay. Amy,

6:06

you had an interesting point you made in

6:09

the notes you sent us talking about

6:11

what you call peak 65, when

6:14

more Americans than ever will turn

6:17

the age 65. What does

6:19

that mean for the job market? Over

6:22

11,000 every day in 2024 and beyond

6:26

for the next three years. It's

6:28

creating additional gaps in those skills

6:30

as a lot of institutional knowledge

6:32

and folks that have those skills

6:34

depart. So employers are really being

6:36

tasked with taking some steps now

6:39

to help offset what's going

6:41

to be happening with that skills

6:43

gap that's creating mentorship programs, investing

6:45

and learning and development opportunities and

6:47

really partnering with their workforce

6:50

planning to ensure that they've got a plan

6:52

as more and more baby boomers retire. I

6:54

mean, how unprepared are we for this? Be

6:57

candid please. About

7:00

half of the folks

7:02

I'm talking to right now aren't as concerned with it

7:04

as I think they should be. Amy,

7:08

I'm curious what you think about the

7:10

so-called gig economy. You know, for a few years

7:12

there it seemed like

7:14

so many jobs were being shifted

7:16

to sort of a contract basis,

7:18

a freelance basis. How

7:20

is that trend playing out in

7:23

this environment? Is that still the

7:25

case where so many opportunities are

7:28

sort of not full-time jobs but gig

7:31

economy type of jobs? I

7:33

think there are those gig-like opportunities

7:36

where we're switching more to the

7:38

terminology of flexible scheduling

7:40

opportunities. We're seeing a strong appetite

7:42

especially in Gen Z for those

7:44

flexible part-time schedules. We're even seeing

7:46

it in my generation Gen X

7:48

as we face challenges of dealing

7:50

with maybe child care and elder

7:52

care. So whether or not it's

7:54

gig and a true contractor or

7:56

platform or it's just more flexible

7:58

scheduling and part-time scheduling. we will

8:00

continue to see an increase in that

8:02

in the upcoming years. I

8:05

do wonder about what that means, Amy,

8:07

for people in insurance and benefits, because

8:09

we live in a country and a

8:11

society where your health insurance and your

8:13

benefits are tied to your place of

8:15

employment, and a lot of those flexible

8:18

gigs don't offer that type of

8:20

coverage. I think

8:22

it's an opportunity for those that do. And you'll

8:25

see an offset in wages if that

8:27

occurs. So if somebody is offering benefits

8:29

for part-time work, you may take

8:31

a trade-off in the salary to keep

8:33

those benefits. Well,

8:36

good to hear from a fellow Gen-Xer, Amy.

8:39

We never get to talk much. I

8:43

think Gen-X is like... I'll

8:45

be honest, my favorite generation. Is it?

8:48

Yeah. You're a millennial. I'm a millennial. And

8:50

I just like, you know, Gen-X doesn't get

8:52

enough love, and it hasn't

8:54

gotten enough love. That's right, Tim. But if you look

8:56

around and you see like who are the next generation

8:59

who are running companies right now, who are

9:01

the folks who are the decision-makers, a

9:04

lot of them are Gen-X right now, and

9:06

I think it's really interesting. Yeah, yeah. Bound

9:09

to happen, right? Yeah, bound to happen. Okay, it was

9:11

bound to come. Yeah. Hey, Amy Glaser,

9:13

Senior Vice President at Adetco, joining us here

9:16

from Florida. That jobs number coming

9:18

Friday, of course, here on Bloomberg Radio and Bloomberg TV.

9:21

We are going to have live coverage of

9:23

that report when it hits at 8.30 a.m. Wall

9:25

Street time the day

9:27

after the 4th of July.

9:30

You're listening to the Bloomberg

9:32

Businessweek podcast. Catch us live

9:34

weekday afternoons from 2 to 5 p.m. Eastern.

9:36

Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with

9:38

the Bloomberg Business app. Or

9:40

watch us live on YouTube. Yeah, back

9:44

with us, Bill Pulte, Chief Executive Officer

9:47

of Pulte Capital. He joins us from

9:49

Harbor Springs, Michigan. Bill Pulte

9:51

knows a thing or two about housing because

9:53

he is the grandson of the founder and

9:55

chairman of the home construction and

9:57

real estate development company, Pulte Group, Market Capital. of

10:01

$22 billion. Bill

10:03

focusing right now on

10:05

home services, companies that do

10:08

HVAC roofing, siding, specialty drywall,

10:11

flooring distribution. Pulte Capital

10:13

is the name of his firm. Bill, good to have you

10:15

with us. How are you? Thank

10:17

you. Good to see you. Yeah, good to see you too. Yeah,

10:19

no matter with Pulte Group, although I spent a number of

10:22

years there. Pulte Capital is what I meant, is what you're

10:24

working on these days. But you do know still- Yeah,

10:27

a thing or two about the housing

10:29

market and housing in the country.

10:31

And I'm wondering what you're seeing and

10:33

what you're thinking when it comes to mortgage rates right

10:35

now, which as Abigail mentioned, are at 7.37%

10:37

according to the bank rate 30-year index. She

10:42

made some great points. When I was on the board of Pulte

10:44

Homes a few years ago, the interest rates were at 2%, 3%,

10:46

4%. Now you have over 7%. The good news

10:48

is that the builders

10:52

have been able to take market share. The bad

10:55

news is that a lot of the small home

10:57

builders and affordability have really been hurt. I

10:59

think you're going to see a situation, guys, where you

11:02

see a little bit of price softness, but until

11:04

these old homes start selling

11:06

again, you're going to see prices

11:08

stay pretty high. We've seen some

11:11

resale of homes in Florida, for example, start

11:13

to tick back up again. If

11:15

that picks up nationally, I think you could

11:17

see some softness in housing prices.

11:19

But short of that, I

11:21

think high prices are here to

11:24

stay. Bill, I remember

11:26

a couple of years ago when inflation really

11:28

started to pick up, there

11:30

was a lot of focus on lumber. Lumber

11:32

prices had really skyrocketed, obviously

11:35

a big expense

11:37

line for a home builder. Lumber

11:40

has come off those really

11:42

elevated prices, but I wonder if you

11:44

could give us a sense of

11:47

the trends in inflation for all

11:49

of the labor and commodities that a home

11:51

builder must buy to build a

11:53

home. Is there any sign of

11:55

relief there beyond lumber, or

11:57

are there still issues with the home builders?

11:59

with high prices for the components needed to

12:02

make a house? It's

12:04

a great question. What's interesting about home building, and

12:06

not a lot of people know this, but the

12:08

biggest cost of goods sold in selling homes is

12:10

actually the land. And we have

12:12

a situation where, you know, with wood, for

12:15

example, you can make more wood or cut

12:17

more trees or build more trees. In the

12:19

case of land, God didn't make, you know,

12:21

infinite land. And so you have a situation

12:24

where, to your point, over the

12:26

last number of years, the builders have had a

12:28

lockdown land, and because of the restrictions and regulations

12:30

around zoning, that price has kept

12:32

pretty high for land. So

12:34

I don't mean to diminish your point about,

12:36

you know, utilities and wood and,

12:39

you know, kitchen appliances, et cetera, but when you

12:41

look at the grand scheme of things, the land

12:43

is the biggest piece in

12:45

terms of cost of goods sold for the home builders.

12:47

As it relates to wood in some of these other

12:49

places, yes, you've seen softness compared to the dramatic growth

12:51

that you had a number of years ago, but

12:54

still, inflation remains high, labor

12:56

inflation remains high, and

12:59

so you do have a little bit of upward pressure in

13:01

the cost of goods sold with the materials portion,

13:03

not just in the land. So

13:05

is that cost of land sort of

13:08

the main piece of this housing affordability

13:10

issue in the U.S., and

13:12

is there anything that can be done for that?

13:14

Like you said, we can't make any more land,

13:16

you know, and

13:19

getting municipalities to change those

13:21

zoning laws is a tough battle,

13:24

I assume. What could be done

13:26

either from the federal level, from

13:28

an investor level to sort of

13:30

make homes more affordable, especially for

13:32

these young buyers out looking

13:35

for their first home? Great

13:37

questions. Zoning has to be fixed. The problem

13:39

though, and you make a good point, is

13:41

how do you fix those regulations? You could do things

13:43

at a national level and ease up

13:45

on some of the federal standards, but really it's a

13:47

local level thing. And what we've seen

13:50

recently, especially with some of the narratives around

13:52

crime and around new home developments and stuff

13:54

like that is people don't want a lot

13:56

of new home developments necessarily in their backyard.

13:58

And so you're seeing... of these

14:00

local municipalities not really wanting to

14:03

build new subdivisions. And so to

14:05

your point, you can build

14:07

more wood, you can make more appliances,

14:09

but if that land is in tight supply, relative

14:12

to that demand, you're going to continue to have

14:14

those land prices being high. So I

14:16

think it's a tough problem

14:18

to solve and I don't see it going away, unfortunately,

14:21

anytime soon. Talk to us a

14:23

little bit more about Pulte Capital and where you're seeing

14:26

excitement or where you're deploying money

14:29

right now. As I mentioned, you

14:31

do HVAC roofing, siding, windows, doors,

14:33

a lot of services, especially home

14:36

builders. What's exciting to you? Well,

14:39

we spent a number of years, obviously, in the Pulte

14:41

Homes business. And when you're a home builder, you understand

14:43

which trades really make or break

14:46

a home, which trades make more money. And

14:48

so what we've tried to do is utilize

14:50

our experience inside and outside of that company

14:53

to say to ourselves, okay, where can we get

14:55

businesses for the right price, grow them, and then

14:57

sell them. And so one of the big areas

14:59

has been, and this will come as no surprise

15:01

to you and other people that follow the private

15:03

equity market, has been the heating and air conditioning

15:05

market. We've had three great exits. We've

15:08

had three great buying build strategies in the

15:10

HVAC industry. We've sold those to different private

15:12

equity funds. And so I

15:15

think that you'll see HVAC continue to take speed.

15:17

We've also done countertops, kitchen and bath type stuff,

15:19

etc. Hey, Bill, always good to catch up with

15:21

you. Happy Fourth of July. Please do come back

15:23

and visit us again very soon

15:26

right here on Bloomberg Radio. Bill Pulte,

15:28

CEO at Pulte Capital, joining us from

15:30

Michigan. Johan Schmigel,

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an Einstein with Salesforce. Oh hey,

16:03

we're invited to the Johnson Summer Pool Party

16:05

this Saturday. I said we'd bring our famous

16:07

potato salad. Oh, Saturday? But that's when the

16:09

Blinds guy's coming to give us a quote.

16:12

Those appointments take forever. Oh yeah, I meant

16:14

to tell you. I already found everything we

16:16

need at blinds.com. They're totally

16:18

online, so we don't have to wait around

16:20

all day just to get a quote. I

16:22

talked to a blinds.com designer, and they're sending

16:25

us free samples. Oh, Blinds.com?

16:28

I've heard of them. Yeah, they've been

16:30

around for over 25 years, but not

16:32

everyone knows they can also handle the

16:34

measuring and installation for a fraction of

16:36

what the other guys charge. Plus they

16:38

have a 100% satisfaction guarantee. Well,

16:41

blinds.com sounds like a no-brainer. Guess

16:44

I'll cancel. Already done. That gives you

16:46

time to make the potato salad. Ah,

16:49

yes, dear. Shop

16:52

Blinds.com's 4th of July Early Access Sale now

16:54

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17:00

and restrictions may apply. You're

17:04

listening to the Bloomberg Business Week

17:06

Podcast. Listen live each weekday

17:08

starting at 2 p.m. Eastern. On Amal

17:10

CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg

17:12

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York station. Just say, Alexa, play Bloomberg

17:19

1130. It's Tim

17:22

Stenebett and Mike Regan in for

17:24

Alex Steele and Paul Sweeney on

17:26

this. Well, now we can

17:28

say it's a quiet Wednesday afternoon because the

17:30

equity market is closed, Mike. Yeah, yeah. I

17:33

don't know how we got stuck working past the close.

17:36

Hey, I'll just do what I'm told. In market time,

17:38

it's like 7 o'clock at night. It really is. And

17:40

you know, the unfortunate thing for you is crypto is

17:42

always trading. Oh, that is very unfortunate. And now as

17:44

crypto team leader, you're kind of fixed. Yeah, you got

17:46

to get that fixed. Not going to happen. I have

17:48

bad news for you. Unless your

17:50

name is Satoshi. Weekends. You're not

17:52

going to have any power. Hey, speaking of holidays and

17:54

weekends, we got the 4th of July coming up tomorrow.

17:57

What's your plan? Probably sleep

17:59

in. maybe go for a bike ride.

18:01

Nice. Some burgers on the grill.

18:03

Nothing too fancy. Okay, burgers on the grill. It's kind

18:05

of what we're thinking about too in the

18:07

in the Steneveck household. One thing that is

18:10

happening though is consumers are out there and

18:12

they're choosing where to spend their money and

18:14

how to spend their money. We got Katie

18:16

Thomas with us. She's over at the Carney

18:18

Consumer Institute. She's lead there. She joins us

18:20

from Pittsburgh and we like checking in with

18:22

Katie periodically because she's got a great idea

18:25

of what the consumer is feeling and how

18:27

the consumer is spending. Katie, good to have

18:29

you with us this afternoon. How are you?

18:32

I'm doing good, Tim. I'm counting down the

18:34

hours myself to when I can wrap it up

18:37

for the week. We'll definitely appreciate you taking the

18:39

time to join us this afternoon. At the Carney

18:41

Consumer Institute, how are you watching holiday spending around

18:43

the 4th of July? Yeah,

18:46

well, you know, we're definitely keeping an

18:48

eye on a couple things. So one

18:50

area we are seeing people spend is

18:52

obviously like you guys just talked about

18:54

barbecue. So we tend to find that

18:56

people like to spend on holidays, whether

18:58

it's Halloween, Thanksgiving, you know, your big

19:01

winter holidays, people will make trade-offs in

19:03

their day-to-day so that they can spend

19:05

on these big celebrations, particularly since the

19:07

pandemic. We are seeing a little

19:09

bit of thoughtfulness around, you know, am I

19:11

going to spend on the highest quality ground

19:13

beef or am I going to spend on

19:16

alcohol and making a little bit of, you

19:18

know, financial decisions there. But for the most

19:20

part, people are excited to spend

19:23

on the holiday and on their parties

19:25

and barbecues. And then another big one,

19:27

of course, is travel. So given the

19:30

Thursday timing of the holiday, it makes

19:32

for an easy four-day weekend. Some people

19:34

already left last weekend. And I think

19:36

in general, unsurprisingly, we have had a

19:38

bit of a resigned consumer lately. So

19:40

it's been a nice opportunity for people

19:43

to unplug and unwind. I know I'm

19:45

getting emails from the Pittsburgh airport every

19:47

day saying, arrive three hours early for

19:49

your flight. So everybody is out and

19:51

about wanting to travel for the holiday and for

19:53

the summer. You know, Katie, I

19:55

am, as a consumer, I

19:58

like to refer to myself as a