Marketplace All-in-One

There are two long-standing trends in the tech industry that have intensified over the last couple years: there are more jobs than workers to fill them, and there’s a need to diversify this workforce. More and more companies are rolling back degree requirements that were part of many job descriptions. Today, we’ll hear how that dynamic has given new opportunities to people like Stanley Omotuyole, who left Nigeria a couple of years ago, giving up a degree program in laboratory science to join his dad in Seattle.

Today on Economics on Tap, we’re talking about the Biden administration’s plan to make Paxlovid, Pfizer’s COVID-19 antiviral pill, available in pharmacies across the United States. It might be easier said than done. Plus, Iran has tolerated economic sanctions for decades. Will the same hold true for Russia? We’ll also discuss the speedy demise of CNN+ and Google’s time-lapsed images showing the effects of climate change. We end with a round of Half Full/Half Empty. Today’s categories: Netflix (with ads!), a slowed-down U.S. Postal Service, Earth Day, national parks reservation systems and the return of Taco Bell’s Mexican pizza.

Here’s everything we talked about on the show today:

Tell us what you think about today’s show. Email us at [email protected] or leave us a voice message at 508-827-6278, or 508-U-B-SMART.

French voters hit the polls Sunday to decide between incumbent President Emmanuel Macron and hard-right rival Marine Le Pen — known for her pro-Russia, anti-NATO and anti-European Union sentiments. Though Macron leads in the polls, Le Pen has working-class appeal. Today, we’ll get you caught up on the election and its economic consequences. Plus: It’s Earth Day, but supply chains and trade wars are holding the renewables industry back. But first: We’ll hash out tariffs and rate hikes in the Weekly Wrap.

The vehicle that was supposed to usher CNN into the streaming era appears to have been stopped in its tracks. Less than a month after launch, CNN+ is being shut down. We discuss some of the factors that led to this point. Christopher Low talks mortgage rates during our markets discussion. Marketplace’s China correspondent Jennifer Pak clues us in on life in Shanghai, which has been in COVID lockdown for weeks. It’s National Parks Week, and many parks are still using early pandemic reservation systems. Is it going to stay that way?

“This is Uncomfortable,” our show about life and how money messes with it, is back for a new season starting May 5!

This season, we’re exploring love and relationships of all kinds. Because there’s probably no close relationship — be it with friends, family or coworkers — where money doesn’t make things weird. And sometimes the fights you think are about money are not actually about money at all.

Check out the trailer above, and follow “This Is Uncomfortable” wherever you get podcasts.

President Biden recently announced an additional $800 million in assistance to Ukraine. However, there’s been a noticeable change in the kind of military aid the U.S. is sending, and that change could hint at the U.S. outlook on how the war is going. To help us break down the U.S. aid package, we spoke to Mark Cancian, a retired Marine colonel and senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Florida lawmakers have approved a bill to strip Disney of special tax privileges through self-government of its land in Orlando. 

From the BBC World Service: China’s government introduces even tougher COVID lockdown restrictions, including alarms on people’s doors. France has issued an arrest warrant for Carlos Ghosn, the former boss of the Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi car alliance. After being charged with financial wrongdoing in Japan in 2018, Ghosn fled to Lebanon and has been there ever since. And, we meet a 100-year-old man in Brazil who’s worked for the same company for 84 years.

Scraping data from public websites is legal. That’s the upshot of a decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this week. LinkedIn had taken a case against data analytics company hiQ, arguing it was illegal for hiQ to “scrape” users’ profile data to analyze employee turnover rates under the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). Tiffany Li, a technology attorney and professor of law at the University of New Hampshire, joins our host Meghan McCarty Carino to talk about how the CFAA fits into today’s world.

Some publicly traded corporations reported strong earnings today, despite inflation and supply chain shortages. This left consumers to foot the bill for rising prices. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve is walking a fine line during a critical time. We talk about a key indicator we’ll be watching to gauge the economy’s health. We’ll leave you with some wicked humor from Capitalism herself and fictional pairings we’d like to see (Hamlet, meet the Ghost Busters).

Join us Friday for Economics on Tap. We’ll be livestreaming on YouTube starting at 3:30 p.m. Pacific time, 6:30 p.m. Eastern.

Two years ago, 4.2 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits. Last week, that number was 184,000. Nowadays, job seekers can be picky while employers bend over backward to attract and retain workers. Today, we look at the historic strength of this job market. Plus: What’s behind the surge in natural gas prices, what Shanghai’s lockdown feels like nearly four weeks on and how flight attendants in the ’60s helped working women’s rights take off.