Episode Transcript

Chris Villanueva 00:00

So with all of this being said, what are my recommendations that this is a great time and just as great of an opportunity for you to forge the path forward and to take that next step. And welcome to the Let’s Eat, Grandma Career Warrior Podcast. My name is Chris Villanueva. I’m the Co-Founder of Let’s Eat, Grandma and today we’re going to be talking all about the job market right now, what’s going on in the news? How the heck have tariffs been impacting things as far as the job market goes?

Chris Villanueva 00:37

I’m going to be giving you some insights I think that are going to be useful for you in your job search, as well as some helpful tools, tips, and recommendations for how you can make the most out of your job search in this current time. The thing I want to emphasize before diving into this episode is I try my absolute best to be a political in this show, and you’ll even see here that I’m going to be mentioning things that the current Trump administration are doing.

Chris Villanueva 01:03

By no means injecting my own personal political opinions. So I tried, during my research into developing this episode, I tried to make this as unbiased as possible. I tried to look on both sides of the media, conservative and progressive to bring to you what I think is going to be the most well-rounded, unbiased approach here. So let me know how I did. You can always connect with me on LinkedIn and let me know if there’s something I’m missing here. But I believe that these are going to be some insights that are going to give you some more light into what’s going on right now.

Chris Villanueva 01:43

So what happened in the last BLS report? We’d like to go over the Bureau of Labor Statistics, state of employment. We want to make sure that you understand what the job market looked like in March. We saw that there were 228,000 non-farm additions non-farm. That’s the only segment that really is going to pertain to any of you listening to this podcast, but it’s basically any position out there that has nothing to do with farming as the name would indicate.

Chris Villanueva 02:15

January and February were 111 and 117 respectively. So March was a significant improvement compared to how this year kicked off. In fact, I was pretty disappointed by what the job market looked like and how people were moving at the beginning of the year. A lot of uncertainty and this number even was revised down, so those numbers looked better last month, but 48,000 jobs were revised down in January and February, so you better believe that March was an improvement gains in March were healthcare, social assistance and transportation.

Chris Villanueva 02:55

Healthcare is never a surprise to me because it’s one of those consistent industries that always show promise. The loss we saw in March was, and this Tacoma’s no surprise whatsoever, it was government positions. So federal positions were a 4K loss in March. This was an 11 K loss in February, and this is something that of course saw an impact due to some of the current administration’s cuts that occurred. Unemployment held steady at around 4.2%. So not bad. This is no jump in unemployment. Some people are predicting that to increase in the future. However, for now that’s looking pretty good. Let’s talk about tariffs and the potential impact on the job market.

Chris Villanueva 03:43

The thing about tariffs has nothing to do seemingly with your job. It has nothing to do well. It may directly have something to do with your job. I don’t know what your job is, but in most people’s cases, tariffs don’t have as much of a direct impact on the job market, at least when it comes to the people that I have been talking with.

Chris Villanueva 04:04

However, they do have a very strong indirect effect on the market and the economy in general as well as how people are feeling about things. So stocks were volatile for a lot of our recent history. So in March we saw that to be volatile as well as continuing on into April. For example, this past Friday, and if you’re listening to this episode on Monday, this was I guess two Fridays ago, Dow Jones saw a 5.5% plunge, which is the largest drop that we’ve seen since June of the pandemic. Some uncertainty also was indicated through JP Morgan’s announcement.

Chris Villanueva 04:42

This was their chief economic advisor who predicted a 2025 recession. As these tariffs continued to kind of shake people up and just instill a lot of uncertainty within the market, JP Morgan predicts that unemployment will move up to 5.3%. So I don’t know whether or not this is going to actually come true, but this is something that I think a lot of people are certainly concerned about.

Chris Villanueva 05:09

And when you have this type of uncertainty, employers and companies are less likely to take good risks to do things that are innovative. The things that make differences to hire people, as we saw happen in 20 21, 20 22, those big types of risks. So us Americans do feel shaky themselves. It’s not just the companies. So the views of the financial future did slump to a 12 year low and job market confidence according to one report also slumped down to a low.

Chris Villanueva 05:43

This is comparing even to the pandemic times when April, 2020 hit, people weren’t sure about what their jobs were going to look like. Okay, so with all of this being said, what are my recommendations? I’ve been in this business for 11 years now. I’ve seen a lot of ups and downs. Of course, nothing is going to be like it is now because every year is different.

Chris Villanueva 06:08

But I will say to you as a job seeker or a professional who is maybe more passively looking that this is a great time and just as great of an opportunity for you to forge the path forward and to take that next step. I’m not saying quit your job today and make a leap, but do not let the uncertainty in the market or what your friends are telling you or what your coworkers are saying, do not let that rattle you because the opportunities are still there.

Chris Villanueva 06:42

Again, 228,000 editions in March. That alone should say that you don’t know whether you’re going to have a good month or a bad month for the market. You just have to continuously shoot your shot and consistently send your applications out there. So do not lose hope. These things are only temporary. And when you look back on this 1, 2, 5, I don’t know how many years from now and say, gosh, that was a hard time, but I’m so glad I kept acting with consistency because it allowed me to find my next position or my promotion or whatever the heck I was striving to achieve.

Chris Villanueva 07:23

You’re going to thank yourself and you’re going to be so happy that you did it. It’s really continuously important to stand out during this time as well. It’s going to be a bit more competitive right now in the market. As you can imagine, you have these federal employees who are not going to be applying for federal positions. So you’re going to see the market get a little bit crowded just from that alone. Additionally, employers may not be as hiring happy as they were before in the past. So you have to do whatever you can to stand out in your job search.

Chris Villanueva 07:54

This means going beyond your bland AI resumes or your generic descriptions at the top. It means going one step beyond what you would’ve done last year to prepare for an interview. This means really bringing your A game and showing up because if you show up and you bring your best and you’re continuously improving, I guarantee you, you are going to get where you need to be.

Chris Villanueva 08:19

Don’t blame it on the job market anymore. The way that things are right now. You just have to keep forging ahead. Now that you have this information, it’s not going to be easy. You’re going to be stressed out at times, but I promise you there is a light at the end of the tunnel and all is going to work out. So another theme that I really liked from our past podcast episode was that you have to treat your network as a long-term game as well.

Chris Villanueva 08:45

Even if you’re not looking for a job right now, seriously continue watering that garden that you have just a little bit at a time tending to your garden. I have a backyard and I just realized that I let it go. All the weeds were growing. It was not in good shape, but I really vowed to myself, I’m like, okay, I’m going to keep chipping away at my yard every single day just a little bit.

Chris Villanueva 09:09

And I believe that it works the same way for you. Your career is so darn important. Your finances are so darn important. So why would you not spend at least a little bit of time every single week watering that garden? Alright, so thank you for listening to today’s episode. I hope it was short, impactful, and useful. Make sure to connect with me on LinkedIn. Share this episode because you will double the knowledge that you were able to take in by sharing it with others. You also will give them the goodness of information that could help your own network here. So give me a shout out. My name is Chris Villanueva, CPRW, and I would love to hear from you.

Chris Villanueva 09:50

Take care, Career Warrior Podcast, and before you go, remember if you’re not seeing the results you want in your job search, our highly trained team of professional resume writers here at, let’s see, grandma can help head on over to letseatgrandma.com/podcast/ to get a free resume critique and $70 off any one of our resume writing packages. We talk all the time on the show about the importance of being targeted in your job search. And with our unique writing process and focus on individual attention, you’ll get a resume cover letter and LinkedIn profile that are highly customized and tailored to your goals to help you get hired faster. Again, head on over to letseatgrandma.com/podcast/ Thanks, and I’ll see you next time.