Uncertainty about tariffs “hits people in their jobs”

President Donald Trump’s tariffs — and the anxiety they are creating — have sent the stock market into a nosedive. But it’s not just stocks. Uncertainty is spreading throughout the economy.

There are several ways these concerns are showing up in the labor market, Elizabeth Crofoot, a senior economist with Lightcast, told “Marketplace” host Kai Ryssdal.

“There’s not a lot of job opportunity that people are seeing recently, and that’s really where you start to see uncertainty come in, at least from the consumer side,” she said. Below is an edited transcript of their conversation.

Kai Ryssdal: As the trained economist in this conversation, what do you make of everything that’s going on right now?

Elizabeth Crofoot: Oh, you know, I’m a labor economist, so I think about things from the perspective, obviously, of the labor market, and just all the uncertainty that we’re seeing is really manifesting itself in several ways throughout the labor market. First of all, we see this frozen labor market, right? There are hirings that have stalled out, quits and layoffs are relatively steady, job openings have been moving sideways since essentially the summer of 2024. So there’s not a lot of job opportunity that people are seeing recently, and that’s really where you start to see uncertainty come in, at least from the consumer side, right? Because at the end of the day, it’s, do you have a job? Are you bringing income into your household, and what does that mean for your household budget and your financial situation? So if you don’t have that job and that solid income, that’s going to manifest itself in the real economy in terms of your spending power and your ability to be a consumer.

Ryssdal: Am I wrong if I take your use of the word “uncertainty” and flip it and talk about economic confidence? Because it seems to me that what is happening now, like, since last Wednesday, is that, subject to the whims of one man, the global economy now has no confidence in anything. There’s literally no stability.

Crofoot: In terms of that stability, it is definitely the whims of one person, right? It can change on any given day. The whole uncertainty around tariffs, all of that hits consumers as well. It hits people in their jobs. My neighbors, for example, are big travelers and asking them about what plans you have for the summer, and they’re saying, “I don’t know. We’re actually going to hunker down and start saving a little bit more because we don’t know what’s going to happen to our jobs.” So that’s really hitting everybody on so many levels.

Ryssdal: If you were a business person, which is not to say that economists aren’t business people, but if you were, like, running a manufacturing company, and you had to think about starting a new plant here, what would your set of considerations look like present day?

Crofoot: That’s a really good question. And actually, in my current position at Lightcast, I do talk to a lot of companies, especially those that are in Canada, having the same exact conversation about “What am I going to do? I need to move operations quickly.” But they need to be in an area of the country that’s going to make sense for them financially, not only from a labor standpoint, but from other costs as well, in terms of energy availability, there’s so much that goes into that, rents. So it’s a huge equation. It’s the whole gamut of starting to run a business from a different country, and what are all of the considerations that they need to make.

Ryssdal: What is your — this is sort of a squishy question — but what’s your overall level of concern right now about what you see, again, as the economist in this conversation?

Crofoot: I mean, the real economic data so far is still really solid. I mean, the jobs report from last week —

Ryssdal: That’s a super important point, actually, right?

Crofoot: Yeah, I mean, unemployment is still very low, historically low, 4.2%, really solid job gain. If this was pre-pandemic times, we’d be all celebrating this huge uptick in jobs. But, yeah, I mean, it’s all the uncertainty around that, and we’re just in such a vulnerable position. And the thing is that it changes so quickly.