The real purchasing power of a $250,000 salary depends on a city’s overall economy, taxes and cost of living. Across the United States, $250,000 is worth as much as $203,664 in Memphis, Tennessee, but as little as $83,000 in New York City. 

That’s according to a recent report by SmartAsset, which investigated where high earners lose the most to taxes and cost of living. The study compares the after-tax income in 76 of the largest U.S. cities and adjusts the figures for the cost of living.

The data was compiled using SmartAsset’s paycheck calculator, which calculates take-home pay after taking into account local, state and federal taxes. Cost of living expenses include housing, groceries, utilities, transportation and other goods and services. 

For the privileged few earning $250,000 per year, here are the seven cities where your money has the least purchasing power, as well as how much it’s actually worth. 

1. New York: $82,421
2. Honolulu: $82,672
3. San Francisco: $82,776
4. Los Angeles: $101,635
5. Long Beach, California: $101,635
6. Washington, D.C.: $101,865
7. San Diego: $105,151

Unsurprisingly, $250,000 goes the least far in cities such as New York and Washington, D.C., due to the high costs of living. In New York, the average monthly rent for a studio apartment is $3,500, according to data from RentHop.

In Washington, D.C., the average monthly rent for a studio apartment is also high, at just over $2,300, according to data from RentHop. Last year, the nation’s capital ranked as the third-most expensive major U.S. city based on monthly household spending. New York ranked No. 5.

Several cities in California also make the cut for places where $250,000 has the least purchasing power, largely due to the state’s high income tax. In San Francisco, for example, residents are taxed roughly six percentage points more in taxes at $250,000 salaries, as compared with a $100,000 salary, SmartAsset reports.

On top of that, the cost of living in San Francisco is 82.8% higher than the national average, according to the study. Similarly, Long Beach, California, professionals are taxed at a rate of 38%, with a cost of living 52.5% higher than the national average.

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Vogue posted a position earlier this week for an assistant to the editor in chief, Anna Wintour. And while it may be the opportunity of a lifetime for those looking to get into the fashion industry, fans of “The Devil Wears Prada” are having flashbacks to Anne Hathaway’s character in the hit movie.

So what does the job entail? Well, you don’t have have to gird your loins to brace for the expectations — but there is a list of duties provided. Candidates will be responsible for the “administration and coordination of meetings, events/engagements, special projects, and overall flow of communication and information” for the Global Chief Content Officer at Vogue, a.k.a. Wintour.

Candidates will also be “extremely organized, efficient, deadline-oriented, and able to multitask and prioritize in a fast-paced, matrixed, digital media environment.” And while the job description doesn’t say it, applicants maybe should be prepared to get Starbucks — hot Starbucks. And hopefully they know how to spell Gabbana.

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The listing does say that the person will “at times may contribute to content assignments, research, and/or special projects.” It didn’t say anything about getting to go to Paris, like Hathaway’s character, Andy, got to do (or as Emily Blunt’s character, Emily, so badly wanted to).

Details of applicants’ incompetence will not interest those hiring. Those interested should act fast get their resumes in — don’t move at a glacial pace, you know how that thrills recruiters. And please bore someone else with your questions.

The salary expectation listed was from $60,000-$80,000, with a college degree and 1-2 years experience required.

That’s all.

More than half, 53%, of U.S. workers say they’re stressed on a daily basis, and it jumps higher for women — 57%, among the highest shares in the world. It’s a notch higher than the 44% of global workers who say they’re stressed every day.

Paradoxically, at 34%, U.S. workers are more likely than the global average to feel engaged at work, which Gallup defines as when people feel proud of the work they do, take ownership and are willing to “go the extra mile” for colleagues and customers.

That high engagement is coming at a cost to workers’ mental health, says Jim Harter, Gallup’s chief scientist of workplace and wellbeing.

Americans are likely to find personal value, identity and fulfillment in their work, which motivates them to be highly engaged, he tells CNBC Make It; but when their expectation of work doesn’t match up with their reality, or work negatively impacts their personal, social or financial circumstances, it leads to higher stress.

When people value work so highly, it’s important that organizations actively work to make sure their work environments improve their employees’ lives, Harter adds.

That could become harder as hybrid and remote work become mainstays of the work experience.

Remote, hybrid workers are more engaged, but also more stressed

While it remains high in general, employee engagement has been on the decline since late 2021 due to drops in people reporting they feel clarity in their expectations at work, they feel connected to the purpose of their organization, or they have the opportunities to do their best work, according to Gallup.

A lot of this may be connected to organizations that scaled back their remote-work flexibility and called for a return to offices in the last year, Harter says.

On the one hand, remote and hybrid workers report higher levels of engagement than in-office workers, but they also have higher rates of daily stress.

Remote and hybrid work have some “potential” to increase engagement, Harter says, “but if organizations don’t put some predictability in place around where people are working, it can cause bigger issues down the road.”

Return-to-office mandates aren’t the answer

The solution isn’t about bringing everyone back to the office five days a week.

In the U.S., the majority of people work at a certain location (remotely or onsite) based on requirements from leadership, or they make the decision themselves. Just 13% of workers decide where they work based on discussions they have with their team; incidentally, they’re also the most engaged.

Employees who coordinate with colleagues when they’ll work from home and when they’ll be onsite “have built-in predictability and a healthy amount of social pressure to be together,” Harter says. “You’ve acknowledged there’s value in it.”

To figure out their remote versus in-person schedules, Harter says teams should discuss when they collaborate best, and recognize what gets done when they’re together that doesn’t when they’re separate.

“People need to have the right kinds of discussions to make sure their autonomy feels right and rational,” Harter says, and that when they’re expected to report onsite, people feel they have “legitimate reasons” to make the investment in commuting.

“When you start moving into the space of requiring a return to office, that’s when employees tend to push back, and that doesn’t surprise me,” he says.

Rather than a blanket RTO requirement across the company, Harter says organizations can do more to train managers to better lead and motivate in hybrid environments. At minimum, managers should make sure they have at least one meaningful conversation with each of their employees every week.

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Business took a few months to pick up, but by early 2021, Weatherington had added six other classes and was netting $10,000 per month from the site, working just 10 to 12 hours per week.

Outschool offers teachers the opportunity to turn their individual profiles into organization profiles with multiple educators, and in June 2021, Weatherington decided she would take the plunge. She hired seven teachers through April 2022 and offered up to 60 classes on the site, including essay writing for various ages and creative classes like screenwriting.

In 2021, she also started creating courses teaching people how to build an online course themselves. She posted those on her personal website, Teacherjade.com.

Weatherington, who lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with her 14-year-old daughter, now makes about $15,000 per month and is still working around 10 hours per week. Here’s how she built her multiple streams of income and dealt with hiccups along the way.

‘I scaled too fast’

For the first six months after Weatherington turned her individual Outschool profile into an organization profile, everything was going fine. But in early 2022, “there was a plummet in enrollment,” she says.

She noticed a $5 loss while she did her payroll as well. “I remember panicking,” she says, “like, well, if I lost $5, what if it’s $500” in the future?

Weatherington reached out to Outschool. It turned out the platform was undergoing some internal algorithm changes. She ended up meeting with representatives from the company in October 2022 to make some suggestions about how they might fix the problem.

In the meantime, in June 2022, she took all but 17 classes off the site and started offering a handful on Teacherjade.com instead. She also added classes to another platform she’d been experimenting with, Allschool, which caters to students worldwide.  

When she let her teachers know of the change, some decided to switch over to teaching on Allschool or through Weatherington’s personal site, and some preferred to wait it out and see what would happen with Outschool in the fall.

In January 2023, Weatherington saw enrollment on her Outschool classes was back up. She continues to offer those 17 classes on the site and is still offering writing classes on both her personal site and Allschool. All seven of her teachers ultimately came back, and she just hired another.

In her moment of crisis, Weatherington is glad she was able to pivot. But realizes the problem would’ve been easier to solve if she’d had less people to manage.

“I scaled too fast,” she says.

Without her second business, ‘I probably would have lost money’

Luckily, even as she was navigating the mishaps with Outschool, Weatherington was able to bring in some revenue from her courses on how to build an online class yourself.

For years, she’d had people reach out to say they wanted to start teaching people online as well. She realized, “when you have something that you’re really good at, you can always say that it’s easy,” she says. “But for someone who’s never done it, every single step seems like a challenge.”

In her courses, she breaks down how to start an online course including creating the course content and lessons and doing marketing for it. She offers various packages on the subject ranging from $25 to $600.

“If it wasn’t for that, I probably would have lost money” when enrollment on Outschool started dipping, she says.  

‘Find someone who’s a professional in the area’

Her biggest piece of advice as Weatherington has built her businesses: Get a mentor and heed their advice.

“Find someone who’s a professional in the area so that you don’t hit those pitfalls and you know what you’re up against,” she says.

Weatherington got into a program called Our Village United, which helps Black entrepreneurs grow their businesses. As part of the program, she was paired up with a mentor herself, Atlanta-based entrepreneur Cole Jones. After hiring her two initial teachers, she told him she wanted to keep ramping up. “Maybe stick with the two that you have for at least a year,” she says he advised.

“And I was like, ‘Nope. I’m ready,'” she says. Looking back, she realizes had she listened to his advice, figuring out logistics around the Outschool challenges would’ve been much easier.

“I feel like it wouldn’t have been so stressful,” she says.

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Professional and business services led job creation for the month with 64,000 new hires, following an increase of similar size in April, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday.

Government added 56,000 jobs last month, higher than the average monthly gain of 42,000 over the prior 12 months. Employment in government is still below its pre-Covid pandemic level by more than 200,000 jobs.

Job gains were broad-based last month with health care contributing 52,000 and leisure and hospitality adding 48,000. Food services and drinking places led the increase in the latter industry, which had been adding an average of 77,000 jobs per month over the prior 12 months.

Overall, the U.S. economy added 339,000 jobs for the month, much better than the 190,000 Dow Jones estimate and marking the 29th straight month of positive job growth.

The unemployment rate rose to 3.7% in May against the estimate for 3.5%. The jobless rate was the highest since October 2022, though still near the lowest since 1969.

Olu Sonola, head of U.S. regional economics at Fitch Ratings, said the jobs report is a mixed bag.

“The strength of the payroll survey is clearly a big surprise, largely on the back of robust job growth in the healthcare sector and the business and professional services sector,” said Sonola. “However, the 0.3% increase in the unemployment rate is the highest monthly increase since April 2020.”

Now, thanks to one of the tightest labor markets in decades, they have even more sway, with an array of jobs to choose from at ever higher wages.

To ease the labor crunch, some states are moving to roll back restrictions to let teens work more hours and, in some cases, more hazardous jobs — much to the chagrin of labor rights groups, who see it as a troubling trend.

Economists say there are other ways to expand the workforce without putting more of a burden on kids, including by allowing more legal immigration.

Seeking teen workers

At Funtown Splashtown USA, an amusement park in southern Maine, teens play a critical role in keeping the attractions open, which isn’t as easy as it used to be.

General Manager Cory Hutchinson anticipates hiring about 350 workers this summer, including many local high schoolers, compared with more than 500 in past summers.

“We literally do not have enough people to staff the place seven days a week and into the evenings,” he said. This summer, Funtown Splashtown will only be open six days a week, and will close at 6 p.m., instead of 9 p.m.

In April, nearly 34% of Americans aged 16 to 19 had jobs, according to government data. That compares with 30% four years ago, the last pre-pandemic summer.

More jobs are available for those who want them: There are roughly 1.6 jobs open for every person that is unemployed, according to the Labor Department. In normal times, that ratio is about 1:1.

At RideAway Adventures on Cape Cod, which offers kayak, bike and paddleboard rentals and tours, finding enough teen workers hasn’t been a challenge. Owner Mike Morrison chalks it up to the fact that RideAway is a desirable place to work compared with other options.

“They’re not washing dishes and they get to be outside and active,” Morrison said.

Plus, while he typically starts off new teen hires at $15 an hour, the state’s minimum wage, he will bump up the pay of hard workers by as much as 50 cents per hour toward the end of July to help keep them through the end of summer.

Choosier teens

Maxen Lucas, a graduating senior at Lincoln Academy in Maine, had his first job at 15 as a summer camp dishwasher, followed by a stint as a grocery bagger before getting into landscaping. He said young workers can be choosier now.

“After COVID settled down, everyone was being paid more,” said the 18-year-old from Nobleboro who’ll head off to Maine Maritime Academy this fall.

Indeed, hourly pay jumped about 5% in April from a year ago at restaurants, retailers and amusement parks, the industries likely to employ teens. Before the pandemic, pay in these industries typically rose no more than 3% annually.

Addison Beer, 17, will work this summer at the Virginia G. Piper branch of the Boys & Girls Club in Scottsdale, Arizona, where she feels a strong connection with colleagues and the kids she helps out.

Because of a scheduling conflict, she temporarily took a job at Zinburger, a restaurant that was desperate for workers. “They just asked me a few questions and were like, ‘Oh, you’re hired!’” she said.

For many teens, the point of a summer job doesn’t have to be about finding the highest pay available.

“Having a job is just so I can sustain myself, be more independent, not rely on my parents too much,” said Christopher Au, 19, who has been dishing out ice cream at a J.P. Licks in Boston for the past few months.

Jack Gervais, 18, of Cumberland, Maine, lined up an internship shooting photography at an arts venue and will earn roughly the minimum wage of $13.80 an hour while gaining skills that relate to his career goals. But he said many kids he knows are seeking — and commanding — higher paying jobs.

“Nobody I know would work for minimum wage, unless there were major tips involved,” he said.

Expanding teen hours

New Jersey passed a law in 2022 allowing 16- and 17-year-olds to work up to 50 hours per week during the summer, when the state’s shore economy swells with tourists. The previous limit was 40 hours per week.

The measure has earned praise from parents.

Sally Rutherford, 56, of North Wildwood, New Jersey, said her 17-year-old son, Billy, was excited about the change. With the money he earns working as a game operator at a Jersey Shore amusement park, he’ll be able to help pay for a car.

“It makes him a much more independent and responsible,” she said.

Other states are considering a variety of proposals to expand teens’ role in the workplace.

In Wisconsin, lawmakers are backing a proposal to allow 14-year-olds to serve alcohol in bars and restaurants. In Iowa, the governor signed a bill into law Friday that will allow 16- and 17-year-olds to serve alcohol in restaurants, and to expand the hours minors can work.

Child welfare advocates worry the measures represent a coordinated push to scale back hard-won protections for minors.

Immigration is a factor

Economists say allowing more legal immigration is a key solution to workforce shortages, noting that it has been central to the country’s ability to grow for years in the face of an aging population.

Many resort towns rely on immigrants with summer visas to staff businesses such as restaurants, hotels, and tourist sites. But immigration fell sharply during the COVID outbreak as the federal government tightened restrictions. In 2022, nearly 285,000 of the summer visas were issued, down from about 350,000 before the pandemic.

The Federal Reserve in March estimated that the overall drop in immigration has cost the United States nearly one million workers, compared with pre-pandemic trends. Immigration is rebounding to pre-COVID levels, but the effects are still being felt.

Labor crunch beginning to ease

Another factor straining the labor market is Baby Boomers reaching retirement age. The Federal Reserve calculates that rising retirements has left the economy with about 2 million fewer workers.

Yet despite the significant challenges employers face this summer, labor shortages are much less of a problem than they were in 2021, when the pandemic made many people reluctant to return to consumer-facing jobs. Higher inflation has also incentivized many people to seek work to help their families cover food and rent.

In just the past six months, 2 million Americans who had been out of the workforce have taken jobs or started looking for one. The share of Americans aged 25 through 54 who are working or job-hunting is now above pre-pandemic levels.

Associated Press writers Chris Rugaber in Washington, David Sharp in Portland, Maine, and Alina Hartounian in Scottsdale, Arizona, contributed to this report.

She knows it was a tall order, Hernandez tells CNBC Make It: “It’s hard to ask someone who’s supposed to be enjoying your day with you to say, ‘Hey, can you also work for me?’ You might as well just hire them then.”

That’s when a business idea hit. In April 2023, a year after her own wedding, Hernandez, 37, of Redwood City, Calif., launched a wedding content creation business, Always A Bride Events, where couples can hire her to get all the video content they want from their big day to post to TikTok and Instagram.

For anywhere between $800 to $1,800, Hernandez spends six to 12 hours with couples to capture all of their wedding moments. Standard packages include a set number of edited videos, with special attention on clips that use the platform’s trending sounds and transitions, behind-the-scenes moments outside of the ceremony, or total recaps of the day.

There’s plenty of room for customization. In May, Hernandez spent a week in Las Vegas to capture moments including the bride’s spa day, the rehearsal dinner, the wedding itself, and a post-ceremony trip down the Fremont Street zipline. For about 21 hours of work, she charged $2,200 (that includes a discount for early clients).

Hernandez is one of many social media experts banking on an emerging wedding trend. As a new wedding season gets underway, you’re bound to see lots of photos and videos from events on your feed — and there’s a chance the newlyweds will have paid someone thousands of dollars to get that perfect TikTok or Instagram clip.

Couples want to unplug and relive their weddings immediately

It wasn’t a question that Kelsey Wilkins, the Las Vegas bride, would spring for a wedding content creator on top of hiring a wedding photographer and videographer.

Wilkins, 29, of Fayetteville, Ark., says social media plays a large role in her life as a small business owner. She decided to add “content creator” to her $50,000 wedding budget thinking it’d be a nice touch.

What she didn’t expect was that, by hiring Hernandez, the couple was buying peace of mind. They didn’t have to worry about having guests capture behind-the-scenes shots when they should be celebrating. “I couldn’t take my best friend away from enjoying the moment with me, or make my mom do it,” Wilkins says.

The newlyweds held an unplugged ceremony, so the footage from Hernandez’s phone is all they have to relive the wedding immediately until edited photos and videos come in.

It can be a blur for newlyweds to remember everything that happened on their wedding day. If not for their professionally captured social content, Wilkins says, “I wouldn’t have been able to see me in my dress and florals,” or her husband’s getting-ready process, or the whole ceremony from a guest’s perspective.

To be able to relive those moments with her husband on their honeymoon was well worth the money: “It’s so beautiful to look back on the footage coming off the high of the wedding itself,” she says.

‘You need to charge people for this’

Lanise Harris was already good at making social-media clips when she attended weddings for friends and family. Then, during the pandemic, Harris says, “My sister messaged me and said, ‘You need to charge people for this.'”

Harris, 33, of Houston, launched her business, Babe Events, by the summer of 2022 just as the wedding industry was rebounding after pandemic-related delays. She was a bridesmaid for a friend’s wedding in September and was also hired to pull together social content throughout the day, from the time the bridal party was getting ready all the way to the couple’s kiss as they departed the reception.

Harris now offers three packages for her services, ranging from $350 to $1,200, along with popular à la carte items like creating a wedding hashtag and strategizing an Instagram takeover, which can be another $300 a pop.

She thinks hiring wedding content creators makes sense in addition to hiring traditional wedding photographers and videographers. For one, she says, “No matter what media you use to take the pictures, they’re going to end up on social media.” Might as well hire an expert in what looks good on social platforms.

Plus, “There’s something special about being able to provide candid beautiful opportunities to see your guests in their element, without the pressure of a big DSLR camera in their face.”

Harris, who works in nonprofit project management for her day job, already has two weddings booked for July and expects to pocket $5,000 from her side hustle within the month. Buzz is building as the wedding season picks up and stretches into fall, too: “Come September, things will be picking up.”

A full-time business in the making

Working as a wedding content creator isn’t just about crashing a good party. Hernandez says she draws from a 15-year career working in event planning, as well as knowledge of how to film lifestyle content for TikTok. In the last year, she built an audience on #WeddingTok, a section of TikTok that has 7.2 billion views, through videos giving advice to other brides.

A Twitter user recently reposted one of Hernandez’s videos, writing, “Literally just made this job up to wedding crash, party, and film tiktoks. I have to stan!”

“I thought I was going to get hosed in the comments,” Hernandez says when she learned the tweet had gone viral, “so I was surprised at how supportive everyone was.”

There seems to be a growing understanding that couples are entitled to tailor their weddings as they see fit, she says: “If a couple wants to spend $100,000 or $10,00 on their wedding, that’s their prerogative. The same goes for the vendors. If they want a wedding content creator, that’s their choice. So people just need to start accepting that the industry is changing.”

All told, Hernandez works on her business for about 25 hours in a week when she has a wedding, which includes going through a detailed questionnaire about the shots and styles the couple wants captured, gathering footage, editing clips together, then sending the whole package within 24 hours after the wedding, and posting to her own social media handles to promote her business.

She also likes to keep good relationships with photographers and videographers at the wedding, oftentimes capturing them at work so they can promote themselves online.

So far, Hernandez has worked weddings with a week’s notice, and on the other end, she has bookings all the way in 2025. She recently hired an associate to help film weddings in Texas, and she plans to scale in different regions of the U.S. Her goal is to turn her content creating side hustle into a full-time job.

As more people talk on social media about what really goes into gathering wedding-day content, Hernandez points out, brides are realizing they can’t just give their phones to their friends and expect the best. With wedding content creator services, she says, “it’s just nice to have a way to relive the day.”

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Richards spends half of each year nannying for the ultra-wealthy to supplement her income between off-Broadway and one-woman shows in New York City and Virginia. The gig pays her up to $167 per hour, plus covered flights and accommodations, she says — meaning that caring for billionaire’s children makes up 80% to 90% of her annual income.

“I could nanny for, like, two months at the top of the year, and I’d be fine for the rest of the year,” Richards, 34, tells CNBC Make It. “What feeds me is being able to work so closely with these kids.”

Richards’ job is atypical by most definitions, from the pay to the responsibilities. Nannying for the ultra-wealthy isn’t always about childcare: She spends most of her working hours coordinating children’s educational and social calendars.

She gets paid up to $2,000 per day for 12 to 15 hours of work, she says. She travels the world by private jets and yachts, drives Porsches and Teslas on the job, and attends toddlers’ birthdays where iPads are party favors.

The glamour comes with an emotional tax: Richards often acts as a companion for neurodivergent children with absent and complicated parents, she says. And as a Black woman helping raise wealthy white kids, she has to navigate cultural situations tactfully — or risk losing her paycheck.

Here’s how she makes it work.

On-the-job logistics

Some of Richards’ clients are famous actors whom she never formally meets. One of them was so constantly surrounded by security guards and makeup artists that she only caught glimpses of the top of the client’s head over the course of her three-month employment, she says.

She’s watched other clients spontaneously buy homes on layovers and take single bites of $3,200 steaks. she adds. On her first day as a nanny to the ultra-wealthy, she showed up at an airport, got introduced to the family’s children and instantly became their chaperone on a private jet to a rented-out resort in Barbados.

Richards, who typically works with roughly 10 families at a time, says it took her a while to understand exactly what her job responsibilities were. Unless the family is short-staffed, she doesn’t wipe up spills, prepare meals or open car doors.

Rather, she’s a social coordinator and, often, an emotionally supportive mother figure. Once, parents actually listed their child in an Italian boarding school under her last name, she says.

“I’ve had full-blown interviews where [parents] are like, ‘We’re looking for someone to raise our kids,'” she says. “They tell me they had kids to pass on their trust funds, [and that] ‘I’ll hang out with them after boarding school when they can drink.'”

Backed by contracts

Richards, who grew up one of eight siblings and landed her first professional acting role at age 14, says she came by nannying organically.

When she moved to New York more than a decade ago, she worked in the childcare department of a Reebok Sports Club, which was later acquired by Equinox. Some of the members were affluent families who started asking her to babysit.

She had no idea what to charge or how to secure regular nannying jobs. Her research eventually led her to Madison Agency, a New York-based household staffing firm. Her willingness to travel and passion for working with neurodivergent children made her an alluring candidate, says Madison Agency director of operations Jackie Mann.

Richards also has the kind of “extraordinary personality” needed for working with billionaires, Mann adds.

Sometimes, when Richards is abroad, employers will “blindside” her by cutting off her pay or her international phone plan, or “completely neglect” her previously agreed-upon work hours, she says.

Some of them simply don’t realize Richards will miss bill payments if she isn’t paid promptly, she theorizes. Others may distrust their own staff because people have used them purely for their money before.

“I’ll be in, like, Switzerland, and they’re telling me they can’t pay me for three weeks because they don’t have cash,” Richards says. “That’s also how they communicate when they don’t like something you did. They’ll stop paying you.”

That’s when the Madison Agency’s backing becomes essential, Richards says — making sure she gets her money in a timely manner, even after one client purposefully signed the wrong name on a check to escape payment.

Financial pros, emotional cons

Balancing her mental well-being with unpredictable client mood swings is taxing, Richards says. But after living in billionaires’ worlds for more than 10 years, she says she has empathy for most of them.

Many of her clients were born into wealth and fame, and despite efforts to be normal, they can’t walk into grocery stores or commercial airports without being verbally and physically assaulted. That understanding is what makes Richards an invaluable employee, Mann says.

“The competency one has to care for a child isn’t uncommon,” Mann says. “[But] the qualities it takes to work for the ultra-wealthy is patience and a nuanced perception of anticipating a person’s needs.”

When Richards first starts working with new clients, she gradually shares personal stories to build trust with the parents and children. But even then, she still has to be on guard, she says.

“I’ve had families go through an immense amount of grief in the public eye. I’m watching their divorces or deaths within the family,” she says. “Sometimes I’m literally a shoulder to cry on. A second later, they’ll turn on me.”

The racial dynamics can get messy, too, she adds: “I’m a Black woman, and there are many times that I’m working for white families, and by the time the kids are six or seven, they have very specific thoughts about people who look like me.”

The money, thrill of travel and opportunities to help even difficult children are enough to keep Richards around, she says. She sets firm boundaries around how much and when she’s willing to work, and when she’s off the clock, splurges on smoothies and massages as a form of self-care.

“I have to be very mindful that even though it’s an intimate setting, it’s still a job,” Richards says.

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In the back, CEO and founder Janie Deegan is running around and putting the final touches on some other pie crust cookies. Later that day she’d do some recipe ideation in the company’s East Harlem location, testing out what will become either a sticky bun or cinnamon roll using their brown sugar cookie dough.

The goal was always “to do twists on originals and classics,” she says.

Deegan, 35, founded Janie’s Life-Changing Baked Goods in late 2015, several years after getting sober. She’d turned to baking as it helped calm her, and eventually found people were willing to pay for her cakes, cookies and pies. The company has since opened two brick and mortar locations, with a third slated to open in the West Village in June.

“Last year our bakery raked in over $1.3 million in sales,” she says. Here’s how Deegan turned a much-needed hobby into a booming business.

‘I was homeless and penniless’

Deegan grew up on the Upper West Side, her parents working in the theatre doing lighting, set and costume design. Throughout her childhood, she battled “crippling anxiety,” she says. But she found drinking helped.

“The first time I drank socially with friends was probably when I was 14 or 15,” she says. “And it was such an ‘aha’ moment. It was like, ‘oh my God, I feel confident and pretty.'” That started a habit that spiraled out of control by the time she graduated from the University of Michigan in 2009.

After college, she struggled to figure out what was next, often turning to alcohol after a bad day. By 2013, “I was homeless and penniless,” she says. People kept saying it hurt to be around her. After landing in a three-quarter house (for the unhoused, formerly incarcerated and formerly addicted) and with support from various people around her, Deegan officially quit drinking in June 2013.

She was 25.

Baking was ‘one small step after another’

Diving into adulthood was terrifying. “I had never built life skills,” she says. “I had never had confidence or self-esteem or self-love.” She got a job as a superintendent in the East Village, which didn’t pay but did provide a free apartment to live in, and otherwise worked as a nanny.

At the time, it felt like “my life was so out of control,” says Deegan. But baking, which she’d always loved, helped bring order to the chaos. It’s about taking “one small step after another” to “achieve the results that you want,” she says. It was like therapy.

In late 2015, a friend hired Deegan to make a cake for her 50^th birthday for $100. The woman “could buy a cake from anywhere in New York City,” she says, but she came to Deegan. That’s when she realized people might actually pay for her baked goods.

That Thanksgiving, she decided she’d try selling pies, posting on Facebook and emailing everyone she knew. She ended up selling three or four dozen pies altogether. Word spread, and Deegan began selling more custom birthday cakes and expanded to cookies she’d sell at food festivals as well.

“I spent about two years building the business from my apartment and working full time as a nanny,” she says.

The pie crust cookie is ‘my honor roll student’

Even as she sold favorites like fancy cakes, Deegan experimented.

In 2017, Deegan’s then-boyfriend would throw wild baked good ideas her way. “He kept talking about pie crust cookies,” she says. “And I would be like, ‘What is that?’ And he’d be like, ‘I have no idea. But it really sounds good.'”

For his birthday, Deegan decided she’d try to figure it out, ultimately landing on what would become her signature confection: the bottom a flaky pie crust, the middle a pie filling, the top a crumbly, buttery streusel.

“I like to call it my honor roll student. My firstborn child. My baby,” she says.

The same year, she won a scholarship and grant through PepsiCo’s Stacy’s Rise Project. It gave her free tuition to a culinary entrepreneurship program where she had to present a business idea along with a sample baked good to a panel of culinary experts. She brought her pie crust cookie.

“The response was overwhelming,” she says. “Everybody was like, ‘forget about the cakes. Forget about the sticky buns. Forget about the muffins.'”

She quit nannying and dove into her business full time in September of that year.

‘Wake up at 4:00, bake cookies, go sell all day’

Between 2017 and 2020, Deegan balanced custom cake orders with working street fairs around the city. Days working the latter could be as long as 20 hours each. “It would be like wake up at 4:00, bake cookies, go sell all day at some street fair in the rain, go back, clean up,” she says.

Despite the hardship of starting a business, she kept getting positive reinforcement on her work. In early 2020, she won Food Network’s baking competition “Chopped Sweets.”

When Covid hit, Deegan realized she needed to pivot from cakes. Customers kept asking how they could support the business, but no one was throwing birthday parties and shipping a custom cake is a challenge. Shipping cookies, however, is easier.

“I took cakes off the menu and really just concentrated on pie crust cookies and our other cookies,” she says. At that time, she had two part-time employees helping to run the business. The three figured out how they could ship cookies not just in New York but all over the country, building out the e-commerce side of Janie’s Life-Changing Baked Goods and expanding the clientele significantly.

Up until that point, Deegan worked out of a shared commercial kitchen. But by 2021, demand for her cookies had grown so much, she realized the business needed its own space.

‘Don’t quit before the miracle’

Deegan signed the lease on the bakery’s Upper West Side location in April 2021 and opened in August of that year. Within months, she realized demand was too high for just one location. The bakery opened its second location in October 2022.

Janie’s Life-Changing Baked Goods now sells an average of 30,000 to 45,000 cookies per month. On busy months it’s closer to 60,000 to 70,000. These eight years of building her business have been at times both harrowing and a thrill. But she’s pretty happy about where she’s landed.

When it comes to advice she’d give other aspiring entrepreneurs, “don’t quit before the miracle,” she says. “Don’t give up hope.”

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Right now, she’s at 250. 

Rodriguez, 42, is a court reporter in Bakersfield, California. She spends her mornings and afternoons sitting in on all kinds of legal proceedings, from high-profile murder trials to neighbor disputes over street art,  transcribing everything that is said on a stenotype machine, a portable word processor with a specially designed keyboard that helps users type shorthand.

Court reporters, often referred to as “guardians of the record,” play an integral role in the U.S. legal system, ensuring that any judicial process is documented accurately and impartially. In recent years, however, interest in the profession has plummeted, leading to a national shortage of at least 5,000 reporters, according to the Association for Court Reporters and Captioners. 

Yet court reporting ticks a lot of boxes on jobseekers’ wish lists, says Irene Nakamura, a court reporter in California for more than 30 years and Rodriguez’s mentor.

Court reporting doesn’t require a bachelor’s degree, the hours are flexible, it can be done remotely and, according to Nakamura, the pay for skilled reporters is lucrative, ranging from $200 for a half-day of work to upwards of $100,000 per year.

In 2022, Rodriguez made about $235,315 as a freelance court reporter, according to tax documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. What started as a job to make ends meet, Rodriguez says, has blossomed into a two-decade career that has given her purpose and financial freedom. 

Becoming a court reporter

Rodriguez had always dreamed of being a paralegal or lawyer, but couldn’t stomach the tuition costs of college and law school. 

After graduating from high school in 1998, she spent a short stint as a server at a local golf course’s café in Delano, California, but the job was “unfulfilling” and came with a meager salary, she says. 

At 21, she was a newly divorced, single mom of three — and while attending college felt like an “impossible mission,” Rodriguez recalls, she was determined to find a career she loved with a comfortable income to support her family. 

She moved back in with her parents in Bakersfield and set up an appointment with a career advisor at Bakersfield Community College, who suggested she enroll in their court reporting program. Excited by the prospect of working in the courtrooms she saw on “Law & Order,” Rodriguez thought, “Why not?” 

“I knew I wanted to be a part of something that made a positive difference in people’s lives and helped solve some of society’s more complicated problems,” she says. “So, I just went for it … and I’m so glad I did, because the minute my fingers touched the steno machine, I was hooked.”

It took Rodriguez about three years to complete the courses she needed to obtain her license as a certified reporter, which included speed building to type faster, an introduction to business law, courtroom ethics and the language of shorthand, which is an abbreviated symbolic writing method.

The education requirements for becoming a court reporter vary by state, but most states require you to have a high school diploma or equivalent, and to complete a court reporting program accredited by the National Court Reporters Association, which may consist of an associate’s degree or a professional certificate. Court reporters also must pass a state-approved exam in order to become certified.

There were times when Rodriguez wanted to quit, discouraged by challenging homework assignments or her slow typing speed — but her parents pushed her to finish the program. 

“My dad reminded me over and over that I could do it, I was capable of being a great court reporter and that made me believe in myself,” she says. “I had an incredible support system at home, my sister and my parents took turns watching my kids while I was at class, they were my biggest cheerleaders and gave me the foundation I needed to be successful at this.”

Building a six-figure career in the courtroom

After she passed her exam, one of Rodriguez’s friends from her court reporting program recommended her for a job with the Kern County Superior Court, where she’d work for the next 17 years.

When she first started the gig in 2005, her annual salary was $60,000. Within two years, however, she grew that figure to about $100,000, she says, mainly by working overtime and taking on additional assignments, like providing simultaneous captions for people who are hard of hearing at depositions and business meetings. 

Working for the court is a full-time job that required a minimum of 40 hours per week, Rodriguez explains, but there are part-time and one-off assignments reporters can take on, too.

“Court reporting can be a very demanding career, but the great thing about it is that you can work as much or as little as you want,” Rodriguez explains. “I like to challenge myself with difficult cases and assignments, so I typically work 10 or 11 hours on weekdays, sometimes on weekends, too.” 

A current listing on Indeed for a part-time court reporter at Kern County Superior Court specifies a salary between $40 and $50 per hour. 

In addition to their base salary, court reporters are compensated on a per-page basis for transcripts they produce during court proceedings, according to Nakamura. She estimates that this additional income can range from $50,000 to $100,000.

‘Every day I wake up and I love what I do’

Last year, Rodriguez decided to quit her job and become a freelance court reporter, so she could negotiate her rates and have more control over her schedule. She met Nakamura in the spring of 2022 through Instagram and joined her court reporting firm, IDepo Reporters, as a contract employee. 

Rodriguez still has 10-hour workdays, but she’s scaled back her weekend work and now has the option to choose assignments with later start times in the mornings, or ones that will only need her three or four days a week. 

Since Rodriguez became a court reporter nearly 20 years ago, the most difficult part of her job has remained the same: not reacting to what’s going on in the courtroom, no matter how dramatic or heartbreaking a trial is.

“You’re sitting inches away from people accused of murder, abuse, these very awful, disgusting crimes,” she says. “It can be incredibly heavy, and in moments like that, I’ll just try to find a focal point I can concentrate on instead, like a beautiful palm tree outside the window.” 

It also helps Rodriguez to remember how important her job is to the people seeking and delivering justice. “Jurors, lawyers, judges, all of the key players in that courtroom rely on your writing to make a fair decision,” she says. 

Now, she’s studying to become a certified court reporter in Hawaii, so she can split her time between there and California, and dreams of one day opening her own court reporting agency. “Every day I wake up and I love what I do,” says Rodriguez. “What more could you want from a job?” 

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Side hustles have become a particularly lucrative pursuit for Generation Z, 59% of whom had a side gig in 2022. Gen Zers made an average of $9,537 annually from their side hustles, according to a May 2022 Zapier survey. 

College students, specifically, are turning to side hustles due to their general flexibility, M’Chelle Ryan, director of Upwork Academy, tells CNBC Make It. Upwork Academy is a program dedicated to connecting students with side hustle and career resources.

“Freelancing allows you a lot more freedom and control over hours, schedule and skill sets,” Ryan says. “And students now are looking for and asking for higher-paying opportunities rather than what we used to see in the traditional gig economy.”

Given challenging employment trends over the past few years, side hustles also allow students to take charge of their own income streams, Ryan says.

Securing side hustles in today’s work environment

A growing number of Americans ages 16 to 22 are working or actively looking for work, as reported by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics in August 2022. The number of job opportunities is also increasing, says Toni Frana, FlexJobs’ lead career expert. 

“We have seen an increase in the number of remote job postings, both part-time and full-time, each year since the pandemic started,” Frana says. “There are opportunities in a part-time realm for people who are looking to find an additional revenue stream while they’re going to college to help with their income and savings until they graduate.”

As students initiate the process of finding a side hustle, they should first consider how much time they are willing and able to commit, Frana says. Establishing time constraints and personal schedules will help students better navigate freelance job platforms. 

“It’s helpful if a student first gets clear on what direction they’d like to go, and then figures out if they want to work five hours a week, 10, 20 hours a week. Do that self-audit to know how much time you actually have, so that you can avoid over-scheduling yourself with whatever job you want to do,” Frana says.

Similarly, it’s important to consider your strengths and interests when searching for the best side hustle fit, Frana says. Those who have a knack for writing, for example, might be better suited to editorial-based side hustles, while those who specialize in design might look for positions with an artistic bent.

Ryan and Frana both shared their thoughts on the best side hustles for current college students. The top options, they say, allow for remote work and maximum schedule flexibility. Here are their top six: 

1. Content writer

How much it pays: Around $37/hour 

Content writers generate written content for brands, including articles showcasing services and products. This side hustle option could be a fit for college students pursuing degrees in communications, English or journalism.

2. SAT/ACT preparation tutor

How much it pays: Around $22/hour 

For those with strong standardized testing scores, SAT and/or ACT preparation tutoring may be a lucrative option. Standardized testing tutoring is also a remote side hustle that allows for greater schedule flexibility, Frana says.

3. Brand ambassador or social media manager

How much it pays: Around $19/hour

Brand ambassadors partner with companies to promote their content via social media. For those who enjoy social media and content creation, brand ambassadorships and social media management might be a good fit, Frana says.

4. Virtual assistant

How much it pays: Around $34/hour

​​For those with a knack for organization, virtual assistant side gigs might be an option. Virtual assistant positions typically require students to respond to emails, schedule meetings, arrange travel plans and keep track of schedules.

Virtual assistant salaries vary, but the position is remote and may allow college students to work while enrolled in classes. 

5. Graphic designer

How much it pays: Around $32/hour

Graphic design side hustle opportunities allow those with creative and artistic skills to visualize and create graphics, illustrations, logos and layouts. These gigs can often be short-term opportunities, granting students plenty of flexibility.

6. Food delivery

How much it pays: Around $19/hour, though salary varies based on location

College campuses are often high in demand for food delivery services, and students can take advantage by working for companies such as DoorDash, Postmates or Uber Eats.

Food delivery, whether conducted by bike, scooter, or car, allows students to make money whenever they have time in their busy schedules.

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Within four years of graduation, some majors stand to earn as much as $256,539, while others make less than $10,000 per year, according to a new report from The HEA Group, a research and higher education consulting firm. 

The top-earning majors are in so-called STEM fields, or degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Half of the top 10 majors with graduates making the most money are subsets of engineering. 

Michael Itzkowitz, the founder and president of The HEA Group, analyzed data collected by the U.S. Department of Education from more than two million students who received federal financial aid and graduated in 2015 or 2016. Their earnings were measured in 2019 and 2020. 

Here are the 10 highest-paying college majors, four years after graduation: 

The majors with the highest earning potential tend to provide specialized, technical training in an in-demand field, like health care or technology, says Itzkowitz. 

Nuclear engineering majors earn the most, with a median annual salary of $131,454. Increasing calls for clean, renewable energy has spurred demand for nuclear engineers amid challenges with wind and solar power. 

Engineers, in general, are needed in a wide variety of industries, including manufacturing, cybersecurity, construction and agriculture, says Itzkowitz. Chemical engineers and industrial engineers, which have consistently been two of the highest-paying college majors over the past few years, are also two of the occupations projected to grow the most by 2031, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

Biology is another major that can open doors to a wide range of high-paying opportunities, and not just in the medical field, Itzkowitz says. 

"While many biology majors may have ambitions to go to medical school, some do not, and have no trouble finding jobs with competitive salaries, like a biotechnologist or research scientist, right after college," says Itzkowtiz.

Similarly, veterinary medicine is a field that includes a wide range of majors, from veterinary technicians to "pre-vet" programs for veterinarians, a job that requires a doctor of veterinary medicine degree in addition to a bachelor's degree. The U.S. Department of Education's data does not include the salaries for people who are currently enrolled in advanced degree programs, like medical and business school.

The non-engineering majors in the top 10 are biomathematics, marine transportation, veterinary medicine, computer science and operations research, which typically focuses on the development and application of mathematical or simulation models to solve problems with operational systems. 

Jeff Levy, an independent educational consultant in Santa Monica, warns students not to pick a major solely because of its potential salary. As he previously told CNBC Make It, "There's no way of knowing, with 100% certainty, which professions will pay the best in 5, 10 years."

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The earliest evidence of notaries dates back to 2750 BC in ancient Egypt, where these chroniclers verified official communications including proclamations and tax documents. 

Notaries, or notary publics, witness and authorize the signing of important documents, like passport applications and real estate contracts. 

While the essence of their job remains the same, the profession has since evolved to include notary signing agents, or notaries who specialize in property records and loan documents — an in-demand service that people are willing to pay a lot of money for. 

Most notary publics can only charge what their state dictates; notary signing agents, on the other hand, can charge more for handling sensitive mortgage or loan packages, often on tight deadlines.

The gig is often flexible, and you can earn as much as $20,000 a month as a part-time agent, according to the National Notary Association. 

Here’s how to start a side hustle as a notary signing agent. 

Becoming a notary signing agent can take less than a month — and doesn’t require a degree

The requirements for becoming a notary vary from state to state, but generally, the process includes the following steps:

• Send an application and fee to your state’s regulating office
• Receive your verified commission documents in the mail
• Take your oath of office

To become a notary, you must be at least 18 years old. There are no educational requirements, but some states, including California and New York, require notaries to take a training course and pass an hour-long exam. Other states might also require you to pass a background check and file a surety bond as part of the process (you can check your state’s rules here). 

To become a signing agent, Kat Garcia, the senior manager of content strategy at the National Notary Association, recommends taking a loan signing training course and passing a second exam that is compliant with the Signing Professionals Workgroup, the industry workgroup that dictates professional standards for signing agents. 

Although no exam or training is required for signing agents beyond the general notary process, a training course and a passing score on an exam are “smart ways to prove you’ve been formally educated in the complex process of mortgage closings,” according to the National Notary Association. 

The process to become a signing agent can take anywhere from 4-9 weeks, Garcia adds, depending on how quickly the state can process your application. 

The startup cost is under $1,000

Generally, notary signing agents need three supplies: a notary stamp, a journal for keeping a record of your notarizations and your notary commission, which is an official license to notarize from the state. 

The startup costs to become a signing agent can range anywhere from $250 to $500 or higher, depending on your state’s requirements to become a notary, says Mark Wills, the owner of Loan Signing System and a signing agent of 21 years. This includes the cost of any notary/notary signing agent courses, exams, background screenings, supplies and application fees. 

Signing agents can make up to $200 per hour

Since many states cap the maximum amount a notary can charge per signature, signing agents make the bulk of their profit from loan signing fees for additional services or expertise, Wills explains.

For example, you can hire a signing agent who will meet you at your home or office for the appointment, in which case, the agent can charge a per-mile travel fee. In addition, signing agents may add clerical or administrative fees to their final bill. 

Loan signing agents are typically paid anywhere between $75 and $200 per hour-long appointment, says Wills, and will most often work with real estate agents, loan officers and escrow and title companies. 

To find clients, Garcia recommends the following: 

• Network with real estate agents and mortgage brokers. These professionals often need notary services for their clients.
• Advertise your services online. You can also create a Google Business profile or website to promote your services.
• Become a member of a notary signing agent association. This can help you connect with other notaries and learn about industry trends.

Angelina Nguyen, a signing agent in San Jose, aims to do at least two signings per day, charging anywhere between $75-$200, and sometimes an even higher rate, depending on the type of document that needs to be notarized and how far the appointment is from her home office.

Some signings take a few minutes, while others can take an hour. On average, Nguyen says she works “less than six hours a day.” 

Wills’ favorite part of being a signing agent, he adds, is the flexible hours. “People’s work schedules are all over the place, so a lot of people will need a signing agent at 8 a.m., 12 p.m., after 5 p.m. or on weekends,” he explains. “I would say at least 70% of signing appointments are in the evening or on weekends, so this is the perfect, flexible side hustle for someone with a day job.”

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The U.S. Office of Personnel Management, OPM, introduced a proposal this week that would bar hiring managers from asking candidates about their salary history, and it could impact 1.5 million roles, Axios reports.

Pay equity advocates say the salary history question perpetuates cycles of marginalized workers, namely women and people of color, being underpaid by basing their new pay on previous earnings, which could be artificially low due to discrimination.

On average, women in the U.S. are paid 84 cents for every dollar paid to a man, and the gap widens for many women of color.

The pay for government jobs tends to be more transparent than private-sector roles. Agencies are required by law to post the starting pay on job announcements, and some government job boards require the full salary range be listed on openings. There’s generally also a more structured timeline and process for raises and promotions compared to jobs in the private sector.

But a gender pay gap still exists, the OPM reports, with women in the federal workforce earning an average of 94 cents for every dollar paid to a man, or a 6% difference. The gap widens for women of color — 15% for Black women in comparison to what white men are paid, and 27% for Native women.

Agency officials hope to “root out some of the historical pay inequities that are more prevalent outside of federal government,” Rob Shriver, deputy director of OPM, told Axios. “We don’t want to be bringing those into the federal government.”

Banning the salary history question can improve the wage gap

Twenty-one states and 22 localities already have laws that prohibit employers from asking about a candidate’s salary history, and more could be on the way, especially if efforts at the federal level move forward.

Research shows women earn more when they’re not required to disclose their previous pay in job interviews. One April 2020 paper found that women’s earnings increased relative to men’s earnings in states with salary history bans, and another from 2021 suggests removing salary history from the hiring process increases job mobility, hourly wages and weekly earnings for workers who entered the job market during a recession.

When employers aren’t allowed to ask about a candidate’s previous earnings, they end up getting more information to evaluate applicants and hire qualified workers who had lower wages in the past.

So far, salary history bans tend to be followed by a sharp increase in job postings that outright list salary ranges, research shows.

Of course, making pay more transparent won’t fix the wage gap on its own. The OPM notes a big reason why men and women are paid differently is that women are more likely to have jobs classified at lower levels with less pay, whereas men are more likely to be in senior-level positions with higher pay.

Now that the proposal has been published into the Federal Register as of Thursday, it’s open for public comments for the next 30 days. At the end of those 30 days, the agency will decide whether to proceed with the rulemaking process or issue a new or modified proposal.

One big wrench in the plan is an ongoing standoff between the White House and Congressional Republicans over the nation’s debt limit. If Congress doesn’t agree to lift the debt ceiling by a projected June 1 deadline, the government will default on its debt, and more than 2 million federal civilian workers could see their paychecks delayed.

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The unemployment rate dipped to 3.4%, matching a 54-year low, the Labor Department said Friday. But the jobless rate fell in part because 43,000 people left the labor force, the first drop since November, and were no longer counted as unemployed.

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In its report Friday, the government noted that while hiring was solid in April, it was much weaker in February and March than it had previously estimated. And hourly wages rose last month at the fastest pace since July, which may alarm the inflation fighters at the Federal Reserve.

April’s hiring gain compares with 165,000 in March and 248,000 in February and is still at a level considered vigorous by historical standards. The job market has remained durable despite the Fed’s aggressive campaign of interest rate hikes over the past year to fight inflation. Layoffs are still relatively low, job openings comparatively high.

Still, the ever-higher borrowing costs the Fed has engineered have weakened some key sectors of the economy, notably the housing market. But overall, the job market has remained stable. Fed Chair Jerome Powell himself sounded somewhat mystified this week by the job market’s durability. The central bank has expressed concern that a robust job market exerts upward pressure on wages — and prices. It hopes to achieve a so-called soft landing – cooling the economy and the labor market just enough to tame inflation yet not so much as to trigger a recession.

One way to do that, Powell has said, is for employers to post fewer job openings. And indeed the government reported this week that job openings fell in March to 9.6 million — a still-high figure but down from a peak of 12 million in March 2022 and the fewest in nearly two years.

At the staffing firm Robert half, executive director Ryan Sutton said he still sees “pent-up demand’’ for workers.

Applicants, not employers, still enjoy the advantage, he said: To attract and keep workers, he said, businesses — especially small ones — must offer flexible hours and the chance to work from home when possible.

“Giving a little bit of schedule flexibility so that somebody might finish their work late or early so that they can take care of children and family and elderly parents — these are the things that the modern employee needs,’’ Sutton said. “To not offer those and to try to still have a 2019 business model of five days a week in an office — that’s going to put you at a disadvantage” in finding and retaining talent.

Powell has said he is optimistic that the nation can avoid a recession. Yet many economists are skeptical and have said they expect a downturn to begin sometime this year.

Still, steadily rising borrowing costs have inflicted some damage. Pounded by higher mortgage rates, sales of existing homes were down a sharp 22% in March from a year earlier. Investment in housing has cratered over the past year.

America’s factories are slumping, too. An index produced by the Institute for Supply Management, an organization of purchasing managers, has signaled a contraction in manufacturing for six straight months.

Even consumers, who drive about 70% of economic activity and who have been spending healthily since the pandemic recession ended three years ago, are showing signs of exhaustion: Retail sales fell in February and March after having begun the year with a bang.

The Fed’s rate hikes are hardly the economy’s only serious threat. Congressional Republicans are threatening to let the federal government default on its debt, by refusing to raise the limit on what it can borrow, if Democrats don’t accept sharp cuts in federal spending. A first-ever default on the federal debt would shatter the market for U.S. Treasurys — the world’s biggest — and possibly cause an international financial crisis.

The global backdrop already looks gloomier. The International Monetary Fund last month downgraded its forecast for worldwide growth, citing rising interest rates around the world, financial uncertainty and chronic inflation.

Since March, America’s financial system has been rattled by three of the four biggest bank failures in U.S. history. Worried that jittery depositors will withdraw their money, banks are likely to reduce lending to conserve cash. Multiplied across the banking industry, that trend could cause a credit crunch that would hobble the economy.

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Search interest for the question “Can you do internships after graduation?” increased by 1,850% between January 2021 and March 2023, according to Google search data from Semrush provided to CNBC Make It.

A jump in these searches through 2021 makes sense, since entry-level jobs were among the hardest hit during the pandemic, and new grads may have sought out internships as a stepping stone in a sour job market, says Christine Cruzvergara, chief education strategy officer at the college and new-grad career site Handshake.

The surge in internship searches remains strong two years later, painting a picture of a job market where some of the youngest workers are still unsure or unable to take full-time work after graduation.

Recent reports from Handshake show that the class of 2023 is concerned about job stability and financial security given the current job market, where some sectors have labor shortages but there’s even more stress around major layoffs by the day.

As a result, many have soured on the allure of a Big Tech dream job and are considering more stability with stakeholders across manufacturing, retail and banking.

“This class of students and recent grads are likely still wrapping their heads around, ‘I thought I wanted to go into X, and now that’s not an option anymore, so how else might I be able to use my skills? What other industries can I look at?'” Cruzvergara says.

As for the most popular internships of recent years, the top 10 most searched-for intern roles from January 2021 to March 2023, based on Semrush data, include:

1. Accountant internships
2. Graphic designer internships
3. Mechanical engineer internships
4. Psychologist internships
5. Engineer internships
6. Data analyst internships
7. Electrical engineer internships
8. Social worker internships
9. Civil engineer internships
10. Nurse internships

Economic instability in recent years could be driving people, not just students, to consider jobs in less volatile sectors, says Eugene Levin, president at Semrush. “The fact that accounting, graphic design, mechanical engineering, social work and other internships are highly-searched is not surprising, because they are important professions that require good training and experience that internships could provide,” he says.

Meanwhile, some nontraditional roles outside the office have seen the fastest-growing search interest since the early days of the pandemic, according to Semrush data. For example, searches for internships to be a forensic science technician skyrocketed by 300% since 2021, while interest in barber openings are up by 250%.

“Just as nontraditional roles and remote jobs have grown in popularity, we’re also seeing increased interest in flexible conditions and even jobs that require little human interaction,” Levin says.

Pandemic disruptions have “encouraged professionals of all ages to consider what path they truly want to follow. Students are certainly contributing to these trends as the modern workplace evolves, in a testament to what the new generation of workers is looking for in their careers.”

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Instead, when asked about their top concern about the work landscape, 21% said they were most worried about finding a role that affords them work-life balance. Not far behind, 19% of new grads are concerned about not finding a job they’re passionate about, while another 18% say potential layoffs are their biggest worry.

Reports of academic burnout from college students got worse during the pandemic and remains a problem: As of 2022, 2 in 5 undergrads say they frequently feel stress while attending school, according to research from Gallup and the Lumina Foundation. More than 40% said they considered dropping out in the previous six months, up from 34% during the first year of the pandemic, with most citing emotional stress and mental health concerns as their top reason above financial strain and difficult coursework.

And U.S. workers experience some of the highest rates of work burnout in the world — it's especially bad for Gen Z, millennials and women — so it's not a stretch to see how the labor force's newest hires are concerned about working a job while still maintaining a personal life.

It's possible young workers see burned out senior colleagues, or even their own parents, as a warning sign of what they don't want in a career, says Angelique Bellmer Krembs, CMO-in-Residence at A.Team who's served in executive roles at BlackRock, PepsiCo, and News Corp.

She points to recent data from LeanIn.org and McKinsey & Company that shows women leaders are leaving their organizations at the highest rate ever, widening the quitting gap between women and men in senior roles.

Gen Z's calls for work-life balance could reshape workplace culture

Others see the focus on work-life balance as a good thing, though.

"I credit social media with normalizing people's mental health challenges," says Jenny Dearborn, who's held chief HR roles at companies like Hewlett-Packard, SuccessFactors and SAP.

An openness among Gen Z and young millennials could have a positive impact on work cultures that want to bring in and support this talent.

"On a collective basis, it's very healthy how comfortable people are about saying, 'I need more sleep. I am lonely. I need time to be with friends. I need to focus on my mental health,'" Dearborn says.

Young professionals may also see work-life balance as something more holistic than setting boundaries around a 9-to-5 from Monday through Friday, adds Christine Cruzvergara, the chief education strategy officer at Handshake, the college student and new-grad career site.

In other words, do they have policies and support for employees' overall wellbeing? Do they have employee assistance programs around mental health? Are mental health days offered?

"This generation wants employers that will actually walk the talk and will be consistent about what they care about," Cruzvergara says.

The class of 2023 prizes job stability and financial security most of all, according to recent Handshake reports, though they still want to work for companies that do good.

A majority, 65% would choose a job with slightly lower pay if it meant working at a company whose mission aligns with their personal values, according to the A.Team survey. But it's still not their top desire in a new job: 33% of new grads say the option to work remotely is their most important factor in their job search, compared with 25% who say alignment with a company's values is their top priority.

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This relates to a wide range of reasons, from technological advancements to climate change. But one thing is certain: many workers will have to adapt.  

Having the skills to navigate this change — and maybe even new job requirements — is therefore crucial.

In its latest “Future of Jobs” report, WEF lays out which skills are key right now, and which will become vital in the coming years. The report is based in a survey of 803 companies in 27 industry clusters in 45 different economies.

Analytical and creative thinking skills take the top spots for what companies are expecting from workers right now. Self-efficacy skills, including being resilient, flexible and agile, being motivated and self-aware, and curious and committed to lifelong learning, round out the top five.

This is “in recognition of the importance of workers ability to adapt to disrupted workplaces,” the report said.

Only one technology-related skill — technological literacy — makes it into the top 10 at sixth place. The ability to understand and work with AI and big data currently ranks 15^th .

The newest ranking reflects some changes from the last iteration of this survey, which was published in 2020.

“Comparisons to previous surveys suggest that creative thinking is increasing in importance relative to analytical thinking as workplace tasks become increasingly automated,” the report said.

“In 2018 and 2020, the number of surveyed companies that considered analytical thinking to be a core skill outnumbered those considering creative thinking to be a core skill by a margin of 35% and 38%, respectively. That gap has now decreased to 21% and may continue to close.”

Emerging skills

Further shifts to which skills are expected to be most in demand are expected, according to WEF. “Employers estimate that 44% of workers’ skills will be disrupted in the next five years,” the report said.

Creative thinking is the skill that is expected to increase in importance the most, followed by analytical thinking and technological literacy. The latter is especially important as technological developments will be a key driver of new jobs emerging and existing ones being eliminated, which the WEF report also covers.

AI and big data knowledge comes in seventh place as the sector has been booming recently, raising concerns about how disruptive artificial intelligence will be to jobs. Soft skills like curiosity and lifelong learning, and resilience, flexibility and agility are also set to become increasingly vital for workers, coming in fourth and fifth place respectively.

On the other side of the scale, physical skills are among those that could be less important in the future.

“While respondents judged no skills to be in net decline, sizable minorities of companies judge reading, writing and mathematics; global citizenship; sensory-processing abilities; and manual dexterity, endurance and precision to be of declining importance for their workers,” the report said.  

The top 10 most important skills

These are the 10 most important skills for workers this year, according to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs report.

1. Analytical thinking

2. Creative thinking

3. Resilience, flexibility, and agility

4. Motivation and self-awareness

5. Curiosity and lifelong learning

6. Technological literacy

7. Dependability and attention to detail

8. Empathy and active listening

9. Leadership and social influence

10. Quality control

A recent report by Goldman Sachs laid out some stark possibilities when it comes to AI and the economy. The report estimates two-thirds of jobs in the U.S. and Europe, and around 300 million positions worldwide could be exposed to automation from new AI advances. The report also notes that one-fourth of all work being done could be replaced by generative AI.

“The interaction between humans and AI will become more and more prevalent as we move forward,” said Georgios Petropoulos, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Initiative on the Digital Economy. “Then we will see that they can be really good because they can increase our productivity or efficiency, we can be much more productive in the tasks we are doing.”

Watch the video above to find out more about how AI could change the future of work

Then I did my 2018 taxes and discovered I owed the U.S. government $2,798 and New York state $345 from the full-time freelance work I’d done the year before.

I made a long-term plan to pay it off but apparently clicked the wrong button and woke up the following day to discover an alarming new bank account balance: negative $1,243. Like most Americans, I did not have $1,243.

I was lucky. A family member was able to lend me $1,243 at no interest, as well as an extra $50 so I wouldn’t starve till my next payday. But I did need to pay back the money as soon as I could.

I started looking for work outside of my day job to help cover the bill. Among the various side hustle sites I perused was internet jungle Craigslist. That’s when I saw an ad I couldn’t really believe.

“Help me find love online,” it read.

‘You will facilitate some dates with guys who have all their teeth’

“Looking for a funny, smart writer, actor or creative to online date for me,” it began.

“I will give you access to my accounts. You will facilitate some dates with guys who have all their teeth, a job and some other criteria I’ll tell you about later. You can do it while waiting for the bus, from your couch, from the toilet.” She was a local creative, she wrote, and was tired of the online dating grind. She wanted someone to handle the apps so she could just show up on the dates.

Qualifications for the gig included the following:

• “Must writing goodly — seriously, though, I’m trying to match with intelligent, well-educated men”
• “Must be confident and a damn good flirt”
• “I don’t care about your gender as long as you’re into men — otherwise I think this will all be too abstract”
• “Must have at least one long-term relationship (over a year) under your belt, so that you have a sense of what an emotionally available man presents like”

To apply, she said, share a resume, a note about what interests you about the gig and “a brief description of YOUR dream man.” She’d pay $25 per hour or a flat rate per date you arranged.

Getting paid to ‘help a badass lady find some man gold’

I couldn’t believe it. This gig actually sounded fun.

I’m a professional wordsmith, I said in the email I immediately sent, so I was capable of “writing goodly.” I’ve been dabbling with dating apps for years so have a handle on how those things work. My dream man is kind of elusive but loosely he’s kind, intelligent and quietly confident, perhaps Andrew Garfield.

I could fully relate to her dating app woes. “If I can help a badass lady find some man gold,” I wrote, “that feels like a pretty major win.”

Within hours, I got a response: “Hey Gili, let’s talk.”

We Skyped the following day then met up for drinks at a wine bar in Brooklyn to hammer out details. I’d swipe and text on her behalf using her profiles on apps like Bumble and OkCupid. She’d give final approval, and then I’d set up the dates.

Pay was $100 upfront then $150 for each date.

‘Dreams DO come true’

The gig didn’t last long. Over the next three or so weeks, I swiped on and chatted up likely dozens of guys at night and on lunch breaks. I must have spent at least 20 hours doing this.

It felt kind of bizarre. When I was texting as me, I always felt comfortable being a goof. But I was pretending to be someone else and didn’t want to say anything that wasn’t authentic. I found myself regularly turning down any natural sass.

The other challenge was that given the fact that my client was paying $150 per date, she was picky. There was plenty of interest on the guys’ parts. But there was often a reason she wouldn’t move forward. Some dudes were a little too forward. Some a little too old. Some were too reminiscent of exes.

Eventually I told her that, though I understood why she was picky, it meant I did hours of work without getting paid. And the gig sort of fizzled from there. Altogether, all I made was that initial $100.

We lost touch over the pandemic, but I reached out recently to see how she’s doing. Turns out she reconnected with and has been happily dating someone she met on Tinder before she and I even embarked on our personal Cyrano de Bergerac.

“Dreams DO come true,” she said.

As for my own 2019 objective, through various side gigs and vigorous saving, I paid off the $1,293 by fall.

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Hiring The Newest Graduating Class

A study published by the National Association of Colleges and Employers says that employers are looking to hire more 2023 graduates than those who received their diploma in 2022.

But, that year-to-year difference has gotten slimmer. A 14.7% increase from 2022 hiring was projected in the fall, but the update released this spring only details that employers are expecting a 3.9% increase in hiring recent graduates.

These results came from a survey conducted from February 6-March 13, 2023.

That same report also acknowledged the difference in hiring between industries. Utility and information companies are predicting a decrease in hiring, while those in the transportation and chemical/pharmaceutical manufacturing industries are looking towards a hiring increase.

A Season of Layoffs

And new-degree holders are joining the job market while sets of large layoffs sweep some well-known company names.

Disney began its second round of layoffs earlier this week, with plans to eliminate 7,000 jobs in total. About 4,000 people have been affected so far at the company home to ESPN and Disney Parks, Experiences and Products.

Meta and Amazon are among the tech names laying off some of their workforce. Around 21,000 jobs are expected to be lost, according to Meta, and Amazon started its layoff process on Wednesday.

Gap, Lyft, Whole Foods and Walmart either have already laid off employees as well, or have plans to do so. Forbes spells out some of these workforce changes in a layoff timeline that stretches through 2023.

Job Hunting in NYC

Once graduates get their diplomas, one top consideration is what city or town they will call their new home.

And bringing a briefcase to the Big Apple could be a popular challenge.

The career-service Handshake produced a report that details where students in each region of the country hope to work. At the time of the report, New York City was at the top of the list for students in the Northeast, and the runner-up in the remaining West, Midwest, and South regions.

So, when it’s time to make the big move, it’s worth taking a look at which neighborhoods and boroughs might be a good fit in the current real estate market, with places in Brooklyn particularly on the rise.

If you yourself are considering picking up some freelance work — full or part-time — some skills may be more sought after than others. Work marketplace Upwork recently predicted the most in-demand skills for freelancers for 2023, looking at previous freelancer earnings, number of projects worked and other metrics.

Businesses are “not necessarily going to have the expertise they need in-house for every single thing they need to get done,” says Margaret Lilani, vice president of talent solutions at Upwork. “And so being able to tap into a network of independent talent who can parachute in” will be hugely valuable moving forward.

Here are five of the most in-demand skills for 2023 according to Upwork, including what freelancers on the platform are charging for them.

Full stack development

Full stack developers build the back end of software and websites using programming languages like Python and Java, as well as the front-end using HTML and JavaScript. They ensure their products give customers a smooth user experience.

Full stack developers on Upwork charge as much as $160 per hour.

SEO

Search engine optimization helps companies ensure their websites have the best chance of being found on search engines like Google and Bing. Experts will fill a site with terms relevant to its products and services, among other tactics, to let search engines know what the company is offering.

SEO experts on Upwork charge as much as $250 per hour.

Email, phone and chat support

When customers need answers about a company’s products or something they recently bought, they turn to its customer service. These representatives address customer requests via email, phone or chat and ensure their needs are met.

They charge as much as $40 per hour.

Accounting

Accountants audit and analyze their clients’ financial statements, prepare tax-related paperwork and advise on cost-saving measures. Some employers may require a CPA certification to be hired.  

Accountants on Upwork charge as much as $150 per hour.

Graphic design

Graphic designers create visuals for their clients’ various consumer-facing material including websites, brochures, social media posts and more. They help build a cohesive look that communicates the company’s brand and hook in the desired audience.

They charge as much as $145 per hour.

Each of these skills touches on a different critical need of a business. When it comes to full stack development, for example, “every business out there is going to be using some form of technology,” says Lilani, “and so it’s no surprise that businesses are going to be looking to freelance talent to help create their products.”

And “accounting is very much on the rise,” says Lilani, because “companies have to get their books right.” In fact, the skill saw a 45% year-over-year growth on Upwork.

Whatever the larger economic landscape, when it comes to hiring freelancers, “it works during times when people are tightening the belt,” she says, “but it also works in times when growth is happening really rapidly. Because in times when growth is happening really rapidly you need to get talent in the door.”

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Nationally, roughly 12% of job openings explicitly allow remote work at least one day a week, according to data from WFH Map, a group of economists and researchers measuring the lasting impacts of remote work, and Lightcast, a labor-market analytics firm with access to online job postings across the nation.

But some major cities are offering far and away more flexibility for people to work remotely. The No. 1 U.S. city to find a job with remote flexibility is Lansing, Michigan, where as much as 39% of job descriptions explicitly say people can work from home as of February 2023. Close behind is Topeka, Kansas, where 32% of current job openings openly state they allow candidates to work remotely at least one day a week.

Here are the top 10 U.S. cities with the highest shares of job openings offering remote work, plus the share of remote openings in each city:

1. Lansing, Mich.: 39%
2. Topeka, Kansas: 32%
3. San Francisco: 30%
4. Reston, Virginia: 30%
5. Ann Arbor, Mich.: 29%
6. Washington, D.C.: 27%
7. Salem, Oregon: 25%
8. McLean, Virginia: 25%
9. Chicago: 24%
10. Boston: 24%

Overall, cities with a greater white-collar workforce, especially in government, tech and education, have the highest share of job ads offering remote or hybrid work arrangements, says Peter Lambert, a Ph.D. candidate at the London School of Economics and Political Science and member of the WFH Maps research team.

For example, Lansing, Topeka, D.C. and Salem are hubs for government roles and administrative work. Reston and McLean in Virginia are part of the Washington, D.C., metro area.

Meanwhile, Lambert says, San Francisco and Reston are both large tech markets, and Ann Arbor has a large pool of jobs across education and professional services jobs.

Markets with labor shortages and a high share of job vacancies are more likely to have openings that will allow remote work, compared with cities where hiring has returned to pre-pandemic levels.

Lambert says he expects this gap to widen in the future, and that more businesses will realize hybrid and remote work is the “new normal” and will “begin offering it explicitly to new hires in larger numbers throughout 2023.”

When compared with international counterparts, the share of remote job openings in the U.S. is similar to what’s being offered in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, hovering around 11% to 12%. The U.K., meanwhile, stands out with about 18% of jobs open to remote work as of February.

Previous LinkedIn data show the share of people working primarily remotely in the U.S. has been shrinking since January 2021 but saw a slight rebound in early 2023.

As of January, 13% of full-time U.S. workers are fully remote, 28% are in a hybrid arrangement, and a majority, 59%, are back in the office full-time, according to data from WFH Research, the research group studying attitudes and behaviors around remote work throughout the pandemic.

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“I hate to say this, but I didn’t give notice. I got my stuff, went to Texas, and told my manager when I got there, ‘I’m sorry, I’ve got to go. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,'” Tucker told CNBC Make It.

Tucker, now 29, has been on the road ever since, picking up travel-nursing contracts that range from four to 13 weeks long. While on contract, he typically works 48- to 60-hour weeks, putting in long shifts to maximize overtime pay.

The goal behind all that overtime is downtime. Tucker works only nine months out of the year and spends the rest of his time back in South Carolina or on vacation. His 2022 income: $187,000.

“I absolutely love living in Spartanburg and being a travel nurse. Spartanburg has a small-town feel. I know everyone here. I have family here,” he says. “The big benefit is the low cost of living in South Carolina. I’m able to have a high salary as a travel nurse, but come back to where the cost of living is low.”

The advantages and drawbacks of travel nursing

For someone like Tucker, who says he has dreamed of traveling since childhood, travel nursing offers some obvious appeal. His jobs have taken him all over, from Rhode Island to California.

As a profession, it’s a no-doubt price performer. Tucker began his career as a travel nurse after earning an associate’s degree. On average, a four-year undergraduate degree will cost about $29,000 per year, compared with just over $11,000 for two-year degrees, according to the latest data from the National Center for Education Statistics.

A more expensive education often coincides with a higher salary. The median annual pay among American workers with a bachelor’s degree is about $69,000, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Those with an associate’s degree average just over $50,000.

Travel nursing bucks that trend — but it isn’t for everyone. It comes with drawbacks both personal and financial.

Time away from family

Life on the road means time away from your usual support system. “I’m away from home, I’m away from family, I’m away from my dog,” says Tucker. “I’m way outside my comfort zone — usually in different cities or different states. It does have its challenges.”

A tricky work environment

Hospitals bring in travel nurses when they need extra staff pronto, so there’s no time to ease into things.

“As a staff nurse you may get eight, 10, even 13 weeks to get [integrated] working there, but as a travel nurse, you get a day,” Tucker says. That may mean learning new workflows amid language barriers or with staff that’s less than delighted you’re there.

It’s not unusual for staff nurses to ask him about his pay, Tucker says.

“In their mind they’re thinking, ‘This company doesn’t want to pay us, but they’re willing to pay somebody to come here for a short period of time to make this kind of money.’ It creates a little bit of animosity there,” he says.

Spotty health care

What’s more, travel nurses pay premiums for health insurance when they’re under contract but aren’t covered between jobs. “I try to think smart and get everything done while I’m under that contract,” Tucker says.

Recently, that meant getting aching wisdom teeth pulled while working in California.

That also means when he’s on break, he’s learned to live cautiously. “I used to play a lot of basketball and stuff. And now I’m like, ‘If I don’t have health insurance, I can’t go ahead and break my leg.'”

Complicated finances

If you’re not willing to live a completely nomadic lifestyle, being on the road means paying for a lot of things twice.

In December 2022, while working in Fresno, California, Tucker paid for a mortgage on his house in Spartanburg, plus the cost of a long-term stay in an Airbnb. He paid for a rental car for the month in addition to the payment on his truck. He also took care of his living expenses while paying friends to walk his dogs and keep an eye on his house and cars.

Tucker’s solution to defray the costs: earning extra income from real estate. He recently purchased a duplex in Spartanburg and rents half the home to a long-term renter while listing the other half on Airbnb. He’s planning to rent his primary residence too when he’s out of town.

In fact, that’s how Tucker hopes to use real estate income to replace or supplement his salary when he eventually stops travel nursing.

“I want to create more real estate opportunities for myself [so] that I can work less and less,” he says.

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A majority, 61%, of workers say they’d rather have a four-day workweek than the traditional five, and 33% say they’d quit their job to for one with a shortened week, according to a Monster survey of 868 workers conducted in March.

That’s a “significant” share, says Vicki Salemi, career expert at Monster, adding that the numbers show a shift in workers reconsidering how they prioritize their time on and off the clock.

The timing is interesting, too: While major companies across tech and finance have announced major layoffs recently, Salemi says many workers still feel empowered in expecting more flexibility at work. Some seasonal attitudes may be at play, she adds, like people thinking ahead to summer travel plans and wanting shorter workweeks to accommodate for them.

Half of those surveyed say they’d be more productive with a shortened workweek, and 10% would even take a pay cut for the benefit.

Companies and lawmakers want to experiment with shortened weeks

For decades, the four-day workweek has been seen as an out-of-reach work benefit that would never catch on, but the tide is turning as more global experiments show how companies make it work.

One six-month trial run by the nonprofit 4 Day Week Global, considered to be the world’s largest four-day workweek experiment, ended on a high note: Workers reported being less burned out, more engaged, and happier with their daily work, personal lives, finances and relationships. Businesses counted the benefits, too, like higher productivity and satisfaction, which translated to higher revenue and less turnover.

Some legislators are using positive trial results to try and make shortened workweeks the law.

A new bill introduced by Maryland lawmakers in January incentivizes both public and private employers to experiment with a shortened workweek without cutting pay and benefits.

And at the federal level, California Congressman Mark Takano reintroduced his 32-hour Workweek Act to Congress, which, if passed, would officially reduce the standard definition of the workweek from 40 hours to 32 hours and mandate overtime pay for any work done beyond that time.

More companies may experiment with a shortened workweek, especially if they can’t award raises or promotions in a challenging economic environment. The share of companies offering a 4-day workweek benefit reached the 10% threshold for the first time last year, according to a recent Payscale report.

“Employees are looking for flexibility,” says Payscale pay equity analyst Ruth Thomas, “potentially as they continue to experience a decline in real wage growth [and] seeing themselves working longer hours, they’re seeking some level of return.”

Workers admit they’re not productive 5 days a week

The structure of a shortened workweek can vary a lot, with some companies opting for four 10-hour days and others cutting down to a 32-hour workweek, for example. A majority of workers from the Monster survey, 56%, say they’d be willing to work longer days in order to have three-day weekends every week.

Some of these workers may already be working 10-hour days, Salemi says, and see the value in getting a full day back to themselves even after putting in 40 hours in a week.

And more than one-third admit they’re not productive all five days out of the week anyway. Some 15% say they’ve engaged in so-called “Bare Minimum Mondays,” the new buzzword du jour that describes doing minimal work on Mondays and being productive the rest of the week; meanwhile, 22% of workers say they’re focused at the start of their week but might be less productive on Fridays.

A slim majority, 53%, of people, say they’re productive all five days of the workweek.

Overall, roughly four in 10 people from the Monster survey said they’d rather stick to a traditional five-day week.

“My first thought is maybe they’re concerned about working longer days in order to achieve fifth day off, or they wonder if they’ll really be off that fifth day,” Salemi says. “That tells me there needs to be clear definitions from employers about what their four-day workweek looks like in order to address this hesitancy.”

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The unemployment rate fell to 3.5%, not far above the 53-year low of 3.4% set in January. Last month’s job growth was down from February’s sizzling gain of 326,000.

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Friday’s government report suggested that the economy and the job market remain on solid footing despite nine rate hikes imposed over the past year by the Fed. The March job gain may lead the Fed to conclude that the pace of hiring is still putting upward pressure on wages and inflation and that further rates hikes are necessary. When the central bank tightens credit, it typically leads to higher rates on mortgages, auto loans, credit card borrowing and many business loans.

Despite last month’s brisk job growth, the latest economic signs increasingly suggest that an economic slowdown may be upon us. Manufacturing is weakening. America’s trade with the rest of the world is declining. And though restaurants, retailers and other services companies are still growing, they are doing so more slowly.

For Fed officials, taming inflation is Job One. They were slow to respond after consumer prices started surging in the spring of 2021, concluding that it was only a temporary consequence of supply bottlenecks caused by the economy’s surprisingly explosive rebound from the pandemic recession.

Only in March 2022 did the Fed begin raising its benchmark rate from near zero. In the past year, though, it has raised rates more aggressively than it had since the 1980s to attack the worst inflation bout since then.

And as borrowing costs have risen, inflation has steadily eased. The latest year-over-year consumer inflation rate — 6% — is well below the 9.1% rate it reached last June. But it’s still considerably above the Fed’s 2% target.

Complicating matters is turmoil in the financial system. Two big American banks failed in March, and higher rates and tighter credit conditions could further destabilize banks and depress borrowing and spending by consumers and businesses.

The Fed is aiming to achieve a so-called soft landing — slowing growth just enough to tame inflation without causing the world’s biggest economy to tumble into recession. Most economists doubt it will work; they expect a recession later this year.

So far, the economy has proved resilient in the face of ever-higher borrowing costs. America’s gross domestic product — the economy’s total output of goods and services — expanded at a healthy pace in second half of 2022. Yet recent data suggests that the economy is losing momentum.

On Monday, the Institute for Supply Management, an association of purchasing managers, reported that U.S. manufacturing activity contracted in March for a fifth straight month. Two days later, the ISM said that growth in services, which accounts for the vast majority of U.S. employment, had slowed sharply last month.

On Wednesday, the Commerce Department reported that U.S. exports and imports both fell in February in another sign that the global economy is weakening.

The Labor Department on Thursday said it had adjusted the way it calculates how many Americans are filing for unemployment benefits. The tweak added nearly 100,000 claims to its figures for the past two weeks and might explain why heavy layoffs in the tech industry this year had yet to show up on the unemployment rolls.

The Labor Department also reported this week that employers posted 9.9 million job openings in February, the fewest since May 2021 but still far higher than anything seen before 2021.

In its quest for a soft landing, the Fed has expressed hope that employers would ease wage pressures by advertising fewer vacancies rather than by cutting many existing jobs. The Fed also hopes that more Americans will start looking for work, thereby adding to the supply of labor and reducing pressure on employers to raise wages.

By chance, she stumbled into a side hustle that allows her to do almost exactly that: She started washing other people’s clothes through on-demand laundry platform SudShare in 2019. Last year, she made $46,000 on the platform, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It.

The earnings helped Sanya, 44 — who also makes $76,000 per year as a full-time medical laboratory technologist — and her husband open a laundromat of their own in Lanham, Maryland. Called the Laundry Room, it’s profitable, run by four employees and brings in up to $24,000 in revenue per month.

That doesn’t mean she’s shuttering her side hustle. In fact, she refers it to as an addiction.

“It’s not an easy side hustle, but if you like it, it’s easy money,” Sanya says. “But the laundry has always been my thing … It doesn’t feel like work to me.”

Starting a laundry side hustle

Because laundry was her designated chore as a child, Sanya says she can fold a load in three minutes flat. It’s a love she’s carried for years: She told her husband when they got married her dream was to open a laundromat. The couple even tried to buy one from an acquaintance in 2015, but couldn’t afford it.

In 2019, Sanya’s daughter, then six years old, was diagnosed with autism. Then, Sanya lost her job. She didn’t have time to apply for full-time roles, so she started looking for gigs that would allow her to be at home for most of the day while she finalized her daughter’s care plan.

She started on Instacart, but spent too much of her time in the car and grocery stores. One of her Instacart customers noticed her attention to detail, and suggested SudShare. She quit Instacart and joined the laundry platform that night.

Despite more people pinching pennies and working from home, Sanya became busier than ever on SudShare, she says. Even when she returned to work in a hospital in March 2020, expecting the demand for healthcare workers to skyrocket and laundry requests to plummet, she kept her SudShare profile active.

Today, she still fulfills 12 hours of laundry requests per day, with her husband and Laundry Room employees filling in the gaps while she’s at work.

“You have to sacrifice a lot to know that where you’re going, the endpoint, is going to pay off,” Sanya says. “I’ve given up family time, I’ve given up my date nights. I’ve given up a lot for SudShare at this point.”

Using the money to buy a laundromat

Last year, the laundromat Sanya and her husband tried to buy eight years prior was back on the market. They saved up enough money — partially from SudShare — to buy it outright, without a mortgage, for $200,000, she says.

The Laundry Room opened in September 2022 after Sanya and her husband spent an additional $10,000 redoing the floors and freshening its paint. Now, the 40-machine business is run day-to-day by four employees.

During a typical day, Sanya wakes up early to get her children ready for school and runs out by 8 a.m. to pick up her first loads of laundry. She takes up to six SudShare orders — three to four laundry loads each — per day. She also occasionally takes orders from Laundry Care, a competing on-demand service.

Now that she has a lot of machines at her disposal, the process is more efficient: Sanya spends just two or three hours per day at the Laundry Room, she says. Sometimes, she brings her four children along to show them the value of taking care of others.

“I refuse to accept that you can’t have good service in our community,” she says. “I’m ready to change that and that’s what I’m doing, one laundromat at a time.”

Balancing her ‘jigsaw puzzle’ daily routine

Owning a business, working a full-time job and maintaining a side hustle eat up all of Sanya’s free time. Her routine is like a “jigsaw puzzle” and she typically only sleeps four hours per night, she says.

She’d rather spend more time with her kids, she says. Her plan to achieve that goal: Open enough Laundry Rooms to turn the business into a full-fledged laundry brand, and earn enough passive income from the laundromats to leave her full-time job.

Sanya and her husband are already in the process of launching a second location, she says. After that, she’s not quite sure what her next step will be, she adds.

It won’t be easy. She’ll need to spend a lot of time working on that second location before even thinking about a third one. Turning her income passive will mean learning how to find and train more employees with managerial experience, so she can spend less time in the laundromats.

“I never thought this would happen,” Sanya says. “I never had it dreamed out on paper or anything, but I’m building on what I want it to be in the future.”

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The job market continued a gradual cooling in February but largely remains advantageous for workers, according to labor data issued Tuesday.

Job openings, a barometer of employer demand for workers, fell by 632,000 to 9.9 million in February — the lowest level since May 2021, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

There were about 1.7 job openings per unemployed worker, the lowest ratio since November 2021. However, the number of open jobs is still significantly above its pre-pandemic level. Prior to 2021, job openings had never before reached 8 million.

“The job market is cooling,” said Daniel Zhao, lead economist at Glassdoor, a career site. “It’s just cooling from a very high temperature. It’s cooling from white hot to red hot.”

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Meanwhile, about 4 million workers quit their jobs in February. While down from the peak of over 4.5 million in November 2021, the level is about 400,000 higher than the pre-pandemic high bar.

Most people who voluntarily leave their job do so for new employment; the measure is therefore a proxy for workers’ sentiment about their labor prospects.

Layoffs also remain historically low across the broad U.S. economy despite recent headlines about job cuts in the technology sector.

Indeed, by any measure, the job market is hotter than it was in 2019 — which itself was known as a job seeker’s market characterized by factors such as low unemployment and strong wage growth, Zhao said.

Despite that historical strength, workers looking for a new job may be wise to proceed with a bit more caution, labor experts said.

‘I would tell workers not to panic quite as much’

Job openings and quits surged to record levels in early 2021 as the U.S. economy reopened, consumers unleashed pent-up demand to spend money, and businesses began a flurry of hiring.

Wage growth spiked to the highest level in decades as job seekers enjoyed ample bargaining power. Layoffs declined to record lows as employers struggled to hold on to their staff.

However, the Federal Reserve has raised interest rates aggressively to cool the U.S. economy and tame persistently high inflation.

That gradual cooling seems to be playing out in the labor market. Big technology companies, for example, have cut tens of thousands of jobs. However, those layoffs don’t seem indicative of the health of the broader economy, according to labor experts.

“I think the headlines would make workers very panicky and nervous about their job security. And I would tell workers not to panic quite as much,” said Julia Pollak, chief economist at ZipRecruiter. “Historically this is still a job seeker’s market.”

“Workers are experiencing unprecedented job security — and not just job security, but choice,” Pollak added.

That said, job seekers are likely still feeling a slowdown even if the labor market is strong, Zhao said.

For example, a worker today might not have as many job offers, may get a smaller pay bump when switching jobs, or might find the job search takes a bit longer relative to the dynamic in 2021.

It’s also unclear how the recent turmoil in the banking sector may affect the labor market and economy.

“It’s a good reminder that people can still find a better job in today’s job market,” he said of the labor data issued Tuesday. “But it’s important to do your research as a job seeker. I think it’s healthy to consider whether the business or industry you’re interested in is going to be healthy moving forward, and whether that company is really a great fit.”

The job cuts would mark the second largest round of layoffs in the company’s history, adding to the 18,000 employees the tech giant said it would lay off in January. The company’s workforce doubled during the pandemic, however, in the midst of a hiring surge across almost the entire tech sector.

Tech companies have announced tens of thousands of job cuts this year.

In the memo, Jassy said the second phase of the company’s annual planning process completed this month led to the additional job cuts. He said Amazon will still hire in some strategic areas.

“Some may ask why we didn’t announce these role reductions with the ones we announced a couple months ago. The short answer is that not all of the teams were done with their analyses in the late fall; and rather than rush through these assessments without the appropriate diligence, we chose to share these decisions as we’ve made them so people had the information as soon as possible,” Jassy said.

The job cuts announced Monday will hit profitable areas for the company including its cloud computing unit AWS and its burgeoning advertising business. Twitch, the gaming platform Amazon owns, will also see some layoffs as well as Amazon’s PXT organizations, which handle human resources and other functions.

Prior layoffs had also hit PXT, the company’s stores division, which encompasses its e-commerce business as well as company’s brick-and-mortar stores such as Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go, and other departments such as the one that runs the virtual assistant Alexa.

Earlier this month, the company said it would pause construction on its headquarters building in northern Virginia, though the first phase of that project will open this June with 8,000 employees.

Like other tech companies, including Facebook parent Meta and Google parent Alphabet, Amazon ramped up hiring during the pandemic to meet the demand from homebound Americans that were increasingly buying stuff online to keep themselves safe from the virus.

Amazon’s workforce, in warehouses and offices, doubled to more than 1.6 million people in about two years. But demand slowed as the worst of the pandemic eased. The company began pausing or cancelling its warehouse expansion plans last year.

Amid growing anxiety over the potential for a recession, Amazon in the past few months shut down a subsidiary that’s been selling fabrics for nearly 30 years and shuttered its hybrid virtual, in-home care service Amazon Care among other cost-cutting moves.

Jassy said Monday given the uncertain economy and the “uncertainty that exists in the near future,” the company has chosen to be more streamlined.

He said the teams that will be impacted by the latest round of layoffs are not done making final decisions on which roles will be eliminated. The company plans to finalize those decisions by mid to late April and notify those who will be laid off.

FlexJobs, one of the most popular job boards for remote opportunities, saw a 9% increase in the number of open remote jobs on its platform between January 2022 and January 2023, Toni Frana, FlexJobs’ lead career expert, tells CNBC Make It.

Recent data from LinkedIn shows that remote work is rebounding after months of gradual decline: As of January, 50% of workers said they were mostly working onsite, while 28% said they were primarily remote, according to a survey of 5,860 professionals from Jan. 14 through Jan. 27. In November, 55% of employees were onsite and 25% were working remotely. 

To examine where remote hiring is happening the most for high-paying jobs, FlexJobs identified the occupations with the highest number of remote job openings on their site between January and March 2023 that pay more than $100,000. 

Here are the 10 most in-demand remote jobs companies are hiring for and how much they pay, according to data from FlexJobs and Payscale: 

1. Senior product marketing manager

Average salary: $132,101

2. Senior product manager

Average salary: $129,724

3. Senior data scientist

Average salary: $129,653

4. Corporate counsel

Average salary: $126,124

5. Senior data engineer

Average salary: $125,951

6. Senior product designer 

Average salary: $125,101

7. Senior software engineer 

Average salary: $124,030

8. Engineering manager

Average salary: $119,135

9. Psychiatric nurse practitioner 

Average salary: $115,594

10. Director of finance

Average salary: $114,863

The top industries offering ample remote work opportunities with six-figure salaries include accounting and finance, tech and marketing, per FlexJobs’ latest research.

These three fields have seen significant remote job growth in the last 12 months despite recent layoffs rippling across the tech and finance sectors. 

“Remote opportunities are competitive, but they’re still available,” Frana says. As she sees it, the job market has “continued to shift in favor of remote work options” since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, even as more companies require employees to return to the office.

While technical skills such as coding and web design are in demand in our increasingly digital world, soft skills, such as communication and problem-solving, are just as important for remote hiring managers. 

Frana has noticed that more companies are listing soft skills as requirements in their job listings — highlighting these skills at the top of your resume and in conversations with hiring managers can help you stand out from other remote job candidates. 

The remote job marketplace is expanding the types of flexible jobs available, she adds, pointing to psychiatric nurse practitioner, which ranks ninth on FlexJobs’ list, as an example.

Psychiatric nurse practitioners offer many of the same services psychiatrists do, including carrying out mental health assessments, leading psychotherapy sessions and prescribing medication as needed. 

The demand for behavioral health services continues to outpace the supply of available professionals who can provide this care. 

While there has been a rise in the number of master’s-level clinicians, social workers and psychiatric nurse practitioners, Behavioral Health Business reports, worker supply still lags behind demand. 

Demand for telehealth services, in particular, is expected to continue to grow: A recent report from SNS Insider estimates that the telehealth and telemedicine market will reach close to $580 billion dollars by 2030, more than 10x its current valuation (about $87 billion in 2022). 

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And a new study conducted by New York City-based financial technology firm SmartAsset shows just how much.

The company looked at 76 of the largest cities in the United States to determine what a $100,000 salary is actually worth after taxes. It adjusted those figures based on the after-tax amount and cost of living in each of them.

The findings may be even more staggering than you thought. According to SmartAsset’s data, a $100,000 annual salary in New York City amounts to only $35,791 when those factors are considered.

Ouch. That figure is good for dead last in the SmartAsset study. It can’t even buy you a Tesla. And it can barely buy you half a year of college at Columbia University, based on those tuition numbers.

Of all 76 cities assessed, $100,000 has the least stretch in New York City. Rounding out the bottom five: Honolulu, Hawaii ($36,026); San Francisco, California ($36,445); Washington, D.C. ($44,307); and Long Beach and Los Angeles, California, which tie at $44,623.

In other words, $100,000 ain’t what it used to be — and 51% of people who made more than that in December reported living paycheck to paycheck, a recent PYMNTS and LendingClub survey cited by SmartAsset found.

Check the numbers in your city using SmartAsset’s interactive map below.

Curious about New Jersey and Connecticut? Or elsewhere in New York?

Newark, New Jersey, comes in 63rd on SmartAsset's list. There, a $100,000 a year gig is worth about $57,082 when living costs and taxes are taken into account. That same six-figure salary is good for about $72,840 in Buffalo (ranked No. 31 overall). Connecticut didn't have a city represented in the study.

Want better news? Move. Seven of the 10 cities in SmartAsset's study that saw $100,000 go the farthest are in Texas, though Oklahoma City wins for lowest cost of living. Use the searchable table below and get more from SmartAsset.

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The firm, Napoli Shkolnik, filed a lawsuit in Nassau County accusing Heather Palmore of doing little to no work, failing to bring in clients and directly competing with the firm by simultaneously working for her own.

Palmore vehemently denies the allegations.

“In no way shape or form did I quit. I give 100% every single day — not only to my clients, but to my colleagues as well,” said Palmore. “They said I did no work in 2023. I performed six depositions, I did court appearances, I was engaged with my clients, I did prep.”

Palmore’s attorneys say the lawsuit is in retaliation for Palmore bringing up racial and gender discrimination at the firm.

“Napoli Shkolnik filed a lawsuit against her that’s completely frivolous, completely bogus, filled with lies, intended to disparage a hard-working and courageous attorney,” said David Gottlieb of Wigdor LLP. “They only did this because they knew Ms. Palmore was about to file a discrimination lawsuit against them. The allegations are completely false.”

Palmore, who is Black, alleges in a federal complaint that the attorneys at her former firm were “boorish bullies” and that she has been subjected to and witnessed “egregious race and disability discrimination by senior management,” calling it “standard operating procedure.”

In the suit, Palmore shows a picture of a stuffed panda bear hanging from a noose outside her office.

“When you’re talking about nooses, you’re talking about a message,” said her attorney Derek Sells, of the Cochran Firm. “That’s a message that we as African Americans understand: You need to know your place, or else you will be hung.”

An attorney for the firm told NBC New York in a statement that the bear known in the office as “Anda the Panda,” a mascot for one of their clients and that Palmore did not complain about the bear until 13 months later.

While the lawsuit accuses Palmore of slacking off, she says the firm was preventing her from working cases and cutting off her computer access.

“Just the idea that I was marginalized and told that I didn’t have the experience to handle those cases was not only insulting, but it was discrimination,” said Palmore

Napoli Shkolnik declined to speak on camera, saying they “will not be goaded into litigating these cases in the media,” and that they “will not let Palmore — who refused to do the important work of serving our clients – become a distraction.”

Sanders, a Vermont Independent and chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said Wednesday that the committee will vote March 8 on whether to issue a subpoena to Schultz.

If the vote passes — and it’s likely it would, since Democrats are in the majority on the committee — Schultz would be required to appear before the committee on March 15.

In a statement, Starbucks called Sanders’ announcement a “disappointing development” and reiterated its offer to send AJ Jones II, its chief public affairs officer, to testify instead. Starbucks said Jones has been more closely involved with the unionization effort.

At least 289 company-owned U.S. Starbucks stores have voted to unionize since late 2021. Union supporters say they want higher pay and more consistent schedules, among other issues.

Seattle-based Starbucks doesn’t support unionization, saying it already provides industry-leading benefits and can run the company more effectively when it works directly with employees.

The process has been contentious. Regional officers for the National Labor Relations Board have filed 79 complaints against the company for various issues, including failure to bargain, according to a board spokesperson. Starbucks, meanwhile, has filed 102 unfair labor practice charges against the union, Starbucks Workers United.

In a statement, Sanders said he was taking the rare step of voting to subpoena because Schultz hasn’t responded to repeated requests to meet and provide documents to the committee. Sanders wants to question Schultz about reports that it has fired more than a dozen pro-union workers, among other things.

“While Howard Schultz is a multi-billionaire who runs a very profitable multi-national corporation he must understand that he and his company are not above the law,” Sanders said.

Schultz has previously refused to appear before the committee. In a letter sent to the committee in mid-February, Starbucks noted that Schultz — a longtime Starbucks leader who came out of retirement last year to assume the interim CEO job — will be transitioning out of that role at the end of this month. Laxman Narasimhan, a former PepsiCo executive, will become Starbucks’ new CEO on April 1, but Schultz will remain on the company’s board.

He pulled the plug on the idea of remote work for city employees in 2022, saying early during his tenure as mayor: “One thing that can’t happen — you can’t stay home in your pajamas all day. That’s not who we are as a city.”

But now it seems Adams has evolved on the subject, acknowledging this week that “we are saying to our agencies come up with creative ways of having flexibility.”

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Gov. Kathy Hochul said it has been a longer transition back to office work than anyone expected, as she too had predicted (if not demanded) a more robust return to work schedule. But now it sounds like she is opening up to the idea, whether she likes it or not.

“I think the mayor is simply acknowledging the reality. We have a shortage of workers especially in government,” Hochul said, adding that a more robust office pattern could still arrive down the line. “I believe all this is transitional, it does not have to be the death sentence in five days a week ever again, but we are not quite there yet.”

In a speech in the Garment District on Wednesday, she said that more offices could become housing — something badly needed in a city experiencing a shortage of affordable housing.

“There’s a lot of square feet here,” she said.

Kathryn Wylde, of the pro-business Partnership for New York City, said the numbers tell the story. 

“Fewer than 10 percent of office workers are back five days a week,” she said. “I think the mayor is getting the message the world has changed.”

Wylde added that unless an employer — including City Hall — offers a work from home option, the job vacancies may remain unfilled.

“We are going to have to work with employees, they are driving the bus here,” said Wylde.

The change in opinion comes after a Bloomberg News study showed that the shift to remote work in Manhattan means the island’s office workers are spending about $12 billion less every year than they did before the pandemic. Workers are spending about 30 percent less time in the office, which has cut their annual near-the-office spending on food, entertainment and the like by an average of nearly $4,700 per person, according to the outlet’s analysis of data from Stanford University.

While the same is happening is other big cities, the cost on a per-person basis is more than 50 percent worse in NYC than anywhere else, Bloomberg found. The study tracks with other data sets that suggest, nearly three years after New York City’s first COVID case, people simply have not returned to full-time in-office work.

However, some neighborhoods (mainly more residential ones) have seen a surprising boost as people who work from home pop out for lunch and shop at places not used to mid-day business.

A study by WalletHub examined how employers in the 50 states and the District of Columbia stack up at hiring, and all three states in the tri-state area fall into one end of the spectrum.

To construct their ranking, WalletHub analyzed the job openings rate of each state or district, giving the rate for the latest month double weight and the rate for the last 12 months full weight.

The list, titled “States Where Employers Are Struggling the Most in Hiring,” had Connecticut, New Jersey and New York filling the 49-51 slots, respectively — meaning nowhere else in the country was it easier for employers to fill open positions.

New York, the state that the survey determined has the least problems in securing employees, had a 4.60% job openings rate in the latest month.

Alaska claimed the top spot on the list, with a 8.50% job openings rate in the latest month. West Virginia and Louisiana followed at 2nd and 3rd, respectively.

How can the job openings rate continue to decrease? WalletHub asked a group of experts to weigh in on the labor shortage.

Joelle Saad-Lessler, a dean for the School of Business at Stevens Institute of Technology, had some suggestions: “Higher wages, more flexible working conditions…maybe offer onsite childcare” were some of her keys to success for employers as they work to hire and retain talent.

Another expert, Raymond J. Keating, also gave his input. The Chief Economist of the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council thinks “a welcoming employment environment” and “making it clear that you value your people” go a long way.

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Wegmans Food Market is hiring more than 300 part-time positions for its new Astor Place store in lower Manhattan, which is scheduled to open in the fall of 2023.

The 82,000 square-foot store will open in the lower levels of 770 Broadway at the corner of Astor Place and Lafayette Street.

While the retail portion of the Wegmans Astor Place store is scheduled to open later this year, the Omakase Restaurant — which will open in the same location — will debut in the spring of 2024.

In total the Astor Place location, which will be the second store in New York City after one opened in Brooklyn in 2019, will employ more than 550 people. According to the company, most of these employees will be, not only new to the company, but will be hired locally.

WHAT OPENINGS ARE AVAILABLE?

The online applications for a variety of part-time openings, from culinary roles to customer service representatives, including overnight shifts for stocking and food production, are currently being accepted online.

Additionally, full-time job application submissions began last fall and is ongoing for certain positions, including shift leaders, food service managers, and cooks. Hiring for cashiers will begin in July.

For more information on the Astor Place location or the job openings available, click here.

Recession-like conditions rolling through the U.S. economy are likely to cause more ripples through an otherwise strong jobs market.

“Rolling recessions” has become a popular term these days for what the U.S. has faced since a slowdown that started in early 2022. The term connotes that while the economy may not meet an official recession definition, there will be sectors that will feel very much like they are in contraction.

That will be true as well for the jobs market, which overall has been strong but has seen weakness in sectors that could intensify this year, according to data from popular networking site LinkedIn.

Economists there, in fact, have identified multiple sectors that will show varying degrees of tightness this year.

“Labor markets remain tighter compared to pre-pandemic levels,” said Rand Ghayad, head of economics and global labor markets at LinkedIn. “They’re still resilient. They’re still stronger than what we’ve seen in the pre-pandemic period, but they’ve been slowing down gradually and will likely continue to slow down over the next few months.”

Various dominoes already have fallen during the rolling-recession period.

Housing entered a sharp downturn last year, and the widely followed manufacturing indexes have been pointing to contraction for several months. In addition, the most recent senior loan officer survey from the Federal Reserve noted significantly tighter credit conditions, indicating a slowdown is hitting the financial sector.

Other sectors could follow as economists broadly expect that the U.S. will see — at best — slow to moderate growth this year.

LinkedIn data, which comes from job postings and other data from the site’s more than 900 million members worldwide, is markedly different from government data in an interesting way.

Whereas the more widely following data from Bureau of Labor Statistics finds an extremely tight labor market, with nearly two open jobs for every available worker, LinkedIn’s “labor market tightness” metric has shown about a 1-to-1 ratio that even looks to be loosening a bit more.

The implications are important.

The Federal Reserve has cited the historic tightness of the labor market as motivation for its series of interest rate hikes aimed at taming inflation. If the market trends are unfolding the way LinkedIn data indicates, it could provide impetus for the central bank to ease up on its own tightening measures.

“Everything depends on what the Fed will be doing over the next couple of months,” Ghayad said.

Where the jobs will be

For job seekers, the phrase “rolling recessions” means that it will be easier to get employment in some industries, while others will be tougher.

LinkedIn identifies certain industries as having slack, meaning that employers are having an easier time filling jobs and don’t need to use as many enticements to find workers. Those industries are government administration, education and consumer services, where applicants outnumber job openings.

Moderately tight markets include, tech, entertainment, information and media, professional services, retail estate, retail and financial services. In these industries, job applicants are having an easier time finding opportunities while employers are having to step up recruitment efforts.

Extremely tight labor markets include accommodation, oil and gas, hospice and health care. LinkedIn says that in those fields “employers cannot fill vacancies fast enough.”

Though hospitality consistently has been the leader in expanding payrolls, the industry is still about half a million below its pre-pandemic level, according to BLS data. That is true even though hotels, restaurants, bars and the like have collectively raised hourly wages by about 23%.

“This industry is actually still looking to hire a lot of people. It’s the tightest industry in the United States,” Ghayad said. “There’s a lot of demand. They’re looking for people. There’s a lot of shortages. They can’t find people so these industries, services, industries, accommodation and anything that has to do with food or entertainment are booming.”

Recession fears loom

From a business standpoint, Ghayad said there have been four industries that have been recession-proof: government, utilities, education and consumer services. He does not expect to see any significant slowdown in hiring there.

Despite the seeming healthiness of the labor market, many economists think a broader recession is still ahead.

A recession survey from The Wall Street Journal sees about a 61% chance of a contraction, and the New York Fed’s recession indicator, which tracks the spread between 10-year and 3-month Treasury yields as an indicator, is pointing toward a 57% chance of a recession in the next year. That’s the highest level since 1982.

Still, Ghayad said he expects hiring to remain strong, even though LinkedIn posts mentioning words such as “layoffs,” “recession” and “open to work” have been on the rise in recent months.

“We don’t expect sort of any potential downturn to significantly impact the labor markets,” he said. “We’re in a very good position right now. There’s some cooling, but … the labor market continues to be the brightest spot in the U.S. economy.”

Remember ‘quiet quitting?’ It described the trend of employees choosing not to go above and beyond in the workplace.

Well, that was 2022. This year there’s a new vogue practice — “quiet hiring.”

“Quiet hiring is one of several trends that we’ve identified as potentially having a major impact in 2023 for the future of work,'” says Emily Rose McRae, who leads Gartner’s future of work research team. “And for some organizations, it’s going to be a game-changer.”

Despite tech layoffs dominating headlines, the larger economy remains relatively strong. However, many economists still think a recession could happen in 2023. And companies are starting to turn to quiet hiring to trim costs ahead of a potential economic downturn.

“So with all the economic uncertainty going around, employers are looking at ways to fulfill their needs without actually having to commit to growing their workforce,” says Kory Kantenga, senior economist at LinkedIn. “One way of potentially doing that is what has been called quiet hiring.”

Watch the video above to find out more about the concept of quiet hiring and its potential impact on the job market and the overall economy.

If you’re a member of that younger generation and are looking to cash in on the trend, there are plenty of hustles for you to consider. “Think about what stage in life you’re in,” says side hustle expert Kevin Ha. “You’ve got more time, probably, you’ve got the ability to live unconventionally because you’re probably by yourself.”

Here are four side hustles for Gen Z to consider.

Affiliate marketing

If social media is already second nature, you may have wondered or looked into how to monetize it.

“According to Instagram’s Trend Report, two thirds of Gen Z plan to use social media to make money this year,” says Jen Glantz, founder of Bridesmaid for Hire and the creator of the Monday Pick-Me-Up and Odd Jobs newsletter. “And the best part about that is you don’t need to be an influencer or have a million followers.”

One way to do this is through affiliate marketing. “What that means is that you promote products with a special link and if people click that link and buy, you make money,” says Glantz. You can apply to Amazon’s affiliate marketing program for example, or log onto your favorite brands’ site to see if they offer affiliate options.

Influencer Shannon Smith makes $8,600 per month in passive income from affiliate marketing on her social media posts. She suggests taking note of how other people are creating popular content and focusing on a niche subject matter and product.

Virtual assisting

Another option to consider is virtual assisting. What “virtual assistant” means can span the gamut.

“Maybe you’re really great at Excel, or you’re great at Google Docs, or you’re great at Photoshop or you’re really, really good at organization,” says Glantz. “Whatever your core skills are, you can get paid to assist someone virtually in those skills.”

Try offering your services on sites like Fiverr or Upwork, or looking for virtual assisting gigs on LinkedIn, dedicated Facebook groups or sites like Belay or Robert Half.

Virtual assistants on Upwork charge as much as $75 per hour.

Secret shopping

If you’re a fan of buying things or eating out, you might consider secret shopping.

Sites like Secret Shopper or BestMark pay or reimburse shoppers for checking the customer experience of retailers, restaurants and other business, usually between $10 to $25 per shop, according to Sidehus.com. Reviewers have been sent to a salon to see if they honored a free first visit coupon and to a video game store to see if they’d sell a game for mature audiences to an underage kid.

When it comes to restaurant assignments, “for Gen Z, it’s a good option because it’s free food,” says Ha, adding that at a young age, “you probably have more flexibility to go out to eat.” Ha himself says he made $1,700 in 2022 using secret shopping website Market Force.

Food delivery

Speaking of food, another side hustle Gen Zers might consider is food delivery. Depending on what stage of life you’re in, recent grads or college students often live in “dense areas with young people ordering food,” says Ha. That means if you take on this, you won’t have to go far to make your deliveries. “You can just be in your apartment waiting for orders,” he says.

Ha recommends using sites like Uber Eats, DoorDash and Grubhub. Ha himself delivers on his bike to save money on gas and get some fresh air and exercise. In October 2022, he says he made almost $675 delivering food with these apps.

Whatever you decide to do, know that you’re developing skills that could feed into your career. Before you dive in, ask yourself, what’s an industry you’d like to explore? Where do you want to be in five or ten years?

Bottom line, says Glantz, ask yourself, “how can this side hustle benefit my future career?”

Check out:

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Sign up now: Get smarter about your money and career with our weekly newsletter

Sleep Junkie has put out a call looking for “dairy dreamers” to test out a European sleep theory and eat different cheeses before bedtime — and get paid $1,000.

The only catch is: you’ll need to be OK with the possibility of nightmares during your sleep.

The theory the company hopes to test is one that eating cheese before bed gives you nightmares. Is it true and do different cheeses have more of an effect than others?

So, they’re hiring five so-called “dairy dreamers” to be official cheese testers before bed and document how it impacts their sleep quality. Those selected will be required to try from a provided list of cheeses each week, log their sleep quality via a sleep tracker and give a written evaluation of their sleep and energy levels throughout that week.

The study is expected to kick off in March and continue for three months, with those who complete it getting $1,000 at the end.

Cheeses will include various types like blue, hard, soft-ripened and processed – but it will also feature vegan and lactose-free options. There will be a one-week break between each cheese swap.

Candidates will need to be 21 years old, own a smartwatch or fitness tracker that tracks sleep and have a “consistent sleep schedule.” They’ll also need to be able to sleep alone during the trial period. Those with any sleep issues or dairy or lactose intolerances should not apply, according to the company.

Here at Sleep Junkie, we love all things sleep and are continually looking for new sleep-related topics to educate ourselves and our readers on. For this reason, we wanted to test out one of the most popular European sleep theories, that eating cheese before bed gives you nightmares, and see if there is any truth behind this. We also want to look at, if this is true, do different cheeses have more of an effect than others? 

In order to test this theory we are hiring a team of five ‘dairy dreamers’ to experiment on the impact that eating cheese really has on our sleep quality, energy levels and whether it increases the likelihood of nightmares. The chosen candidates will be paid for their work and all cheese costs will be expensed. Our dairy dreamers will become our official cheese testers, providing honest feedback on how eating various kinds of cheese before bed impacts their sleep quality.

” We are looking for people who are self-starters, honest, with good writing skills and enjoy both sleeping and eating,” the company said.

If you are chosen for the role, you will be expected to log your sleep quality via your sleep tracker, but also provide a written evaluation of sleep quality, energy levels throughout the week and any feedback on dreams and nightmares. You will begin work in March and will be expected to work for three-months. You will be compensated $1,000 upon completion of the study.

In order to apply you must be at least 21 years old, own a smartwatch or fitness tracker that tracks sleep, have a consistent sleep schedule, and be able to sleep alone during the trials. You should also not suffer from any current sleep issues and must not have any dairy or lactose intolerances. 

Think you’re up for the challenge?

Details on how to apply can be found here.

If you happen to be more introverted but are still looking for ways to bring in some extra cash, fear not. There are many gigs out there suitable for those who like their time alone. Gig economy apps, for example, like Uber or Doordash, “are very well suited for that because you don’t have a real boss,” says side hustle expert Kevin Ha. “You’re doing things on your own.”

Here are four side hustles for introverts to consider.

Take surveys

If you’ve got a few spare minutes and like sharing your opinions, consider taking surveys on sites like Survey Junkie and InboxDollars that pay cash or gift cards.

You’ll fill in some personal information that gives a sense of your demographic and geography, then see options for different surveys you can take pertaining to retail, food and beverage, tech and personal care products, and others. Most typically take up to 20 minutes.

“You’re not going to make thousands of dollars a month doing this,” says Jen Glantz, founder of Bridesmaid for Hire and the creator of the Monday Pick-Me-Up and Odd Jobs newsletter. Most reviewers report making a couple of dollars per hour, but that can add up and works if you don’t feel like thinking too hard on your hustle.

Sell your clothing and apparel

If you’ve got a closet full of clothes to get rid of, consider selling them on sites like Poshmark, Mercari, OfferUp and eBay. If you have luxury items, you can also try selling on The RealReal.

Peruse each site to see how much items like the ones you have are going for, then start a page and post them yourself. Keep in mind the cost of shipping and shipping materials, as well as each site’s fees. On Poshmark, for example, the fee for sales under $15 is $2.95 and the fee for sales above $15 is 20% of your selling price (that is, you keep 80% of what you made).

“It’s really, really worth it,” says Glantz. “If you have downtime and you want to make cash on the weekend, it’s the best time to list things.”

Kaycie Morwood opened her Poshmark store in 2016 and has made $30,000 altogether. “It takes about two minutes to set up,” she previously told CNBC Make It. “Then I’ll go watch Netflix, work out or go to my actual daytime job.”

Sell printable items like calendars

If you’re organized and have a flair for design, consider using tools like Canva or even Google Docs to create digital calendars, checklists or holiday cards for people to buy on sites like Etsy and print on their own.

“I’ve bought media kit templates off there,” says Glantz as an example.

Peruse the site for the types of printables people are selling to get some ideas about what you can make and how much people are charging. As with the other sites, keep in mind Etsy’s seller fees. It costs 20 cents to list an item and there’s a 6.5% transaction fee for each sale.

Rachel Jiminez started her Etsy store in 2019 and made nearly $160,000 on the site in 2021 selling digital planners, Christmas scavenger hunts and other items. When she was jut starting out and making time for her hustle over lunch, “I would spend 30 minutes eating, hanging out with [my coworkers], and then another 30 minutes working on my Etsy store,” she told CNBC Make It.

Start a medium blog

If you love writing and have a lot to say about a given topic, consider starting a Medium blog.

The site features a wide array of topics ranging from parenting to neuroscience and offers two different ways to make money: one that’s linked to how much time people spend reading your content, the other to referring members. “You can refer readers to become Medium members and get half of  their membership fee, net of standard payment processor fees, for as long as they remain a member,” according to the site.

To be eligible for either, however, you’ll need to have at least 100 followers, have published at least one story and be at least 18 years old. And keep in mind, you’ll want to write a lot ― “I would be doing five posts a week for a year, if you really want to do this,” says Ha. Most writers make under $100 per month.

Various blogs and media outlets also pay contributors for freelance pieces. If there’s an outlet you follow regularly, peruse the site and see if there are opportunities to write something for them yourself.

Check out:

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9 in-demand side hustles that can be done from home—and how much they pay

3 side hustles that could improve your skills and make you better at your job

Sign up now: Get smarter about your money and career with our weekly newsletter

On Jan. 9, The New York Times broke the news, speaking to chef, owner and co-founder René Redzepi, who said his Copenhagen, Denmark restaurant will close for regular service at the end of 2024, citing what the culinary juggernaut called an “unsustainable” model. It’s a model that has recently come under scrutiny for its reliance on unpaid interns and cheap labor. (Noma started paying its interns in October 2022, according to the Times.)

“Financially and emotionally, as an employer and as a human being, it just doesn’t work,” Redzepi said, adding that the business will make a notable shift that doesn’t include serving a house full of patrons every night.

Noma first opened in 2003 and eschewed typical fine-dining trends at the time by using ingredients that were at the time forgotten or underused, sourcing local, seasonal ingredients for its menus. Instead of foie gras, caviar or Kobe beef, Noma served reindeer brains and pickled kombu.

This type of risk-taking in the kitchen proved immensely popular and begat a culinary movement, known as New Nordic, which spread throughout the rest of the world’s food scenes.

In its time, Noma received three Michelin stars, topped the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list five times (rendering them ineligible for future features) and appeared on Anthony Bourdain’s “Parts Unknown,” increasing its cache — and explaining why a meal there costs patrons at least $420.

Still, creating dishes like ragout of reindeer with cooked grains and seed placed on a bed of brightly colored autumn leaves or a koji-cured cod roe waffle whose recipe features nine different fermented ingredients proved untenable for both leaders and staff, with many accusations of toxic workplace culture being leveled at the eatery over the years.

For his part, Redzepi has owned up to verbally and physically abusing staff in a 2015 essay and has publicly said he has gotten “many hours of therapy” since. Redzepi cited the meticulous workload and rigorous techniques to make every dish as reasons for the changes to the business coming.

According to a letter posted on Noma’s website, the restaurant, its staff and kitchen will transition into becoming a full-time food laboratory, developing items for an e-commerce site called Noma Projects that the restaurant launched in 2022. Currently, the shop offers unique concoctions like smoked mushroom garum, wild rose vinegar and other items.

“To continue being noma, we must change,” begins the letter on Noma’s website, adding that winter of 2024 will mark the official closing of Noma “as we know it” and naming the new chapter Noma 3.0.

“In 2025, our restaurant is transforming into a giant lab—a pioneering test kitchen dedicated to the work of food innovation and the development of new flavors, one that will share the fruits of our efforts more widely than ever before,” reads the post. “In this next phase, we will continue to travel and search for new ways to share our work.”

Noma also said that pop-ups in locations outside of Copenhagen may sprout up, but that when it’s “gathered enough new ideas and flavors,” it’ll do a season in Copenhagen. The author adds that Noma’s time will be spent on exploring new projects and developing many more ideas and products.

“Serving guests will still be a part of who we are,” reads the post. “But being a restaurant will no longer define us.”

This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY

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For some lucky graduating college seniors, the road trip of a lifetime could be ahead, as the brand is looking for “Hotdoggers” to traverse American roads for a year in the Wienermobile as brand ambassadors.

According to Oscar Mayer, applicants should have a B.A. or B.S., preferably in public relations, journalism, communications, advertising or marketing, although applicants are not limited to these degrees.

Hotdoggers may represent Oscar Mayer in radio and TV appearances, grocery retail and charity functions and newspaper interviews while maintaining the Wienermobile.

As a hotdogger, one will also manage their own public relations firm on the road, organizing promotions and contributing to brand content on social media.

Wienermobiles travel through big cities and small towns in all regions of the United States, maintaining the vehicle’s 80-year long status as an American icon.

Hotdoggers will receive company-provided expenses, benefits and team apparel while gaining experience in a self-managed position with many responsibilities.

Those interested in the position are encouraged to send a resume and a cover letter to the following location, addressed to Oscar Mayer with “Attn: Hotdogger position”:

560 E. Verona Avenue, Verona, Wisconsin 53593

Resumes and cover letters can also be e-mailed to wmrequest@kraftheinzcompany.com.

Nearly half (46%) of U.S. workers plan to look for a new job in the next six months, citing low pay as their No. 1 reason for eyeing greener pastures. 

That’s according to a new report from human resource consulting firm Robert Half, which surveyed 2,500 professionals between October and November 2022. 

Gen Zers, working parents and employees who have been with their company for less than five years are the most likely to switch jobs in early 2023, the report found. 

But which jobs will see the highest quit rates this year? 

People in customer service, human resources and technology roles are most likely to resign soon, according to a new report from Payscale. 

Here are the top 10 jobs people appear most likely to quit in the near future, per Payscale’s research:

To determine the ranking, Payscale looked at the hiring and quit rates for dozens of occupations from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and asked more than 80,000 respondents if they were actively seeking a new job or planning to soon. 

Payscale also considered salary data for more than 1.1 million U.S. workers on their website posted between October 2021 and October 2022 to see where wages were growing the slowest — a big determinant for employees quitting their jobs. 

Mandated returns to the office could be driving resignations among workers in these roles, many of which have been remote since early 2020, Lexi Clarke, vice president of people at Payscale, says.

Many of the industries represented on the list, including tech and human resources, have also been under strain in recent months, Clarke adds, leaving workers "especially susceptible" to burnout and looking for a way out, especially if pay increases are meager and promotions don't materialize.

Despite continued fear of a recession, Clarke says now is still a solid time to switch jobs, pointing to historically low layoffs and the fact that job openings continue to outstrip the number of workers available to fill them.

"We will likely see an uptick in unemployment, but the percentage increase remains to be seen," Clarke says. "The number of professional opportunities is still much higher than what it was in 2019, which is a strong indication of a competitive job market and hints that there's a good chance that it will continue to be a candidate's market moving into 2023." 

Check out:

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At the time, she’d had a few months of success through her personal TikTok, where she shared experiences about job-hopping and negotiating her salary, which inspired her to launch Salary Transparent Street, a TikTok series asking strangers a question you’re not supposed to: How much money do you make?

The series went viral, and Williams saw a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

“I knew that you don’t just have an account that is that successful that quickly, without it being monetizable in some way,” she says. “I was ready to figure it out.”

Within months, Williams and her fiancé, James Daniels, both quit their jobs to focus on turning Salary Transparent Street from a few TikTok videos to a full-fledged business. They’ve crisscrossed 10 states, interviewed hundreds of people and landed six-figure brand deals. So far, Salary Transparent Street has brought in nearly $600,000, and the couple live off a $200,000 per year salary.

CNBC Make It caught up with Williams, 26, on how she prepared for the big quit, the highs and lows of being your own boss and advice to workers who want to chase their own dreams in 2023.

How she quit her job: ‘Failure wasn’t the worst thing’

While Williams finally put in her notice around May, she says she was mentally ready to quit long before. The biggest thing holding her back? In order to build out Salary Transparent Street the way she wanted to, Williams would need Daniels (the series’ cameraman) to also quit his office job in government contracting.

It was a big risk to lose steady income and bet on something new. But Williams, a data analyst by training, crunched the numbers and saw that the leap could be profitable.

“I knew that there were brand deals there that were very niche and perfect fits for us that might take a couple of months to figure out, but they were possibilities,” Williams says. Plus, since the couple didn’t have kids or a mortgage, the timing couldn’t be better to be a little risky.

As Williams sees it, “failure wasn’t the worst thing.” She could always go back to her old job or find a similar one if the series didn’t take off. The worst thing, really, would be to not try it at all.

So, with $10,000 in savings, Williams and Daniels put in their notice.

Within two weeks, Williams connected with two agents who provided $24,000 in seed money for Salary Transparent Street’s first two months. Williams and Daniels used the money to pay their bills, pay for basic living costs and travel to film.

Salary Transparent Street continued to gain momentum, reaching millions of viewers. Williams landed partnerships with brands like Fiverr, The Knot and Cleo, a budgeting app. Then, in September, a big account came through: Williams signed a six-month deal with Indeed, the job-search platform, for nearly half a million dollars.

The downsides of being your own boss

Building your own social media brand doesn’t come without challenges. Just like with any job, Williams says, being your own boss also has some downsides, the biggest one being that the internet never stops.

“So you can throw holidays out the window, you can throw a weekend out the window. It’s incredibly difficult when your work is kind of your life, and that work-life balance you had before completely disappears,” she says.

With that said, she’d much rather put in that effort on something she built, rather than working a weekend for a company she’s not as invested in.

Another side effect: burnout. “It’s been a really interesting lesson to learn that working all the time is definitely not the answer to getting stuff done,” she says. “Eventually, your brain just can’t handle anymore.”

To deal with burnout, Williams says it’s been crucial for her to understand when she’s most productive, and when she can give herself a breather. For example, she likes to steal away time to work on administrative tasks in the morning before other people are awake and asking things of her.

Then, to keep from getting overwhelmed, she schedules out her work by the hour, including when she should take a break to go for a walk or read. “If it’s on my calendar, I’m going to follow it,” she says. Scheduling breaks builds in accountability. “It’s been difficult to realize that I need to take a break and just chill for a little bit, and then get back to it. And that’s going to help me be more productive rather than going at full-speed all the time.”

Finally, another big downside to being an internet entrepreneur is moderating comments on her video and social media posts. Not only can it be a time suck, but sometimes comments can be hateful, which Williams says weighs on her mental health. Now that she’s scaled the work, she’s also hired an executive assistant who helps with content moderation, who’ll earn $80,000 per year with health benefits and PTO when she becomes a full-time employee in January.

Advice to job-seekers in 2023

As much as Williams wants to tell others to take risks and make big career moves, she also knows people are worried about the economy in 2023. “If we do fall into a recession, it just means that there’s maybe a little bit less advantage for you in the labor market,” she says. “So just be informed of that and make calculated decisions.”

That doesn’t mean you have to stay in a bad situation, though. You can still leverage information out there to figure out if you’re being underpaid and ask for a raise, or move to a more resilient job, employer or industry.

“When I quit my job, I knew that my backup plan if I failed was going back to my old job or going back into an industry where I had a strong career,” Williams says. “There are so many resources out there that can empower you to make a change if you want to.”

She adds: “Don’t be afraid to take risks. Just make sure they’re informed decisions.”

Making an impact

The new year is looking bright for Williams and Salary Transparent Street: The brand just crossed 100,000 subscribers on YouTube and is nearing 1 million followers on TikTok. Williams has two new podcasts coming out in January with deeper dives into job profiles and people’s career stories.

By Salary Transparent Street’s one-year anniversary in April, Williams hopes she’ll have brought in $1 million in revenue.

Williams has stayed true to her messaging in helping dispel money taboos by talking about it with strangers on the street. She also hopes to make an impact beyond social media one day: Williams is vocal about the need for greater salary transparency as a means to close wage gaps, including through new laws that require companies to publicly disclose their pay ranges on job ads. She recently testified virtually in front of the D.C. council in support of its Pay Range Act of 2022, which would require employers to list salary ranges on job postings.

“I’d love to like have a voice … to use our platform to make change that really has an impact,” she says.

Meet the 25-year-old TikToker going viral for asking strangers how much money they make

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26-year-old coffee CEO lives on $25,000 a year outside of NYC: ‘I learned that you don’t need much to survive’

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When you’re applying for your dream job, making your application stand out can be key.

One way people are trying to do this is by making their resumes look like a company’s website or product, or adding key style elements used by the company to their resumes.  

Eleonora Papini has followed this approach many times.

“It’s tough to squeeze my life, experiences and skills into one, two pages, having stunning graphics can help convey my dedication and creativity much better than words would,” she told CNBC’s Make It.

For a recent application to Netflix, she recreated the streaming services’ home screen. The boxes that usually show movie or series titles and images instead included her details.

In an application for British cosmetics company Lush, she incorporated elements like its font, and swathes of Lush’s products, which the company also uses on its website. Papini also added themed sections like an “ingredients” list that listed her skills to her resume.

Marketing graduate Lap Tran followed a similar approach when applying to an internship at Spotify earlier this year. He used the company’s color scheme, font and replicated its layout for his resume.

Do job applicants think it’s worth it?

At the time, Tran thought it might be worth the additional time to stand out and make his resume more appealing to a large-scale company. But he has since changed his mind.

“Looking back at it, it was not worth the extra effort, but a good bit of experience with themed CVs, since I was not chosen or even emailed to be notified of not being chosen,” he told CNBC’s Make It.

Eleonora also has not noticed a major difference after applying to various companies. “Only one recruiter contacted me and complimented my CV,” she said.

However, she still thinks making creative resumes can be worth the time investment for some applicants.

“I think it’s worth it if you like to ‘play’ with graphics. I like it and enjoy creating new graphics and testing new strategies,” she explains, but she believes the approach does not suit everyone — especially if graphic design is not one of your main skills.

The verdict from experts

Experts also appear to be cautious.

Professional resume writer Suzie Henriques, who is based in the U.K., told CNBC’s Make It that a traditional approach is usually a safer bet.

“Most of the time, the traditional text-based format is usually best,” she said. “The standard CV is universally intelligible and remains the gold standard during the recruitment process.”

Career coach and resume writer Amanda Augustine, who works for U.S.-based company TopResume has a similar view.

“Rather than adding design elements to mimic the employer’s brand, it would be more effective to customize the content of your resume and cover letter based on the specific job listing,” she said.

Highly creative resumes could even lower your chances of securing an interview, the experts say.

One reason for this is distraction, Gaelle Blake, head of permanent appointments at recruitment firm Hays says.

“Crucial details could be harder to find in a creative CV or potentially distract from your credentials,” she told CNBC’s Make It, adding that these key facts about skills and experience are the most important part of a resume for recruiters.

Additionally, a lot of companies use software that reads and filters resumes. This might also cause issues, Henriques explains.

“Some organisations use candidate management software to parse the information on your CV into their system and an unusual or very visual format may not be compatible with this, which means the text you have included may end up not being readable at the other end,” she says.

What to do instead

The one notable exception are highly creative jobs and industries, all three experts told Make It, adding that including links to portfolios for websites are good ways to showcase creativity.

Usually standard resumes are no less effective, they say — but there are a few things to keep in mind.

Henriques suggests keeping the design clear and simple.  

“I recommend using clear section headings, leaving plenty of white space and if you want to add some flair then border lines, bullet points and some light shading can really draw the reader’s eye to the key areas,” she says.

When it comes to content, Augustine believes that resumes should be more than just a series of bullet points.

“They want your resume to read like a story, explaining why you’re qualified for the job you want,” she says, adding that role-specific examples and data are helpful ways to do this.

Meanwhile, Blake urges applicants not to overlook the basics — checking for spelling, grammar and punctuation errors is key, she says.

Her final piece of advice however goes beyond resumes. Making sure you are able to explain your skills in a compelling way during interviews is just as important, she believes.

“Don’t rely on your CV to do all the talking for you,” Blake concludes.

At the time, I was living at my parents house and buried in student debt. But within a few weeks, the video went viral and I gained 100,000 followers.

That November, I started selling an online Excel course on my website, and just two months later, my passive income earnings were more than my monthly paycheck as a full-time management consultant.

I quit my job in January 2021 to become a full-time entrepreneur, and created nine more courses that teach different career skills. And in October 2021, I crossed a major milestone: I made $100,000 in sales — in just one day.

Today, at 29, I’ve built Miss Excel into a business that generates more than $2 million a year.

My boyfriend, Mike, quit his corporate sales job and became my chief financial officer and vice president of sales in April 2022.

The best part is that I work just four hours a day. Here’s a look at my typical day:

I prioritize personal wellness in the morning

Meditating in the morning keeps me calm and centered, so I start my day with a virtual meditation group on Choices + Outcomes at 7:00 a.m. Mike, my parents and some members of the Miss Excel community all join in.

After meditating, Mike and I make breakfast together, usually oven-baked oatmeal, and plot the day over coffee on our balcony. It is one of my favorite activities.

Later, my personal trainer comes to the house, or I do hot yoga at a local studio. Mike and I meet back up after for a quick swim and sauna session at home before getting ready for the workday.

I work three to four hours a day

I start working around noon. My house is equipped with fast Wi-Fi, an office and a content recording studio, which makes it an incredible place to work remotely.

I organize my days based on the tasks I am doing, so I am not constantly flipping back and forth from a creative project to a more analysis-based activity.

On Mondays, for example, I do more creative activities like setting goals and brainstorming business strategies and content ideas. I’m always thinking about how I can grow my business and make more of an impact.

On Tuesdays, I crank through a to-do list with tasks like filming content, editing social media posts and hosting 60-minute Excel trainings for my corporate partners.

I make sure to schedule breaks in between tasks to reset myself. This helps me be more efficient and work only 15 to 20 hours per week.

I spend my evenings learning and doing what I love

By 3:00 p.m., Mike and I like to be off-roading on our four-wheeler or hike local trails with friends. Being in nature keeps me grounded, calm and creative, so it’s a priority for me.

After spending quality time outdoors, Mike and I eat dinner. We love trying new recipes at home or going out to local restaurants. One of our favorite spots right now is an Italian cafe in Sedona called Vespa.

Then, we’ll either read or watch documentaries. Some of my favorite topics are mindset, meditation, energetics and quantum physics. I’m currently reading “Close Your Eyes and Get Free” by Grace Smith.

We always try to be in bed by 9:30 p.m. so we can be well-rested for meditation the next day.

My business has helped me live my dream life

Mike and I have the best time working on Miss Excel and traveling the world together. We’ve taken seven trips so far this year.

In March 2022, I bought my first house with the money I made from Miss Excel. My dream home in Sedona, Arizona is complete with 270-degree views of the Red Rock mountains.

Miss Excel has also made it possible for me to support the people in my life. I always wanted to help my mom retire early, and this year, with my financial support, she was able to quit her medical receptionist job.

If you are on the fence about starting your dream side hustle, I encourage you to take the leap. It can be scary to put yourself out there, but you’ll never know until you try.

Kat Norton teaches Microsoft Excel to individuals, businesses and educational institutions. Since launching Miss Excel in 2020, she has grown her TikTok and Instagram audience to over 1 million followers.

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Although remote work has become a standard option for many professionals since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, most remote work policies still fall short of offering total flexibility.

About 95% of remote jobs have geographic requirements, whether it’s a specific region, country, state or city, according to FlexJobs.

In a work-from-anywhere job, however, employees work “100% remotely, are independent of location and, in many cases, are also independent of a specific time zone,” FlexJobs career coach Toni Frana tells CNBC Make It.

FlexJobs has identified the top 10 companies hiring for work-from-anywhere jobs right now by analyzing its database and seeing which employers had the highest volume of work-from-anywhere job ads between August and November 2022.

1. Protocol Labs 
2. Clipboard Health
3. Omnipresent Group
4. Wikimedia Foundation
5. Cash App
6. Trafilea
7. Ripple Labs 
8. Big Time Studios
9. Coalition Technologies
10. ConsenSys

All of the companies on the list offer full-time or part-time remote jobs that don’t have a location restriction and require no time in the office.

Some companies on the list have allowed employees to work remotely from anywhere in the world since long before the pandemic started.  

Coalition Technologies, for example, has been remote-first for nearly a decade — a decision that was driven largely by traffic in Los Angeles, where the company was based, CNBC reports. 

FlexJobs also identified the industries hiring for the most work-from-anywhere jobs between August and November, a list that includes marketing, tech, accounting and finance. Some of the most in-demand work-from-anywhere jobs included copywriter, executive assistant and software engineer. 

Many work-from-anywhere jobs offer salaries over $100,000: A job ad for a senior gameplay engineer at Steel Wool Studios, for example, lists a salary range of $125,000-$150,000, while an ad for a smart contract developer at Delphi Digital lists a minimum salary of $120,000-$150,000 .  

Two of the most important skills companies are looking for in work-from-anywhere job candidates are time management and communication, Kathy Gardner, the vice president of communications at FlexJobs, says. 

“You need to be able to work efficiently and effectively with people online and, oftentimes, in different time zones,” she explains. “That requires a strong grasp of relationship building and emotional intelligence.” 

Gardner says highlighting previous remote experience as well as examples of times you worked with hybrid or remote colleagues or clients on a project can help you stand out as an applicant. 

She adds: “Ultimately, you need to show a hiring manager that you are a mature, responsible employee who can thrive in an environment where you’re not physically seen.”

Check out:

The top 3 skills you need to land a work-from-anywhere job in 2022

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The 10 best cities for finding a remote job that pays $100,000 or more―they’re not all on the coasts

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While some workers impacted by these latest cuts could be protected by the federal WARN Act, under which those considered to be part of a mass layoff are owed a 60-day written notice and their regular pay and benefits through that time, some may not.

In fact, under the U.S.’s at-will employment system, workers have very few protections in place to both help them keep their jobs and to cushion the blow ― financially, emotionally ― should they lose them. The U.S. is one of the few countries in the world with such a system.

Here’s how at-will employment works, why it’s the de-facto system in America, and how other countries handle their workforce.

‘You can be fired for any reason or no reason at all’

Loosely defined, at-will employment “means that you can be fired for any reason or no reason at all,” says Najah Farley, senior staff attorney at the National Employment Law Project.

You can get fired “because the boss is having a bad day,” says Arick Fudali, partner and managing attorney of civil rights firm the Bloom Firm, as an example. “Because he’s in a bad mood. Because you didn’t laugh at his joke.” None of these would necessarily qualify as unlawful termination, unfair as they may seem.  

“Likewise, you can quit for any reason,” he says.  

Montana is the only state in the U.S. which is not technically at-will, and employers there need to have a “good cause” for termination, according to its department of labor. In 2021, however, changes were made to Montana’s Wrongful Discharge from Employment Act, giving employers more leeway in this area.

‘Your boss can’t be flirting with you and then fire you’

There are several exceptions under which employees can’t be fired. Here are four of the critical ones:

• Discrimination: Your employer cannot terminate you for being part of a protected class. They cannot terminate you based on “race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, or gender identity), national origin, age (40 or older), disability and genetic information (including family medical history),” according to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Importantly, they also can’t fire you or let you go for complaining about discrimination that wasn’t directed at you.

• Sexual harassment: Your employer can’t fire you or let you go for rebuffing or complaining about sexual harassment, whether it happened to you or someone else, even if that complaint turns out to be unfounded. “A boss can’t give you a quid pro quo offer of sex in exchange for your job and then fire you because you refused. Your boss can’t fire you because you’re being standoffish about the sexual harassment. Your boss can’t be flirting with you and then fire you because you didn’t respond,” says Fudali.

• Whistleblowing: “You can’t be retaliated against for whistleblowing,” says Fudali, such as reporting violations of safety protocols in the workplace.

• Union membership: Many workers who are part of a union are also an exception to the at-will employment system. “They bargain the contract and that puts them into just-cause employment,” says Farley. This means an employer has to have an explicit reason for firing or letting them go.  

Severance is not mandated by law

Another component of the U.S.’s at-will employment system is that under its auspices, once an employee is terminated, their former employer does not owe them severance or any other like provisions.

“If you get to work at 9 and they fire you at 10, they’re supposed to pay you for your hour,” plus any additional hours worked that you put in before that, says Farley. But, for the most part, that’s all they legally owe you, no matter how long you’ve been there or what kind of contributions you’ve made.

Here are several instances in which a company would owe a former employee severance:

• Under the WARN Act, those who are part of what’s categorized as either a mass layoff or a plant closing would be owed a written notice of termination 60 days ahead of it and a continuation of their pay and benefits package through that time, even if they no longer have to come into their workplace.

• Members of some unions may also be entitled to a severance package, depending on what that union has negotiated with the employer.

• Some individual contracts may also stipulate severance. “If your contract says, ‘if you’re fired within the first six months, you get this amount of money,’ you get that amount of money,” says Fudali. Often higher level executives have such contracts.

At-will employment is uncommon around the world

Most countries in the world do not have an at-will employment system. When it comes to a lot of the countries in the OECD, for example, “there’s a lot more steps that an employer would need to go through to let a worker go,” say Annelies Goger, a fellow at The Brookings Institution.

In Japan, for example, the ability to terminate an employee is highly restricted, and in some cases considered to be a last resort after reducing higher ups’ salaries, putting a stop to company hiring, and encouraging early retirement, according to international employment law firm L&E Global.

In New Zealand, unless in the case of serious misconduct, an employer must give an employee notice of their forthcoming termination, according to the government, which stipulates that 2-to-4 weeks’ notice “is often seen as fair.” The employer must pay the employee until the end of their notice period.

‘You have to take care of yourself and if you succeed, you succeed’

Why, then, is this the de-facto doctrine in the U.S.?

In part, the system is a result of “the very strong influence that businesses historically had on politics and legislation,” says Ludmila Praslova, professor of psychology at Vanguard University of Southern California. It gives businesses a great deal of freedom, and they’ve lobbied successfully to keep it.

“I believe that a lot of the reason why we have such an emphasis on at-will employment here is because of the history of racial discrimination and slavery,” says Farley. It’s a centuries-long tradition of devaluing labor and laborers that impacts employer attitudes even today, she says.

Finally, the U.S.’s strong individualistic culture comes into play. “You have to take care of yourself and if you succeed, you succeed, if you don’t, you don’t,” says Praslova of how this individualism plays out. “There isn’t very much protection for people within that philosophy.”

Check out:

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‘Work is the most important way of proving your worth,’ and it’s making Americans miserable: professor

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Facebook parent Meta could begin large-scale layoffs as soon as Wednesday, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal.

The layoffs are expected to impact thousands of employees, the report said, and the move would mark the first major headcount reduction in Meta’s history. At the end of September, the company reported that it had more than 87,000 employees.

A Meta spokesperson declined to comment and referred CNBC to Zuckerberg’s comments on the company’s latest earnings call last month.

“In 2023, we’re going to focus our investments on a small number of high priority growth areas,” Zuckerberg said at the time. “That means some teams will grow meaningfully, but most other teams will stay flat or shrink over the next year. In aggregate, we expect to end 2023 as either roughly the same size, or even a slightly smaller organization than we are today.”

Meta shares have plummeted 73% this year, falling to their lowest since early 2016, and the social media giant is now the worst performer in the S&P 500 in 2022.

–CNBC’s Jonathan Vanian contributed to this report.