Why switching jobs is harder for older workers
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The challenges of switching jobs if you're older.

I'm David Brancaccio in New York. The 40-year trend is people holding off retirement and working longer. Now, if you keep a job, that's one thing, but it can be harder to switch jobs if you're older. Here's Marketplace's Mitchell Hartman. Lots of older workers are itching to make a move, says Carly Ruskowski at AARP. The group's latest survey found...

24% of workers 50 and older planning to make a job change this year, higher than we've seen in a decade. But 65% of them haven't done anything recently to prepare. These older workers might not have made a job change in 10, 15 years.

First step in the brave new world of job search, make sure your updated resume can get through some of the tracking systems or bots that organizations are using. Other tips, use digital addresses, email, professional websites, LinkedIn. Leave out decades-old graduation dates and job experience. And here's some old school advice from Peter Capelli at the Wharton School.

Try to write a letter to somebody or find somebody you know so that you can get around all these people applying through job boards. Network your friends, former co-workers, anyone with a personal connection. I'm Mitchell Hartman for Marketplace. There was a surprise drop today in the purchases of expensive industrial scale items. Capital goods fell 1.6%.

This is in April, but hiring has been hanging in amid the tariff volatility. And so is consumer spending. Economist David Kelly is chief global strategist at JPMorgan Funds. American consumers are very resilient. They'll keep on spending until the plastic melts, basically. And then also American employers, they're very unwilling to lay people off until they absolutely have to because it was so hard to hire them in the first place. And then finally, you've got this big tax bill that just got passed by the House. It's headed over to the Senate.

We do think that will eventually get passed into law. And it involves a fair amount of fiscal stimulus, not just for 2026 and beyond, but even later on this year, there'll be a little fiscal stimulus. You put it all together, we are looking at a slowing economy. We're looking at a little higher inflation, but it's all relatively moderate. And so I think you'll just see a moderate slowdown in growth, a moderate pickup in inflation. But overall, I think despite the dramatic headlines, I don't expect to see a lot of drama in the economy.

Right. As long as the bond market swallows the tax and spending plan, with all that borrowing, there will be concerns. Yeah, there is a little indigestion and there'll be more because we are looking at deficits which are going to gradually climb here. I mean, despite all this focus on cutting government spending, if you add in the fiscal stimulus to extending the tax cuts from 2017, that's...

The deficit as a share of GDP is going to go from about 6% to about 7%. So it is gradually going up, and the rest of the world will lend us that money. I just think they're going to lend it to us at a higher interest rate, and I think that's what we're seeing in the bond market. All right. David Kelly at JPMorgan Funds. Always good to catch up. Thank you. Anytime.

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For many, it can be cold, functional, or lacking that personal touch. But LHH believes it should be more. By connecting people to opportunity, not just skills to roles, beautiful things happen at work. A leader inspires. A team grows. The people you hire develop into the people you admire, making 90,000 hours of work in a lifetime time well spent.

Recruitment, development, career transition. LHH, a beautiful working world. Discover recruitment solutions at lhh.com slash beautiful.

None of the firms said to make the most advanced microchips on Earth. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, TSMC, which has been expanding its U.S. operations amid national security concerns about so much chip production overseas. TSMC tends to be media shy, but our partners at the BBC got invited into its Phoenix, Arizona operation. BBC economics editor Faisal Islam reports.

In the baking heat in the desert of Arizona, just outside Phoenix, an extraordinary building has just been built. And it is the most important company you've never heard of, TSMC, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, which makes 90% of the world's advanced semiconductors. And it's a really secretive place. And they've let us in. Welcome to TSMC Arizona.

Thank you. Microchips are at the heart of virtually every device we use, from cars to iPhones to hospital scanners. They power the modern economy and will form the backbone of our AI future, where fierce rivalries emerging between America and China.

One reason why President Trump has become a little obsessed with this company and bringing its manufacturing process to the U.S. From TSMC, which is the biggest there is at a level that you can't even calculate, frankly. We gradually lost the chip business and now it's almost exclusively in Taiwan.

I'm here in what they call the gowning building, where the workers get dressed up in protective clothing that's meant to essentially protect the cleanest environment on earth. I'm Konstantinos Ninios. I'm here at Fab21 as a department manager for Dry Edge. Konstantinos is showing me what's known as a wafer, a slice of silicon the size of a dinner plate, on which transistors, or tiny circuits, controlling the flow of an electric current...

sit by the billion. They're smaller than red blood cells, not much bigger than atoms, and they're etched into the wafer using ultraviolet light. This is the most advanced wafer in the US right now. This wafer contains about 10 to 14 trillion transistors.

Boss here is overseeing a $165 billion investment that has transferred carbon copies of three of the company's Taiwanese factories with more to come. Rose Castaneris, TSMC Arizona president. I certainly believe it is one of the most important factories in the world.

So I'm here in the main extra construction area of this facility. Now, President Trump has wasted very little time in claiming vindication for this, for his economic policies. Much of this was already planned under the Biden administration. And it is not at all clear that tariffs will help.

in this semiconductor supply chain. There's really no single country at this moment that can do everything from chemicals to wafer manufacturing to packaging. And so it's very difficult to kind of unwind that whole thing very quickly.

TSMC, your trusted partner to power the AI era. It's a battle for global tech and economic supremacy in which Taiwan's factory technology is a critical asset, much of which is now being moved to the Arizona desert.

That's the BBC's economics editor, Faisal Islam. And one more number, 43. Cox Automotive calculates used car dealers have just 43 days worth of previously loved cars to sell. The lowest inventory since the pandemic. Tariffs on the new ones are driving up demand and prices for the used ones. Average new $48,000. Marketplace Morning Report from APM, American Public Media.

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