A school cellphone ban study, white collar jobs wither, and spooky candy prices

And we are joined by the dreadful Darian Woods.

We are here not to scare or to freak you out. Let's leave that to your, you know, everyday lives. We're here to bring you some indicators. Indicators of the week.

On today's show, we have got the

in schools, white collar workers getting the axe.

My indicator is about Amazon. And obligatory disclaimer here. Amazon is a financial supporter of NPR and pays to distribute some NPR content. So the number is 14,000, which is the number of corporate jobs Amazon says it'll soon be cutting. And one of the explicit reasons for trimming about 4% of its workforce is AI.

Well, that's not quite the way that Amazon puts it.

So in a statement to Amazon employees, a senior vice president named Beth Galetti said, quote, the world is changing quickly. This generation of AI is the most transformative technology we've seen since the Internet. And it's enabling companies to innovate much faster than ever before. We, we are convinced that we need to be organized more leanly with fewer layers and more ownership, unquote.

You mean being told that you're one of too many layers doesn't really give you anything.

Right. Well, you know what Amazon is saying here, it actually reflects a wider pattern of we're seeing from a lot of America's biggest companies. In recent weeks and months, we have seen companies like Salesforce, Accenture and Goldman Sachs all announce thousands in layoffs. And at the same Time talking pretty optimistically about AI's potential to basically make up the difference. And a few weeks ago, the CEO of Walmart said it plans to freeze hiring for the next few years while it gets AI more integrated into its workforce.

There is a kind of interesting data point I saw from the St. Louis Fed. Some economists there did some research which suggests we might be in the early stages of AI driven job displacement, which is especially hitting knowledge workers. At the same time, they say, you know, it's still early days and the picture still could change. Like, who knows, maybe in the long run AI could actually create jobs or

That's my indicator of the week. Who wants to go next?

So taking these pocket sized distraction machines away from kids during the day helps them do better in school. I am shocked. Shocked I say.

Wait, when you say they did a diligent job, what do you mean by that?

I thought the suspensions were because of kids going through like, cell phone withdrawal and just being super irritable.

Pretty good hike.

You know how there's like, usually a house in the neighborhood that gives out toothbrushes and pennies? Like maybe there'll be more of those this year.

Okay, but did you fact check this YouTube video?

So I hope everybody has a happy and safe Halloween. And before we go, just to let listeners know, I'm gonna be taking some time off from the show, so you might not hear me very much for the next few months. But stepping in to help out here will be friend of the show, Stephen Bassaha of the Gulf States Newsroom. So look forward to hearing Stephen on the show. I'll see you before too long.