Your Work Friends | Fresh Insights on the Now and Next of Work
We break down the now and next of work. You stay ahead.
Its not just you - work is bonkers. Burnout is high, trust is low, and everything is changing at breakneck speed.
Friend-to-friend? We get it. We're in it. And we're here to guide you through it.
We’re two leadership insiders—and real-life friends—who’ve led teams, sat in the tough seats, and know first hand how fast, complex, and personal work has become.
Every week, we break down what’s happening at work and to work, taking you behind the scenes of what's happening now, and preparing you for what you'll see in 6 months. We're bringing you breaking news, workplace trends, and interviews with top experts shaping the future of work. We cover what’s changing so you don’t get left behind.
Join us for smart, unfiltered (with the occasional f*bomb or two) conversations about how work is evolving and what you can do about it.
Great for:
• Employees rethinking their careers and trying to navigate what comes next
• People leaders shaping culture and driving change while getting the work done
• Orgs wanting to build smarter, more profitable, more human workplaces
• Anyone craving more honest and practical conversations about the future of work
Topics we cover:
Future of work, leadership, workplace culture, team dynamics, change management, human-centered strategy, layoffs, burnout, performance, career growth, workplace news, workplace humor, and more.
Your Work Friends | Fresh Insights on the Now and Next of Work
New Week, New Headlines: 42,000 Manufacturing Jobs Lost. 72-Hour Work Weeks Exploding. Immigration Raids Threatening America’s Skill Base
New Week, New Headlines: your fast-track through the now + next of work.
This week we’re covering three stories shaping how you work, earn, and lead:
- 42,000 US manufacturing jobs lost. Since April, durable goods have shed tens of thousands of jobs—what tariffs, automation, and uncertainty really mean for the economy.
- 72-hour work weeks exploding. Silicon Valley is doubling down on extreme hours while Europe, New Zeland (even NVIDIA) tests the 4-day week. What each bet reveals about strategy and speed vs. resilience.
- Immigration raids threatening America’s skill base. Crackdowns at Hyundai’s EV plant show how politics collide with workforce realities—and why US innovation depends on global expertise.
👉 If you want to stay ahead of the forces reshaping work—from jobs to hours to immigration—this one’s for you.
Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered professional advice. We are not responsible for any losses, damages, or liabilities that may arise from the use of this podcast. The views expressed in this podcast may not be those of the host or the management.
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Manufacturing in the US just shed another 12,000 jobs in August, bringing total losses to 42,000 since April.
Speaker 2:Aren't we supposed to be bringing manufacturing back. Yeah, that's what I thought.
Speaker 1:I'm Mal Plett.
Speaker 2:And I'm Francesca Ranieri.
Speaker 1:This is your work, friends, where we break down the now and next of work. So you stay ahead, Francesca. What's going on over there?
Speaker 2:We're in eclipse season per Chani. If you follow Chani app, you know I love Chani, you love Chani, I do too. Yeah, we're in eclipse season, but last week was one of those weeks where a little stressful it caught up with me so badly that I was watching k-pop demon hunters and I started crying. That is not, it's your jerk. Your movie, it is a cartoon with a killer pop soundtrack. And that's how my week went.
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah how was your weekend? It's fall stuff here in New England, so we did all the things. We went apple picking, we did a corn maze. It was shaped like pizza because Connecticut is the pizza capital of the US, not.
Speaker 2:New.
Speaker 1:York people. New Haven style pizza.
Speaker 2:Listen, you got to get outside while you can.
Speaker 1:Go touch grass folks.
Speaker 2:Go touch grass.
Speaker 1:Well, in your work friend news we've had some stuff. You should follow us on LinkedIn if you are not already following us. Francesca and I are out there. We'd love to meet you, and it's our annual survey time. It's time to share what you think about the pod. So we are going into our annual strategy session in a few weeks. I'll be out in Portland with Francesca, so tell us what you think, love.
Speaker 2:I'll be out in Portland with Francesca, so tell us what you think. Love it. Well, we're back with new week, new headlines, mel. What are you talking about today?
Speaker 1:Two news stories One the US is losing thousands of manufacturing jobs and I want to talk about the Korean Hyundai workers situation.
Speaker 2:What are you covering? The rise of the 996 workweek. That's 9 am to 9 pm, six days a week. It's about a 72-hour-plus workweek. That is getting hot, hot hot in Silicon Valley and in Europe and in China, even though they outlawed it. So I want to talk about that.
Speaker 1:CBS came out with an article talking about manufacturing. Jobs are just slipping away, so manufacturing in the US just shed another 12,000 jobs in August, bringing total losses to 42,000 since April.
Speaker 2:Aren't we supposed to be bringing manufacturing back? Yeah, that's what. I thought I mean it's not funny, mean that's nervous laugh.
Speaker 1:Everybody is just like what? 42 000 jobs. Since april, a new analysis was pointing to tariffs, immigration crackdowns and recent policy changes as the big culprits for this. Companies like john deere and major automakers are already announcing layoffs tied to the higher cost of tariffs. John Deere alone says it's eaten about $300 million in extra costs this year alone. Economists are warning that uncertainty is freezing investment, pushing companies to cut back and lean harder on automation and those manufacturing jobs have been shrinking for decades, but this year that drop is much sharper than expected, hitting durable goods like cars, appliances, electronics the hardest. Yeah, to your good point. I thought manufacturing was supposed to be the big comeback story this year. Why are the jobs still going? Here's my thing.
Speaker 2:Bringing back or onshoring manufacturing takes time. Ask anybody that's in that type of industry. That's a multi-year plan to get things back on. It's a cruise liner. You're trying to turn around. It's going to take time. What I wasn't expecting is this huge drop in the amount of jobs.
Speaker 1:If automation keeps rising. Are these jobs really coming back? I'm curious what's impacted from tariffs versus automation.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That I'm interested in seeing that's going to be this poll that you and I are asking for at least the next year is is this the economy or is this AI and automation Right?
Speaker 1:I think that's going to be the major question. Yeah, I think it's both. Right now. Truly, a couple things for everybody that's listening. Manufacturing jobs are not just about factories, as we all know. They are signals for where the economy is moving. Especially when you see 42,000 jobs disappear in just a few months, that's a red flag. If your business relies on supply chains, talent pipelines, consumer spending in those regions, the loss of those stable jobs are going to weaken the foundation in those areas. So when we're planning for the future and automation is bigger, immigration is getting tighter, tariffs might stay a little bit messy, that manufacturing coming back is potentially going to get hit. That cruise ship is going to take longer to turn. And then, behind all of that loss, it really has economic impacts locally when you think about how it's going to ripple into schools, which then impacts also things like restaurants, local families, because a lot of manufacturing shapes a lot of neighborhoods throughout the country. A lot of manufacturing shapes a lot of neighborhoods throughout the country.
Speaker 2:I want to talk about a tale of two strategies. There's two themes that are coming out pretty strongly, bigly in the atmosphere right now. On one hand, the four-day workweek is still out there. We have folks in the UK, in Scotland they did a four-day workweek. It had fantastic results to productivity, to profit. New Zealand might be looking at a standard four-day workweek as law. So four-day workweek huge. Nvidia, the first trillion-dollar company, is looking to put in a four-day workweek. They are strongly contemplating it.
Speaker 2:So the four-day workweek is hanging around. It's got some sustance to it With no loss of pay.
Speaker 1:All of the studies like these big pilots that have been happening mainly in Europe and other small countries. They've been successful. It's helped with mental health, it's helped with productivity and engagement. It's helped with business results. Overall they're seeing these increases. So there's no loss of goodness coming from it for anybody.
Speaker 2:So a 32-hour workweek right, or a four-day workweek, however you want to couch. It has been tested. It's getting some traction. We're still not 100% there, but that idea of a work week is out there. The other tale of a work week is what's being called a 996 work week. Now, you might have heard what a 996 is. As I mentioned earlier, it means 9 am to 9 pm, six days a week. Now, this was huge in China, by the way, China outlawed this in 2021 for various reasons, but it is a 72-hour work week and it is absolutely gaining traction in Silicon Valley and in tech startups right now.
Speaker 2:There is a whole philosophy around being quote unquote extremely hardcore when you're coming into work. We started seeing some of this when Elon Musk went into Twitter now known as X and basically blitzkrieged everyone out of there and said if you're not willing to give 80 hours a week, get the hell out. We're starting to see more and more of this pickup, as most leaders in these organizations feel we are in an all-out war. In AI. It is all hands on deck. If you are not the type of person that wants to work at Google, a 60-hour workweek. At a lot of these organizations, a 70-plus-hour workweek. There's some accounts of people in an 80 or 90-hour workweek. If you can't handle that, if you don't want to be a part of that, this isn't for you. Those two things represent very different things strategically to your organization. Ours again are a signal and a trade-off of what leadership is willing to make. And here's the deal.
Speaker 2:I want to talk a little bit more about the data. In global trials, across 2,900 employees, a four-day workweek lowered burnout. It improved health and maintained or increased revenue. So to your very good point great for employees, great for businesses. Burnout is consistently cited among the top reasons. Early stage ventures fail and beyond 50 hours a week, productivity flatlines. We know this. You don't get more return, you get exhaustion, you get depreciation. So what these choices really reveal in this strat if you're going with a four-day, it says we value resilience, People are our engine, we're playing the long game, and if you are at a 996, we value speed among anything else, and people are literally fuel.
Speaker 1:I also wonder are they getting speed from that approach? Are they truly getting speed? How many things have to get corrected, revisited Again once you go above 50 hours? Productivity, innovation all of it flatlines People are not doing their best work. If you want to get results and to get speed, you're actually going to go faster by flipping that and not asking people to work 72 hours a week. It's almost like the antithesis of what they're hoping the results will be from that approach. I'm like whose grandpa just doesn't want to be with his family and wants people to work.
Speaker 2:I mean hand a gadmell. I think this is going to be one of the biggest change initiatives of the next two or three years, which is more time does not equal more value. It does not. It doesn't Just like butts in seats. Does not equal better work experience right, we're holding on for dear fucking life to these old paradigms that data tells us over and over again. It's not true.
Speaker 1:We're not against the occasional week that you might work 70 hours because it's a project that you're trying to figure out that stuff happens. We're not against people coming together for meaningful in-person work, but when you have people returning to an office to sit on Zoom meetings all day and no one interacts, how is that helping you innovate? It's not when you are asking them to then sit there for 72 hours to do what.
Speaker 2:These are choices. They are strategic choices and both come with trade-offs. Your 32-hour workweek it's a bet on durability. It's a bet on resilience. Your 996, you're betting on speed, but you are betting on collapse Because you might get into a car accident.
Speaker 1:You've got those people who are like weaving in and out of traffic. They're just trying to weave in and out of traffic so fast to make it there five seconds earlier, and then they're just going to end up in a fiery crash on the side of the road. That's the thinking that goes through my head when I hear about these decisions. It's like do you want to get there in one piece and it feels pretty good, or you're okay with potentially crashing and burning?
Speaker 2:Oh, what a great analogy.
Speaker 1:I'll interject a little palate cleanser, if I may, please. Yes, okay, are you watching the Bear? I've only watched a few seasons. Okay, I've never watched a few seasons. Okay, well, because of Chicago and I'm like son of a B, I should have gotten the Italian beef when I came to visit you once To me.
Speaker 2:It is a beautiful homage to this city and I will also say, being Italian and being raised in the suburbs of Chicago, anybody that has a character named Carmine is like beyond, spot on Like Carm, carmi, carmine Most people have one in their family. I very much appreciated that.
Speaker 1:Robbie and I were watching the Bear. It is. I love some Ted. I love Ted Lasso. I really do blah, blah, blah. This, though, is so if you're looking for a really good leadership workplace dynamics story that's interwoven throughout their personal life. This is a very realistic view of how personal and professional lives are intertwined and the dynamics that show up in the workplace and how people address them, and there's so many really good leadership lessons throughout it, so if you're not watching the Bear, go watch it. Binge, all four seasons. Are you on season?
Speaker 2:four.
Speaker 1:I just finished.
Speaker 2:Is that where it really feels like leadership-y?
Speaker 1:It does. It's all the building you're so used to when you're bringing new people together, and there's all that angst or conflict and goodness but chaos, and this felt like a flow, like everyone's finding themselves in it finally and seeing themselves in it, and it's just very touching do you and robbie go like behind, like when you're in the kitchen?
Speaker 1:no, but I have started saying that's 86 when he's asking me to make things. The other headline I wanted to cover was addressing the recent raids that happened at Hyundai, and there's a lot to cover about that we could talk about essentially here. What does this mean? Ice raid, when you think about global skills and local futures for the US, and what this raid shows us of things that we need to be concerned about for the US, and what this raid shows us of things that we need to be concerned about. So, if you haven't heard this news story, nearly 500 employees were detained at Hyundai's EV battery plant in Georgia last week and the headlines focused on immigration enforcement. But the bigger story here is many of those workers were engineers and installers who were brought in from South Korea to get that massive battery plant online skills the US doesn't yet have in enough supply, and so one of the things we don't see being called out is this isn't unusual.
Speaker 1:For decades and you and I have worked in large companies, right we rely on global talent to move into new markets, to expand in organizations. So for decades, global companies they'll send their specialists abroad for this transfer of knowledge, to train local teams. Japanese and German automakers did this same thing when they were setting up their US factories. This rate is actually showing us what happens when now politics are colliding with workforce realities and we need these global skill pipelines if we want to keep innovating in industries like electronic vehicles at home. Without them, progress is going to stall before it even starts. I think there's an underestimation happening about how much global talent we actually rely on in the US to build our industries. What do you think?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, absolutely. Global talent both ways to your very good point US-based companies that use H-1B, H-1A visas to support their workforce. No, it doesn't feel like it right now. There is a talent shortage in the United States in pockets of AI, automation, decision science, engineering I know it might not feel like that for everyone, but there is and a lot of times for US-based organizations to keep operating, making money, making profit, building new products that then, in turn, allow them to hire more Americans, you need global workforce to come in and help with that. So there's that angle of it the support of the US-based companies. In this case, we have a Korean company who set up manufacturing here right.
Speaker 1:Just to go back to my earlier story we're losing manufacturing jobs. They're trying to help us build it. Yeah, bring it back, yeah. And then this raid happens and oh, by the way, everyone was here legally on visiting visas, which is normal for that pipeline to come in and help. I love how Hyundai showed up here, jumping in immediately to be like, nope, we're going to protect our people, pull them out. And it's an unfortunate impact now to that local community in Georgia about the jobs that will be potentially lost as a result of what happened and just the scarring for those folks who came here with goodwill to help set something up. It's just really damaging and heartbreaking.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm thinking about your good comment about Hanae pulling their employees out right. Flew those employees back to Korea. That says to me that, strategically, they are going to protect their employees over politics. That's the non-negotiable there, which makes me also think that if that is a value they're going to hold true to, if I'm Hyundai, I would absolutely be questioning if I want to continue doing business in the US. I would be questioning whether or not I want to continue doing business in the US. I would be questioning whether or not I want to continue sending incredibly skilled workers from my country over to the US with the possibility that they might get interrogated this way and or even arrested.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we could see devastating impacts from this for a long time In an already struggling industry. Clearly, 42,000 jobs lost since April those are not small numbers, folks.
Speaker 2:And the amount of foreign car manufacturers that have set up base.
Speaker 1:It's also like what's our US strategy for innovation and industries here and growing industries here, and this is a big part of that. Right, when we talk about durable strategies, we mean building industries. That last, which means you need to be able to partner with global experts and local talent pipelines over time, and we can't treat global skills like they're some sort of threat that's going to weaken the industries that we're trying to anchor here. They're a partnership. And then on the human side, because work is political, behind the politics are people, engineers, installers, all the families, the local communities that are counting on those factories for growth. A human strategy for how we work together globally acknowledges that global expertise accelerates local opportunity and it's not about us versus them, but with, because when we get this right, it creates dignity, it creates jobs, it creates stabilities on both sides of the ocean. It's very interconnected and why this is so critical to pay attention to.
Speaker 1:This episode was produced, edited and all things by us myself, mel Plett and Francesca Ranieri. Our music is by Pink Zebra, and if you like this, please rate, rate and subscribe. We'd really appreciate it. That helps keep us going. Take care, friends. Bye, friends.
