U.S. employers added a surprisingly solid 119,000 jobs in September, the government said, issuing a key economic report that had been delayed for seven weeks by the federal government shutdown.
The unemployment rate rose to 4.4% in September, the highest since October 2021 and up from 4.3% in August, the Labor Department said Thursday. The unemployment rate rose partly because 470,000 people entered the labor marketeither working or looking for workin September and not all of them found jobs right away.
The increase in payrolls was more than double the 50,000 economists had forecast. But Labor Department revisions showed that the economy lost 4,000 jobs in August instead of gaining 22,000 as originally reported. Altogether, revisions shaved 33,000 jobs off July and August payrolls.
The data, though late, was welcomed by businesses, investors, policymakers, and the Federal Reserve. During the 43-day shutdown, they’d been groping in the dark for clues about the health of the American job market because federal workers had been furloughed and couldnt collect the data.
The report comes at a time of considerable uncertainty about the economy. The job market has been strained by the lingering effects of high interest rates and uncertainty around Trumps erratic campaign to slap taxes on imports from almost every country on earth. But economic growth at midyear was resilient.
Healthcare and social assistance firms added more than 57,000 jobs in September, restaurants and bars 37,000, construction companies 19,000 and retailers almost 14,000. But factories shed 6,000 jobsthe fifth straight monthly drop. The federal government, targeted by Trump and billionaire Elon Musks DOGE cost cutters, lost 3,000 jobs, the eighth straight monthly decline..
Average hourly wages rose just 0.2% from August and 3.8% from a year earlier, edging closer to the 3.5% year-over-year increase that the Federal Reserve’s inflation fighters like to see.
The latest reading on jobs Thursday makes a rate cut by the Federal Reserve at their next meeting in December less likely. Many Fed officials were already leaning against a cut next month, according to minutes of their October meeting released Wednesday. Steady hiring suggests the economy doesnt need lower interest rates to expand.
The September jobs report will be the last one the Fed will see before its Dec. 9-10 meeting. Officials are split between those who see stubbornly high inflation as the main challenge they need to address by keeping rates elevated, and those who are more concerned that hiring is sluggish and needs to be supported by rate reductions.
Economists expected to see a continuation of what was happening in the spring and summer: weak hiring but few layoffs, an awkward pairing that means Americans who have work mostly enjoy job security but those who dont often struggle to find employment.
The job market has been strained this year by the lingering effects of high interest rates engineered to fight a 2021-2022 spike in inflation and uncertainty around Trumps campaign to slap taxes on imports from almost every country on earth and on specific productsfrom copper to foreign films.
Labor Department revisions in September showed that the economy created 911,000 fewer jobs than originally reported in the year that ended in March. That meant that employers added an average of just 71,000 new jobs a month over that period, not the 147,000 first reported.
President Donald Trumps crackdown on illegal immigration is expected to reduce the number of people looking for work, which means that the economy can create fewer jobs without sending the unemployment rate higher.
With September numbers out, businesses, investors, policymakers and the Fed will have to wait awhile to get another good look at the numbers behind the American labor market.
The Labor Department said Wednesday that it wont won’t release a full jobs report for October because it couldn’t calculate the unemployment rate during the government shutdown.
Instead, it will release some of the October jobs dataincluding the number of jobs that employers created last monthalong with the full November jobs report on Dec. 16, a couple of weeks late.
Paul Wiseman, AP economics writer
AP Economics Writer Christopher Rugaber contributed to this report.
Welcome to AI Decoded, Fast Companys weekly newsletter that breaks down the most important news in the world of AI. Im Mark Sullivan, a senior writer at Fast Company, covering emerging tech, AI, and tech policy.
This week, Im focusing on gathering some informed opinions from people trying out Googles new Gemini 3 Pro AI model. I also look at another circular AI investment agreement.
Sign up to receive this newsletter every week via email here. And if you have comments on this issue and/or ideas for future ones, drop me a line at sullivan@fastcompany.com, and follow me on X (formerly Twitter) @thesullivan.
What smart people are saying about Google’s Gemini 3
The so-called generative AI boom is only about three years old. It has been characterized by some breakthrough moments, chief among them the release of OpenAIs ChatGPT in late 2022. A relatively small number of AI labs have been competing to release frontier models that beat all others. The top spots on the rankings of benchmark test scores seem to change names every six months or so. But the release of Googles new flagship Gemini 3 Pro model (in preview), along with its impressive benchmark test scores, seem like a moment well remember.
Now, peoplemany of them developerswho immediately began testing the new model are beginning to weigh in on how well Gemini 3 performs in real-world use. Here is a selection of their impressions.
Thumbs-up
Gemini 3 . . . shows significant gains in reasoning, reliability in multi-step agent workflows, and an ability to debug tough development tasks with high-quality fixes. In early evaluations, it improved Warps Terminal Bench state of the art score by 20%. Zach Lloyd, CEO of Warp
I simply asked Gemini 3 Pro to diagnose and fix its own code. It reasoned through the problem in exactly the way I would expect from a thoughtful junior engineer game developer Josh English on MediumBest creative and professional writing Ive seen. I dont code, so thats off my radar, but for me the vibes are excellent. Intelligence, nuance, flexibility, and originality are promising in that distinct way that excites and disturbs me. Havent had this feeling since 11/30/22. Brett Cooper on X
Gemini beat my own previously unbeaten personal test. The test involves a fairly long list of accurate to year information, ordered properly, many opportunities for hallucination and then used to achieve a goal. I need a new test, so yeah I think Geminis impressive. Richard Knoche on X
Its a great model, as far as LLMs go, topping most benchmarks, but its certainly not AGI. Its haunted by the same kind of problems that all earlier models have had. Hallucinations and unreliability persist. Visual and physical reasoning are still a mess. In short, scaling isnt getting us to AGI. AI skeptic Gary Marcus on Medium
I found the answer, and its actually terrifying (in a good way) The uptake of Gemini has been wild We are talking about a model that is delivering rich visuals, deeper interactivity, and agentic vibe coding. CodeToDeploy on Medium
[We] created the first open-source evaluation framework to test how leading AI models respond to self-harm and mental health crisis scenarios, and the results were alarming, said Sean Dadashi, cofounder of the AI journaling app company Rosebud. Gemini 3 [is] the safest AI model weve seen yet.
Thumbs-down
Thoroughly benchmaxxed (optimized to do well on benchmark tests), very mid model. Makes so much errors, I have strong doubts they are serving the model they ran the benchmarks on. Infrecursion on X
My experience with the Gemini [command line interface] has been dreadful. It craps out at least half of the time. When it works it is ridiculously fast so I keep trying it. But it has proven very inferior to the Claude code experience in my usage. Reddit user dinkleberg
Was much worse than GPT-5.1 for find me research on [x]-type queries. It kept trying to do my thinking (synthesis) for me, which is not what I want from it. It gave me individual research results if I explicitly asked but even then it seemed to go way less wide than GPT-5.1. Robert Mushkatblat on X
The free-for-all continues: Anthropic takes $15 billion from Microsoft, Nvidia, with strings
Someone on Twitter (X) said it best (Peter Wildeford): After the breakup, both Microsoft and OpenAI are seeing different people . . . also Nvidia is sleeping with everybody.In other words, after doubling down on its bet on OpenAI, Microsoft has begun investing in other AI model developers too. Anthropic is the most recent.
On Tuesday, Anthropic announced it would be taking a new $5 billion in investment money from Microsoft and $10 billion from Nvidia. As part of the deal, Anthropic will purchase about $30 billion of compute capacity from Microsofts Azure cloud service, which is powered by Nvidia chips. Anthropic says its now the first frontier model to be available within all three major cloud servicesMicrosoft Azure, Amazons AWS, and Google Cloud. Anthropic will work with Nvidia to optimize its models to run well on Nvidia chips. In September, Anthropic raised another $13 billion in funding, after which it was valued at $183 billion.So, as it has done with OpenAI, Microsoft becomes both an investor in, and a major supplier to, Anthropic. In a less direct way, so does Nvidia. Its the latest example of the kind of circular financial arrangements that have become commonplace in the world of big AI.
In September, Nvidia announced a $100-billion investment in OpenAI, which the chip supplier will pay in installments that are contingent on OpenAI buying a certain number of chips from Nvidia. So Nvidia gets guaranteed chip sales and a 2% share of OpenAI. These investments might be circular and raise related party concerns, as Nvidia may own shares in a customer that will likely use such funds to buy more Nvidia gear, Morningstar equity analyst Brian Colello wrote at the time.
OpenAI struck a similar deal with Nvidia rival AMD in early October. OpenAI agreed to buy large quantities of AMDs Instinct AI chips on a set schedule over the next decade. If it keep to the schedule, itll get the option of buying a 10% stake in AMD.
The group of companies pouring billions into the coming AI revolution isnt really getting any bigger, and many of the participants seem to be placing bets on each other. The big spenders are Nvidia, Microsoft, Oracle, Meta, Google, Amazon, and some big financiers like Softbank. A larger and more diverse set of players would give confidence that the burgeoning AI industry isnt just a big hype bubble.
Survey: Trust in AI is breaking along class divides
Edelman is out with a new survey report, titled Trust in AI report, AI Trust at a Crossroads, which finds that humans trust of AI isnt growing quickly, and that trust levels break along class lines. Edelman surveyed 5,000 people in the U.S., Brazil, China, Germany, and the U.K.
More than half of low-income respondents (54%) feel theyll be left out and left behind in the move toward AI, the survey finds. Thats compared to the 44% of middle-income, and the 31% of high-income people.
The study found a strong connection between higher trust in AI tools and higher usage of them. Low trust in AI stems from worries over how the systems will use and whether they will protect personal data. People, especially in developed countries, also worry about how they might be manipulated by AI.
At work, only a quarter of non-managers use AI tools weekly, versus 63% of managers. Tech (55%) and finance (43%) employees are most open to AI at work, while adoption is lowest in healthcare (28%), education (25%), food & beverage (23%), and transportation (20%).
Across all countries, 62% of younger people ages 18 to 34 say they generally trust AI, while 57% of people ages 3554, and 40% of people 55 and older say they trust it. Interestingly, only 40% of 18-to-34 year olds in the U.S. say they trust AI.
More AI coverage from Fast Company:
Gemini 3 may be the moment Google pulls away in the AI arms race
Misinformation sites have an open-door policy for AI scrapers
AI browsers need the open web. So why are they trying to kill it?
A battle against the AI oligarchy is brewing in this wealthy New York district
Want exclusive reporting and trend analysis on technology, business innovation, future of work, and design? Sign up for Fast Company Premium.
A beloved Christmas tree tradition is returning to Manhattan for the holiday season next week. No, its not the towering spruce at Rockefeller Center, which is lit in early December.
The comparatively smaller Origami Holiday Tree thats delighted crowds for decades at the American Museum of Natural History opens to the public on Monday. The colorful, richly decorated 13-foot (4-meter) tree is adorned with thousands of hand-folded paper ornaments created by origami artists from around the world.
This years tree is inspired by the museums new exhibition, Impact: The End of the Age of Dinosaurs, which chronicles how an asteroid crash some 66 million years ago reshaped life on Earth.
Talo Kawasaki, the trees co-designer, said the trees theme is New Beginnings, in reference to the new world that followed the mass extinction.
Located off the museums Central Park West entrance, the artificial tree is topped with a golden, flaming asteroid.
Its branches and limbs are packed with origami works representing a variety of animals and insects, including foxes, cranes, turtles, bats, sharks, elephants, giraffes and monkeys. Dinosaur favorites such as the triceratops and tyrannosaurus rex are also depicted in the folded paper works of art.
We wanted to focus more not so much the demise of the dinosaurs, but the new life this created, which were the expansion and the evolution of mammals ultimately leading to humanity, Kawasaki explained on a recent visit.
The origami tree has been a highlight of the museums holiday season for more than 40 years.
Volunteers from all over the world are enlisted to make hundreds of new models. The intricate paper artworks are generally made from a single sheet of paper but can sometimes take days or even weeks to perfect.
The new origami pieces are bolstered by archived works stored from prior seasons, including a 40-year-old model of a pterosaur, an extinct flying reptile, that was folded for one of the museums first origami trees in the early 1970s.
Rosalind Joyce, the trees co-designer, estimates that anywhere from 2,000 to 3,000 origami works are embedded in the tree.
This year theres a lot of stuff stuffed in there, she said. So I dont count.
Joseph B. Frederick and Philip Marcelo, Associated Press
A 1940 self-portrait by famed Mexican artist Frida Kahlo of her asleep in a bed could make history Thursday when it goes on sale by Sothebys in New York.
With an estimated price of $40 million to $60 million, El sueo (La cama) in English, The Dream (The Bed) may surpass the top price for a work by any female artist when it goes under the hammer. That record currently stands at $44.4 million, paid at Sothebys in 2014 for Georgia OKeeffes Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1.
The highest price at auction for a Kahlo work is $34.9 million, paid in 2021 for Diego and I, depicting the artist and her husband, muralist Diego Rivera. Her paintings are reported to have sold privately for even more.
The painting up for auction depicts Kahlo asleep in a wooden colonial-style bed, wrapped in a golden blanket embroidered with crawling vines and leaves. Above her, seemingly levitating atop the bedposts, lies a full-sized skeleton.
In its catalog note, Sotheby’s said the painting offers a spectral meditation on the porous boundary between sleep and death.
Last exhibited publicly in the late 1990s, the painting is the star of a sale of more than 100 surrealist works by artists including Salvador Dalí, René Magritte, Max Ernst, and Dorothea Tanning. They are from a private collection whose owner has not been disclosed.
Kahlo vibrantly and unsparingly depicted herself and events from her life, which was upended by a bus accident at 18. She started to paint while bedridden, underwent a series of painful surgeries on her damaged spine and pelvis, then wore casts until her death in 1954 at age 47.
The suspended skeleton is often interpreted as a visualization of her anxiety about dying in her sleep, a fear all too plausible for an artist whose daily existence was shaped by chronic pain and past trauma, the catalog notes.
Theyre cute, even cuddly, and promise learning and companionshipbut artificial intelligence toys are not safe for kids, according to childrens and consumer advocacy groups urging parents not to buy them during the holiday season.
These toys, marketed to kids as young as 2 years old, are generally powered by AI models that have already been shown to harm children and teenagers, such as OpenAIs ChatGPT, according to an advisory published Thursday by the childrens advocacy group Fairplay and signed by more than 150 organizations and individual experts such as child psychiatrists and educators.
The serious harms that AI chatbots have inflicted on children are well-documented, including fostering obsessive use, having explicit sexual conversations, and encouraging unsafe behaviors, violence against others, and self-harm, Fairplay said.
AI toys, made by companies such as Curio Interactive and Keyi Technologies, are often marketed as educational, but Fairplay says they can displace important creative and learning activities. They promise friendship but also disrupt childrens relationships and resilience, the group said.
Whats different about young children is that their brains are being wired for the first time and developmentally it is natural for them to be trustful, for them to seek relationships with kind and friendly characters, said Rachel Franz, director of Fairplays Young Children Thrive Offline Program. Because of this, she added, the amount of trust young children are putting in these toys can exacerbate the harms seen with older children.
Fairplay, a 25-year-old organization formerly known as the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, has been warning about AI toys for more than 10 years. They just werent as advanced as they are today. A decade ago, during an emerging fad of internet-connected toys and AI speech recognition, the group helped lead a backlash against Mattels talking Hello Barbie doll that it said was recording and analyzing childrens conversations.
Everything has been released with no regulation and no research, so it gives us extra pause when all of a sudden we see more and more manufacturers, including Mattel, who recently partnered with OpenAI, potentially putting out these products, Franz said.
Its the second big seasonal warning against AI toys since consumer advocates at U.S. PIRG last week called out the trend in its annual Trouble in Toyland report that typically looks at a range of product hazards, such as high-powered magnets and button-sized batteries that young children can swallow. This year, the organization tested four toys that use AI chatbots.
We found some of these toys will talk in-depth about sexually explicit topics, will offer advice on where a child can find matches or knives, act dismayed when you say you have to leave, and have limited or no parental controls, the report said. One of the toys, a teddy bear made by Singapore-based FoloToy, was later withdrawn, its CEO told CNN this week.
Dr. Dana Suskind, a pediatric surgeon and social scientist who studies early brain development, said young children don’t have the conceptual tools to understand what an AI companion is. While kids have always bonded with toys through imaginative play, when they do this they use their imagination to create both sides of a pretend conversation, practicing creativity, language, and problem-solving, she said.
An AI toy collapses that work. It answers instantly, smoothly, and often better than a human would. We dont yet know the developmental consequences of outsourcing that imaginative labor to an artificial agentbut its very plausible that it undercuts the kind of creativity and executive function that traditional pretend play builds, Suskind said.
Beijing-based Keyi, maker of an AI petbot called Loona, didnt return requests for comment this week, but other AI toymakers sought to highlight their child safety protections.
California-based Curio Interactive makes stuffed toys, like Gabbo and rocket-shaped Grok, that have been promoted by the pop singer Grimes.
Curio said it has meticulously designed guardrails to protect children and the company encourages parents to monitor conversations, track insights, and choose the controls that work best for their family.
“After reviewing the U.S. PIRG Education Funds findings, we are actively working with our team to address any concerns, while continuously overseeing content and interactions to ensure a safe and enjoyable experience for children.
Another company, Miko, based in Mumbai, India, said it uses its own conversational AI model rather than relying on general large language model systems such as ChatGPT in order to make its productan interactive AI robotsafe for children.
We are always expanding our internal testing, strengthening our filters, and introducing new capabilities that detect and block sensitive or unexpected topics,” said CEO Sneh Vaswani. These new features complement our existing controls that allow parents and caregivers to identify specific topics theyd like to restrict from conversation. We will continue to invest in setting the highest standards for safe, secure and responsible AI integration for Miko products.
Mikos products are sold by major retailers such as Walmart and Costco and have been promoted by the families of social media kidfluencers whose YouTube videos have millions of views. On its website, it markets its robots as Artificial Intelligence. Genuine friendship.
Ritvik Sharma, the company’s senior vice president of growth, said Miko actually encourages kids to interact more with their friends, to interact more with the peers, with the family members etc. Its not made for them to feel attached to the device only.
Still, Suskind and children’s advocates say analog toys are a better bet for the holidays.
“Kids need lots of real human interaction. Play should support that, not take its place. The biggest thing to consider isnt only what the toy does; its what it replaces. A simple block set or a teddy bear that doesnt talk back forces a child to invent stories, experiment, and work through problems. AI toys often do that thinking for them,” she said. Heres the brutal irony: when parents ask me how to prepare their child for an AI world, unlimited AI access is actually the worst preparation possible.
Barbara Ortutay and Matt O’Brien, AP technology writers
As cases of potentially deadly botulism in babies who drank ByHeart infant formula continue to grow, state officials say they are still finding the recalled product on some store shelves.
Meanwhile, the company reported late Wednesday that laboratory tests confirmed that some samples of formula were contaminated with the type of bacteria that has sickened more than 30 babies in the outbreak.
Tests by an independent food safety laboratory found Clostridium botulinum, a bacterium that produces toxins that can lead to potentially life-threatening illness in babies younger than 1, the company said on its website. ByHeart officials said they notified the U.S. Food and Drug Administration of the findings but did not specify how many samples were tested or how many were positive.
We are working to investigate the facts, conduct ongoing testing to identify the source, and ensure this does not happen to families again, ByHeart said on its website.
The FDA did not immediately respond to questions about the findings.
The lab results come as investigators in at least three states found ByHeart formula still for sale even after the New York-based company recalled all products nationwide, officials told The Associated Press.
At least 31 babies in 15 states who drank ByHeart formula have been hospitalized and treated for infantile botulism since August, federal health officials said Wednesday. They range in age from about 2 weeks to about 6 months, with the most recent case reported on Nov. 13.
No deaths have been reported.
In Oregon, nine of more than 150 stores checked still had the formula on shelves this week, a state agriculture official said. In Minnesota, investigators conducted 119 checks between Nov. 13 and Nov. 17 and removed recalled products from sale at four sites, an agriculture department official said. An Arizona health official also said they found the product available.
Businesses and consumers should remain alert, Minnesota officials said in a statement. No affected product should be sold or consumed, they wrote.
Investigators with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration conducted inspections at ByHeart manufacturing plants in Allerton, Iowa, and Portland, Oregon. No results from the inspections have been reported.
California officials previously confirmed the germ that can lead to illness in an open can of ByHeart formula fed to a baby who fell ill.
Infant botulism, which can cause paralysis and death, is caused by a type of bacteria that forms spores that germinate in a baby’s gut and produce a toxin.
Symptoms can take up to 30 days to develop and include constipation, poor feeding, a weak cry, drooping eyelids, or a flat facial expression. Babies can develop weakness in their limbs and head and may feel floppy. They can have trouble swallowing or breathing.
ByHeart had been manufacturing about 200,000 cans of formula per month. It was sold online or at retail stores such as Target and Walmart. A Walmart spokesperson said the company swiftly issued a restriction that prevented sale of the formula, removed the product from stores, and notified consumers who had bought it. Customers can visit any store for a refund of the formula, which sold for about $42 per can.
Federal and state health officials are concerned that some parents and caregivers may still have ByHeart products in their homes. They are advising consumers to stop using the product including formula in cans and any single-serve sticks. They also suggest marking it DO NOT USE and keeping it for at least a month in case a baby develops symptoms. In that case, the formula would need to be tested.
The California health department operates the Infant Botulism Treatment and Prevention Program, which tracks cases and distributes treatment for the disease. Officials there have launched a public hotline at 833-398-2022, which is staffed with health officials from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. Pacific Standard Time.
The new hotline was created after calls from hundreds of parents and caregivers flooded a different, longstanding hotline for doctors to discuss suspected infant botulism cases, officials said.
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Jonel Aleccia, AP health writer
In utterly bleak news, AI Overviews are now more accurate about the lack of a relationship between autism and vaccines than the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
On Wednesday, November 19, the CDC published an updated web page that defies broad scientific consensus and even its own past statements. The page now alleges that vaccines do not cause autism is not an evidence-based claim because studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism.
It must be said as early and clearly as possible that there is no link between vaccines and autism, as overwhelming data has demonstrated.
Despite that fact, the first paragraph of the CDCs guidance on vaccines and autism now reads, “Scientific studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines contribute to the development of autism.”
The update exploits a loophole that allows for fearmongering to continue, experts say.
The CDC can justify changing its stance despite overwhelming evidence by exploiting a quirk of logic: you cant prove something never happens, writes Dr. Jake Scott, a board-certified infectious diseases specialist and clinical associate professor at Stanford University School of Medicine. Scientists cant prove vaccines never cause autism because proving a universal negative is logically impossible.”
He adds that “the public can trust the evidence because it has shown time and time again that there is no link between vaccines and autism.”
Debra Houry, the CDCs former chief medical officer, told the Washington Post that the CDC’s updated language “misrepresents decades of research.”
Newly updated page tops Google search results
A Google search of vaccine autism brings an AI Overview stating that Scientific evidence from numerous large-scale studies has overwhelmingly demonstrated no causal link between vaccines and autism.
The AI-generated result cites the CDC, World Health Organization, and the American Academy of Pediatrics.
At the same time, the CDCs newly updated page is one of the first links shown on Google after years of building up search credibility.
According to its priority statement, the CDC claims that it must lead with integrity and serves the American publicindividuals, families, and communitieswho rely on accurate data, health guidance, and preventive measures.
Yet it has published a falsehood that appears to bend to the will of U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, who has peddled anti-vax conspiracies along with an unproven link between taking Tylenol while pregnant and babies developing autism.
Kennedy was sworn in as U.S. health secretary in Februaryand his influence has been swift.
The next month, news broke that the CDC planned to undertake a large study into the link between vaccines and autism just as declines in vaccinations fueled measles outbreaks in children.
Twisting an old headline
The newly updated CDC guidance is, even more confusingly, still titled, Vaccines do not cause autism.”
It comes with an asterisk that the headline only remains because of an agreement with Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, chair of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, to keep it on the CDC website.
In February, Cassidy spoke in favor of Kennedy as U.S. health secretary, critically stating that the latter committed that he would work within the current vaccine approval and safety monitoring systems, and not establish parallel systems.”
Cassidy continued: “CDC will not remove statements on their website pointing out that vaccines do not cause autism.
The Republican senator even emphasized earlier in his speech that the evidence shows that vaccines do not cause autism. Yet now the headline is followed with efforts to disprove the scientific evidence behind it.
Fast Company has reached out to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and Senator Cassidy for comment and will update this post if we hear back.
Maybe your car broke down, your computer was stolen, or you had a surprise visit to urgent care. Emergencies are inevitable, but you can prepare to deal with them by building an emergency fund.
There are so many things that happen in our lives that we dont expect and most of them require financial means to overcome, said Miklos Ringbauer, a certified public accountant.
The industry standard is to save three to six months of expenses in an emergency fund. However, this can feel daunting if you live paycheck to paycheck or if you have debt. But if youre in either of these situations, its even more crucial to build a financial safety net that can help you in times of crisis.
Emergency funds allow you to prevent further debt, said Jaime Eckels, certified financial planner and wealth management leader for Plante Moran Financial Advisors.
Suppose youre paying multiple credit cards and other loans. In that case, Rachel Lawrence, head of advice and planning for Monarch Money, a financial planning and budgeting app, recommends that you make the minimum payments while you build your emergency fund. Once youve hit an amount that feels right for your lifestyle, you can go back and continue tackling your debt more aggressively.
Whether you want to start an emergency fund or create better habits while you save, here are some expert recommendations:
Start with small milestones
The idea of saving for three to six months worth of expenses can be daunting, so its best to start with a smaller milestone. Lawrence recommends starting with a goal of saving $1,000, then moving on to save one, three, and six months of expenses.
The way you approach this goal can vary depending on your income and your budget. But starting with small, attainable goals can help you build an emergency fund without feeling financially strained.
Starting small is okay. Even if its $20 right out of your paycheck, those small things can add up, Eckels said.
She recommends building your emergency fund in a separate account from your regular savings account, ideally a high-yield savings account, which offers a higher interest rate than a traditional savings account.
Decide on the appropriate amount for your life
Knowing how much to save for your emergency fund depends on your life situation. Lawrence suggests you gauge your own financial responsibilities to estimate how much your ideal emergency fund should be.
For single professionals with no significant financial responsibilities, such as a mortgage or a car, the amount might be $2,000 to $3,000. At the same time, people with children and several pets might aim to save for six months expenses.
There’s no one-shoe-fits-all solution. Everybody is different, especially if you have variable expenses on a monthly basis, Ringbauer said.
Lawrence recommends that self-employed people maintain two emergency funds: one to buffer low-income months and another for true emergencies. To build your buffer account, Lawrence recommends setting aside some money during high-earning months.
You set that amount aside in your buffer account until you have two or three months of the amount that you want, she said. Because that way any month where you have less money, you go pull from the buffer and its no big deal.
Automate your savings
Eckels recommends setting up automatic savings as a low-effort way to build your emergency fund.
Scheduling your savings to be withdrawn from your bank account as soon as your paycheck arrives is an effective way to build a savings habit without having to transfer the money manually.
I always tell people if it was never in your bank account, you never had it, right? Eckels added.
She also recommends that her clients open a separate account, one that isnt at the same bank as their checking account, so they arent tempted to transfer the money in a non-emergency.
Make it visual
As youre making progress towards your emergency fund goal, making it visual can help you stay motivated, according to Lawrence.
She recommends getting creative with how you track your progress, ideally with a method that brings you joy.
You want your brain to get rewarded as often as possible when youre seeing a bunch of progress, she said.
Some options to make your progress visual include drawing a thermometer-like tracker and keeping it updated as you advance toward your goal, documenting your progress on a habit-building tracker on your phone, or using a budgeting app with a tracking tool.
Save windfalls
If your budget is really tight and you dont have much wiggle room to set aside money for an emergency fund, Lawrence recommends saving windfalls.
Unexpected chunks of money that maybe you werent expecting, like tax refunds or getting a third paycheck when you normally get paid twice a month, or a bonus, those are your best ways to make progress when youre tight otherwise, said Lawrence.
In general, Lawrence recommends that people keep 10% of their windfall for themselves and the rest for their emergency fund. With that breakdown, you can both save and feel rewarded by the unexpected income.
If you use it, don’t feel guilty
Chances are that an emergency will happen, and when it does, you dont need to feel guilty for using your emergency fund, Lawrence said. Instead, its best to think about how youve achieved your goal of building a financial safety net for yourself.
You wouldnt feel bad about using your down payment to buy a house, you wouldnt feel bad about saving for retirement, actually to retire, Lawrence said.
The Associated Press receives support from Charles Schwab Foundation for educational and explanatory reporting to improve financial literacy. The independent foundation is separate from Charles Schwab and Co. Inc. The AP is solely responsible for its journalism.
Adriana Morga, Associated Press
For the 150th episode of my award-winning podcast series, FUTURE OF XYZ, I sat down with Nick Foster, former head of design at Google X and leading futures designer. We quickly found common ground in our strong belief that society doesnt think about the future in the right way. Too often, the future is reduced to flashy visions, both in media headlines and through messages from leading corporations. The future feels like a sci-fi movie that still seems far away. Nick and I both believe the future isnt some distant fantasy, but rather a tomorrow already unfolding before us. To prepare, we must pay closer attention to what we know now and how people are acting today. What drives Nick and his work isnt predictions or bets, but a deeper exploration of how we think about the future itself.
That distinction resonated deeply with me. In my own workwhether the podcast, as a leader at iF Design, or in my consulting work, Ive argued that the future isnt something just out there to predict. Rather, the future is something we actively construct through our choices and the questions we dare to ask.
IMAGINE THE FUTURE
Nicks new book, Could Should Might Dont: How We Think About the Future, emerged from years of conversations inside Google X and beyond, where he noticed a surprising truth: Even among the worlds leading innovators, we often fail to approach the future with real rigor. We rely on hunches, dotted lines, and simplified stories. This lack of discipline not only weakens the conversation, but leaves us ill-equipped for whats actually to come.
Rather than writing a manifesto or prescriptive framework, Nick created a taxonomya way to classify the different modes of imagining the future. By delving into how we think about the future, he hopes our collective conversations become more rounded, more actionable, and more honest about uncertainty.
During our conversation, we touched on the future mundane, the idea that most lived experiences will be found not in extremes, but in the everyday middle of the bell curve. This lens particularly aligns with my own mission at iF Design. Design, after all, is the mediator between big ideas and daily life. From the products we use, to the systems that govern them, to the values they embed, design shapes how we experience change. My role at iF Design is precisely about interrogating this: How do we embed sustainability and impact into design decisions so that what feels ordinary tomorrow reflects responsibility and resilience, not just convenience or speed?
Nick also reflects on a profound cultural shift we are experiencing. For the first time in modern history, entire generations are less confident about what the future will bring. Having pushed exponential economic growth to its limits, were beginning to wrestle with the well, and now what? question that undercuts strident narratives of progress. In my own conversations, Ive seen how this moment of reckoning demands we focus on intentionality, pivoting from chasing growth alone to cultivating resilience.
WHATS NEXT
In Nicks view, technology currently holds the wheel when it comes to shaping whats next. With that power comes responsibilitya responsibility corporations and societies alike have yet to fully embrace. I often remind audiences that while technology will remain a critical driver, its our values, our courage, and our willingness to collaborate that will ultimately determine the future(s) we design into being.
And as Nick reminded me, in a time of unprecedented change, we must resist the urge to cling blindly to what we already believe. Instead, we need to ask deeper questions, demand more rigorous thinking, and recognize that imagining the future is not just for futurists. Its a collective skill we all must learnand practice together.
Thats precisely why this conversation mattered to me. Every day I explore how leadership, design, and purpose intersect to shape a more human, more sustainable future. Nicks work underscores that same truth: The future isnt something happening to us. Its something we are all responsible for shaping. And that begins with how we choose to think, design, and act today.
Lisa Gralnek is global head of sustainability and impact for iF Design, managing director of iF Design USA Inc., and creator/host of the podcast, FUTURE OF XYZ.
Picture the scene. Youve advertised a job on LinkedIn and received applications from around Europe. The perfect candidate lives in one of the worlds top tech citiesParis, Berlin, or Amsterdam, for instance. Your company is based somewhere in Europe, so hiring them should be easy, right?
Unfortunately, no.
Despite their geographical proximity, countries in Europe still vary significantly in their hiring rules and regulations, making it hard to compliantly pay cross-border workers. Lets take a closer look at the problem.
So close, yet so far
Theres naturally a certain amount of friction in terms of labor law compatibility between European states inside and outside of the European Union (EU). But even within the umbrella of the EU, countries have their own labor, tax, and social security rules that can turn simple payroll procedures into a nightmare.
Thats because EU labor law is issued via directives that allow member states discretion in how they implement rulings. For businesses, this makes an EU-wide hiring strategy impossible, instead requiring individual approaches to each and every country a company might want to hire inup to and including incorporation.
This isnt something that can be done as an afterthought. Misclassifying a worker, for instance by employing someone as a contractor rather than an employee, may lead to penalties and legal trouble.
The state of cross-border hiring in Europe
Despite the difficulties, businesses continue to hire across borders for the simple reason that talent is getting harder to find locally. One report found that 54% of European employers expect labour shortages to worsen over the next five years. And a patchwork of talent availability means skills and the businesses that need them are rarely in the same placeforcing businesses to look elsewhere.
But hiring across borders isnt getting easier. While the demand for specialized talent has increased by 112% over the last three years, the complexity of hiring talent has also increasedparticularly in the EU, with incoming requirements like the pay transparency directive.
The movement of workers between countries is also a minefield. Under EU rules, employees can only be subject to one countrys social security requirements at a time (to avoid double contributions). Some countries have cross-border agreements but employee tax exposure can be hard to fully comprehend, even for the experts.
Heres what that looks like in practice
A London startup wants to hire its first engineer in Berlin. Expanding into a new European talent market means a costly and months-long process of establishing a business entityall to justify a headcount of one.
How about a Dutch company trying to support an employee relocating to Spain? The employer wants to be supportive, but there are clear tax residency and other legal implications such as pay transparency that have to be explored.
The difficulty of navigating these all-too-common issues is putting a roadblock on progress and forcing businesses to compromise on quality by hiring in their own backyards.
The problem with payroll
Despite most companies having employees in more than one country, the means of paying them continue to lag behind. Payroll (often the largest expense for a company at around 50-60% of spending) has historically been seen as a back-office burden. Payroll is an essential cost of business, but because of all the challenges weve discussed, its expensive, complex, and generally fails to add strategic value.
When youre running payroll across borders, the complexity only goes up. Indeed, 85% of global executives say compliance requirements have become more complex in the last three years. In short, its all risk and no reward.
The right software can help
In response to the expanding global workforce, more workforce management companies are developing software designed to help companies hire and pay European workers without the burden of navigating complex administrative requirements. My company, Multiplier, offers one of these solutions.
As a centralized platform for payroll operations, our payroll solution enables companies to pay employees in countries where they dont have a legal entity, fully compliant with local tax and social security rules.
This would allow the London startup discussed earlier to hire its first engineer in Berlin without the delay and expense of incorporation in Germany. And if things dont work out, the startup wont have to go through the rigmarole of shutting down an entity in Berlin afterwards.
Similarly, the Dutch company with a marketer who relocated to Spain doesnt have to worry about the tax residency implications and potential penalties. They can seamlessly support their employees without disrupting their existing payroll compliance efforts.
Unlocking European talent
Paying people across borders is a problem unlikely to be solved politically. In an increasingly multipoar world, theres little prospect of the increased regulatory alignment necessary to enable seamless international payments.
In the meantime, payroll solutions will help remove the friction required to pay cross-border workers, helping companies to accelerate their growth and recruit the best European talentinstead of settling for the best available talent locally.
Sagar Khatri is CEO and cofounder of Multiplier.
