By Alicia Wallace, CNN

(CNN) — When the April jobs report is released Friday morning, it is expected to show that the US labor market added 67,000 positions.

If so, that’s roughly one-third of the 178,000 jobs created in March.

While in comparison the April total may seem like a sharp deceleration or a tepid month of employment growth, when viewed in isolation, it could seem solid or resilient — maybe even normal.

There are plenty of logical explanations for the stark shift and the undulating payroll numbers for the first few months of 2026; however, there’s also something much bigger afoot: The job market is in the throes of an evolution.

“The labor market is absolutely transforming, and it’s not going to look the same as our pre-2020 trends,” Nicole Bachaud, a labor economist at ZipRecruiter, told CNN in an interview.

There’s not a clear picture yet, she said, of what the new normal is.

The US job market and the broader economy have been subject to a slew of exogenous shocks during the past six years – chief among them being a once-in-a-century global pandemic.

In the backdrop, however, is a series of changes more structural in nature (some of which have even been helped along by those outside shocks):

• The US population is aging. Labor force growth is slowing as members of the large Baby Boomer cohort retire; industries such as health care and social services have greatly expanded as a result.
• There’s been a sharp reduction in net immigration. Trump administration policies of immigration restrictions and mass deportations have shifted the trajectory of what was a decades-long driver of labor supply. This shift also reduces labor demand through a drop in consumer spending.
• Technological innovations, notably artificial intelligence, are reshaping jobs, industries, and the economy. Although still early days, the adoption of AI is contributing to changes in the occupational mix; has been directly cited as a reason (or, perhaps, scapegoat) for layoffs; and has shown potential to influence economy-shaping dynamics such as productivity and wages.

A roller coaster-like effect

Getting a firm read on the labor market in 2026 has been like riding a roller coaster: The economy added an estimated 160,000 jobs in January and lost 133,000 jobs in February before bouncing back to that March total. (These monthly tallies are still subject to revision.)

The volatility can be partly attributed to several factors, including weather, labor strikes, lower-than-typical post-holiday layoffs, and recalibrations to how the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates payroll changes at new and closed businesses (referred to as the birth-death model).

Those fluctuations in the top-line payroll number could very well continue in the months to come, largely because of the birth-death model changes, said Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM US.

“In fact, we moved away from really placing an emphasis on any given month, and we’re looking at a smooth three-month average now,” he said.

From January through March, the average monthly gain is sitting at 68,333.

The consensus estimates, at 67,000 jobs added, fall right in line with that average.

The unemployment rate is expected to remain at 4.3%, FactSet estimates show.

Job growth slows as structural changes take hold

April’s projected job growth, however, is likely still running “above trend,” noted Gregory Daco, chief economist at EY-Parthenon, which is forecasting a total of 45,000 jobs were added last month.

“The ex

By Ali Halit Diker, CNN

(CNN) — Muğla in southwestern Turkey delivers exactly what travelers expect from this corner of the Mediterranean: sunlit coastlines, rugged mountains and the ruins of long-fallen empires.

Yet beyond these well-trodden attractions, it hides something far less familiar — a place that attracts a secretive, devoted stream of visitors for reasons that have little to do with rest and relaxation.

About an hour’s drive north of the pretty coastal town of Akyaka sits Lagina, a site that’s home to the largest known temple dedicated to Hekate, a powerful Greek goddess associated with witchcraft, the moon, crossroads and communication with the dead.

While worship of most other ancient Greek or Roman deities has been confined to history, Hekate, or Hecate, remains a subject of reverence, attracting a global following of devotees, some of whom travel to the sanctuary dedicated to her to leave offerings.

Today, the sanctuary and temple make for a fascinating visit. It’s a large complex, scattered with columns and enough structural remains to show the shape of what was once seen as the threshold of an otherworldly realm.

For modern followers, Lagina is more than another archaeological site; it’s the spiritual center of their world.

“It is the only temple of this scale in the world built exclusively for the goddess Hekate,” says Bilal Söğüt, a professor at Turkey’s Pamukkale University, who leads excavations at both the sanctuary and the nearby ancient town of Stratonikeia.

The two sites were once connected by the Sacred Way, a stone-paved road stretching just over eight kilometers, or five miles. Lined with fountains, wells and small settlements, this route once carried elaborate religious processions between city and sanctuary.

“During ancient times, massive processions traveled this route,” says Söğüt.

A threshold of life and death

The most significant was a key-carrying ritual, in which a young girl, known as the kleidouchos, or key-bearer, would carry a sacred key between Lagina and Stratonikeia, accompanied by a large choir.

“This key does not open physical doors alone,” explains researcher and author Hüma Zeybek, who has written about Hekate. “It symbolizes the ability to move between life and death, the conscious and the unconscious, and the old and the new.”

Zeybek explains that Hekate was seen as a “guardian of the threshold,” an inner guide to those navigating personal crisis or transformation. She is seen as the archetype of the old, wise crone — representing matrilineal wisdom stretching back 8,000 years to the mother goddess figures found in the Neolithic settlement of Çatalhöyük, in central Turkey.

Lagina grew in importance after around 88 BCE, at the time of a conflict between Rome and Mithridates, who ruled the kingdom of Pontus, covering what is now modern-day Turkey. While the rest of the region sided with Mithridates, Stratonikeia supported the eventually victorious Romans.

Later, the Romans rewarded the city by investing heavily in the Temple of Hekate, establishing the Hekatesia-Romania festival, an annual event that drew people from all over the ancient world.

Lagina continues to be a place of pilgrimage. Modern devotees, such as author Sorita d’Este, who describes herself as a priestess and magic practitioner, visit the site to experience what they say is a place of profound energy.

For many, the journey there itself feels symbolic as it involves navigating a modern three-way junction near an industrial power plant with three towering smokestacks, an echo of Hekate’s role as goddess of the crossroads.

A dark transformation

While many come just t

By Jacqui Palumbo, CNN

(CNN) — Generally speaking, you can’t sit on the art in a museum. But in one gallery of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago — which is currently staged to resemble a karaoke bar complete with a disco ball, stage and jukebox — three plastic chairs, upholstered with the face of Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny, are waiting for you to rest between songs.

Part of the exhibition “Dancing the Revolution: From Dancehall to Reggaetón,” the chairs are the work of the artist Edra Soto, who transforms the objects of her childhood and the everyday design and architecture found in Puerto Rico into artworks and spaces that evoke life on the small island. She’s mounted flat box fans that keep families cool in the shapes of Christian crosses; interpreted the colorful ubiquitous ironwork fences that demarcate home and street into towering sculptures; and placed tiny keyholes in her sculptures that reveal quiet photos of Puerto Rican houses inside.

“All these objects are rooted in the home,” she said in a video call from her home in Chicago, explaining that she is always thinking about them “in a way that is higher than their assigned function.”

Together, her works often create contemplative spaces, and lately, she’s delved more into the spiritual, with her own Catholic upbringing influencing the “tabernacle-like” atrium that is central to her current show at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, as well as her newest exhibition at the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico.

Her series of Bad Bunny chairs, then, or “BB chairs,” made over the past year and a half, are perhaps representative of a different kind of devotion as the Puerto Rican singer has reached staggering new levels of fame. (His 2022 album “Un Verano Sin Ti” is the highest streamed album in Spotify’s 20-year history.) In “Dancing the Revolution,” he makes multiple appearances in the show, which is dedicated to the visual history and political power of Caribbean music and dance. The exhibition came to be in the wake of the summer of 2019, when mass protests over years of government corruption led to the resignation of Governor Ricardo Rosselló —demonstrations in which Bad Bunny became a central figure as he paused his tour to join the movement. In one monumental photograph in the exhibition, he stands tall above the crowd in San Juan waving the Puerto Rican flag, reminiscent of Delacroix’s “Liberty Leading the People,” curator Carla Acevedo-Yates explained during an exhibition walkthrough.

For Soto, she has been impressed with the smart and meaningful ways in which Bad Bunny communicates to Puerto Ricans — quite literally, as she recalled his appearance on the local news last year where he presented top stories and even the weather forecast. Her “BB Chairs” — outfitted in bootleg fabrics featuring the singer with sunglasses and buzz cuts — have been a tongue-in-cheek nod to both the plastic white chair ubiquitous to the island and the performer’s deep connection to his home. In addition to their appearances at the Kemper Museum and MCA Chicago, she arranged them on a pedestal with box fans at the art fair EXPO Chicago last year, drawing crowds and news cameras.

“I had this idea a whole year before I made them,” she said. “I was doubting myself. I was thinking maybe this is too on the nose.”

But friends excitedly reached out to Soto when Bad Bunny released the now history-making, Grammy Award-winning album “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS.” The album cover fe

Por Bryan Mena, CNN

La tensión aumenta entre los responsables políticos encargados de controlar la inflación a medida que se extienden los efectos económicos de la guerra entre Estados Unidos e Israel e Irán.

Cuando los funcionarios de la Reserva Federal se reunieron los días 17 y 18 de marzo, apenas unas semanas después del estallido de la guerra, el presidente Jerome Powell afirmó que cualquier efecto sobre la inflación probablemente sería temporal y podría limitarse al sector energético, dejando abierta la posibilidad de al menos un recorte de tipos este año.

En aquel momento, Wall Street también se mostraba optimista ante la posibilidad de que Kevin Warsh, el candidato del presidente Donald Trump para suceder a Powell, impulsara recortes de tipos, en caso de ser confirmado.

Pero la guerra con Irán se ha prolongado desde entonces y ya lleva diez semanas.

En la última reunión de la Reserva Federal a finales de abril, la inquietud de los funcionarios se hizo mucho más evidente. Tres de ellos discreparon de la última declaración de política monetaria de la Reserva Federal, mostrándose en desacuerdo con su “sesgo expansivo”, es decir, la sugerencia de que las tasas podrían bajar.

Esos funcionarios —las presidentas de la Reserva Federal de Cleveland, Beth Hammack, de Dallas, Lorie Logan, y de Minneapolis, Neel Kashkari, — declararon en comunicados que la Reserva Federal no está siendo transparente sobre la creciente probabilidad de una subida de tipos.

Y, según los expertos, es probable que no sean los únicos dentro del comité de política monetaria de la Reserva Federal, compuesto por 19 miembros, con estas preocupaciones, ya que solo 12 de ellos tienen derecho a voto.

“La oposición a la política monetaria expansiva probablemente fue más amplia que la de esos tres grupos”, afirmó Derek Tang, economista de Monetary Policy Analytics. “Pero la pregunta es: ¿cuándo se dispararán las expectativas inflacionarias? La inflación lleva ya un tiempo por encima de su objetivo del 2 %”.

No se trata solo del petróleo: la guerra con Irán ha dificultado que las empresas accedan a otras materias primas clave, como fertilizantes, helio y aluminio, lo que a su vez ha provocado un aumento de sus precios.

Esto está obligando a las empresas de todos los sectores a reconfigurar sus cadenas de suministro y a idear estrategias para contrarrestar las interrupciones, según las últimas encuestas empresariales del Instituto para la Gestión de la Cadena de Suministro (ISM).

Por ejemplo, en la encuesta de abril del ISM, publicada el martes, una empresa de servicios públicos afirmó que está “mitigando el riesgo mediante la adquisición anticipada de productos, la diversificación de proveedores y el posicionamiento estratégico de inventarios”.

El Índice de Presión de la Cadena de Suministro Global del Banco de la Reserva Federal de Nueva York se disparó en abril hasta alcanzar una lectura de 1,82, frente al 0,68 de marzo, y el nivel más alto desde 2022.

“Esto refleja la grave escasez y las interrupciones en el suministro que experimentó la economía mundial en 2021 al salir de la pandemia”, declaró el martes el presidente de la Reserva Federal de Nueva York, John Williams, en un evento en Nueva York.

Logan, que tiene derecho a voto en la Reserva Federal este año, se hizo eco de esa preocupación en un comunicado en el que detallaba su disidencia política la semana pasada, añadiendo que podría exacerbar la inflación: “El conflicto en Medio Oriente plantea la posibilidad de interrupciones prolongadas o repetidas en el suministro que podrían generar mayores presiones inflacionarias”.

En marzo, Powell afirmó que la percepción que tienen los estadounidenses de los precios

By Matt Egan, CNN

New York (CNN) — Shirley Modlin started her manufacturing business 20 years ago in her garage with her husband. Now, she fears the company won’t survive.

Modlin’s tiny company based in Powhatan, Virginia, faces major delays on components and price hikes of up to 400% that she blames on tariffs. She is struggling to pass those costs on to clients and has fallen 90 days behind on payments to vendors.

“Everything is delayed or high-priced. The customer is screaming. It’s killing us,” Modlin, owner of 3D Design and Manufacturing, told CNN in a phone interview.

Mom-and-pop shops are under increasing pressure from a confluence of factors: tariffs, high interest rates, expensive health insurance and now surging energy costs.

Small businesses with fewer than 10 employees have cut jobs 13 months in a row, according to according to a new analysis by the Democratic staff at the US Congress Joint Economic Committee that was first shared with CNN.

That’s a big change from the spike in small business optimism that accompanied President Donald Trump’s 2024 victory.

Modlin already had to forgo raises for her workers this year. Now she’s being forced to contemplate what was once unthinkable: whether to sell the business or lay off any of her highly-skilled machinists.

“I am trying to stay alive. I can’t sleep at night,” Modlin said.

Steeper layoffs than Covid

Trevor Frampton owns a feed and pet supply store in Santa Rosa, California, with his wife. They have been unable to pass costs on to cash-strapped consumers because he fears they will turn to larger rivals or e-commerce options instead.

Now, Frampton is considering letting employees go for the first time in a decade.

“There is something so wrong with this economy right now. My customers are buying less and they are buying down,” Frampton said. “The only option left is reduction in force – and that just makes my stomach turn.”

Employment at mom-and-pop shops tumbled by 292,200 jobs in 2025 alone, according to the US Congress Joint Economic Committee’s analysis, based on the Intuit QuickBooks Small Business Index. That’s the most since tracking began a decade ago. By comparison, mom-and-pop shops lost 87,800 jobs in 2024.

In fact, these smallest businesses cut four times more jobs last year than in 2020, during the pandemic, according to the Intuit data. The data is based on a sample of small businesses that use QuickBooks to manage payroll and invoices.

However, a different metric from ADP that tracks slightly larger businesses (those employing between one and 19 people) finds an increase of 526,000 jobs last year. ADP said these small businesses have added 236,000 jobs so far this year, including 43,000 jobs in April.

‘Lifeblood’ of the economy

Trump had promised to use a mix of tax relief and deregulation that would spark a Main Street jobs boom.

Speaking at a National Small Business Week event this week, Trump hailed his administration’s efforts to cut red tape, slash taxes and allow businesses to deduct 100% of the cost of new facilities, equipment and capital investment.

“You’re essentially the most important f