Good morning. In this edition:

• 💼 White-collar layoffs
• 🏦 Fed rate cut
• 🐬 Dolphins naming each other

…and much more.

Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news should be a ~3.63-minute read (965 words).

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"The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us."

–Voltaire (1694-1778)

If it feels like every recent LinkedIn post on your timeline starts with “After X amazing years at…”—you’re not alone.

In recent days and weeks, companies across corporate America have announced tens of thousands of job cuts among white-collar roles, signaling a new normal for the US labor market.

The list is extensive:

• Amazon this week announced plans to lay off 14,000 corporate employees, with a total of 30,000 white-collar layoffs expected in the near future.
• UPS says it has cut 14,000 management roles this year already, out of 48,000 total job cuts.
• Target is laying off 1,800 corporate employees, joining GM, Molson Coors, Paramount, Booz Allen Hamilton, and Rivian in recent rounds of layoffs mostly targeting management.

Driving the trend

Companies enacting the widespread layoffs cite a combination of financial and technological reasons. Investor pressure and rising costs—some of them tariff-related—are pushing companies to streamline operations, cut spending, and reduce bureaucracy.

At the same time, recent AI advances mean the technology is now handling tasks once reserved for well-paid humans (data analysis, scheduling, coding, etc.), leading many companies to cut costs so they can free up funds for future AI spending.

Meanwhile, blue collar jobs are booming. Companies across the economy are currently reporting shortages of employees in the trades, healthcare, hospitality, and construction, according to the WSJ.

Big picture: While the US unemployment rate has stayed between 4% and 4.3% for 16 straight months, other signs point to a cooling job market. There were just 0.98 job openings for each unemployed American in August, down from a peak of 2+ in March 2022 and well below the pre-pandemic “healthy” ratio of 1.2.

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America’s supply of overqualified coffee shop employees is in danger.

The US, long considered the world’s undisputed leader in PhD graduates, has seen an unprecedented decline in doctorates in recent months as universities across the country cut back on their programs.

Some recent examples:

• Harvard has cut PhD admissions slots by 75% for science programs and 60% for humanities, the school’s newspaper reported last week.
• The University of Washington’s astronomy department is suspending all PhD admissions for the coming academic year.
• Brown is pausing PhD admissions in at least six humanities and social science departments.

Behind the brain drain

Experts point to a range of reasons to explain why universities are pulling back from PhD programs:

• More graduate students are unionizing, making it tougher for universities to afford their salaries and causing programs to shrink.
• International students are increasingly opting for grad programs in other countries, like Australia, China, the UK, and Germany, instead of coming to America.
• Prospective students are now more likely to choose salaries over syllabi, accepting jobs in private industry rather than taking on college debt to pursue grad school.

Looking ahead…Fewer PhDs today could mean fewer scientists, engineers, and scholars tomorrow. Some analysts warn that if the PhD shrinking trend continues, the US could give up its long-held edge over other countries when it comes to science and technology.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 🏦 Federal Reserve cuts interest rates by a quarter-point for the second straight meeting, bringing the benchmark rate to between 3.75% and 4.0%; Fed Chair Jerome Powell cast doubt on a third straight rate cut in December, saying it’s “far from” a foregone conclusion.
• 🚗 General Motors to lay off 3,300+ hourly workers at plants across Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee starting in January.
• 📝 Earnings corner: Alphabet beats analysts’ expectations on earnings and revenue, sending shares up ~5% after-hours. | Meta reports better-than-expected earnings and revenue, but also disclosed a one-time $15.9 billion tax charge; shares are down ~9% after-hours. | Microsoft beats expectations for earnings and revenue, says its OpenAI investment resulted in a $3.1 billion quarterly revenue hit; shares fall ~4% after-hours.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 📖 2025 Word of the Year is “6-7” (pronounced “six seven”), the "nonsensical and playfully absurd" slang term, according to Dictionary.com.
• 🏈 Detroit Lions sign DE Aidan Hutchinson to four-year extension worth $180 million, including $141 million guaranteed (a non-QB record).
• ⚾ Minnesota Twins to reportedly hire Derek Shelton as the team's new manager; Shelton previously served as the Pittsburgh Pirates manager before he was fired in May.

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SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🐋 Scientists discover one of the mechanisms allowing bowhead whales to live longer than any other mammals (200+ years); they now aim to see whether it can be replicated in humans.
• 🌌 Astronomers reveal the most comprehensive radio map of our Milky Way galaxy ever produced.
• 🕸️ Spiders add extra decorations to their webs (called stabilimenta) to help them detect vibrations from trapped prey, according to new research.

US, WORLD & POLITICS

• 🌀 Hurricane Melissa has caused the deaths of dozens of people across Cuba, Haiti, and Jamaica amid widespread destruction and power outages; Melissa, now a Category 1 hurricane, brought dangerous winds and flooding to the Bahamas last night.
• 🧑‍⚖️ Jury convicts Illinois sheriff’s deputy of second-degree murder in the shooting death of Sonya Massey, a Black woman who called 911 to report a suspected prowler.
• 🚨 Massive police raid in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, leaves an estimated 132 people dead, per state authorities; the raid, which involved ~2,500 police officers searching for—and fighting against—drug traffickers, is the deadliest in Rio’s history.

☝️ A farm in Germany built 15 larger-than-life sculptures of famous women out of pumpkins for their annual Halloween festival. Now in its 22nd year, the Klaistow farm festival attracts thousands of daily visitors.

🤔 Did you know? Bottlenose dolphins have unique “names” for each other. Scientists have found that dolphins use distinctive whistles to identify others in the pod, and when a dolphin hears their own name called out, they typically respond.

📰 Worth a read: America’s founding fathers had no faith in democracy

🖱️ Clickbait: What oldest siblings bring up most in therapy

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Yesterday we covered how OpenAI officially adopted a new for-profit structure following a lengthy legal saga, in a change allowing the ChatGPT-maker to operate more like a traditional company and potentially hold an IPO in the future.

❓ Our question to you: In general, do you support or oppose OpenAI’s move to adopt a new for-profit structure?

• Support: 22%
• Oppose: 48%
• Unsure/other: 30%

Click here to read some of the most thoughtful longform responses.

+Note on sample size: We received 609 votes and 54 longform responses.

Can you name the flattest US state?

💻 Sam Nadol first learned how to refurbish computers in middle school. Now, the college student has turned his niche hobby into a full-blown nonprofit organization that distributes computers to people in need around the world. 

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