The Breakdown: What's Working in the Job Market

As Washington continues to debate jobs legislation, the Labor Department is preparing to release its monthly unemployment report for September. It is arguably the most important economic report of the year. But what does it all mean to everyday people who are working or who hope to work?

To find out, Kai Ryssdal and the Marketplace team hit the road, visiting communities across the country where jobs have been added, where companies are hiring and where Americans are finding their way back into the labor market. In this new one-hour special, Marketplace will go beyond the headline of the September unemployment report to investigate where the bright spots are and whether they are bright enough to energize the economy.


Arts & Culture

WAMU 88.5

Art Beat With Lauren Landau, October 7

You can explore one calligrapher's modern take on Korean handwriting, or see two shows that require a little help from the audience.

Food

NPR

Fairfax Schools Pull All-Beef Burgers From Menu, Citing Complaints

Students in a Virginia school system are now eating hamburgers with additives in them, after officials heeded their complaints about the appearance and taste of all-beef burgers it had been serving. The burgers that are now being served include a reported 26 ingredients.

Politics

NPR

No End In Sight: Shutdown Showdown Enters Week Two

Hundreds of thousands of Defense Department civilian employees will go back to work on Monday, but many government operations remain suspended.

Technology

NPR

Wanted: A New Generation Of High-Tech Aviation Workers

Millions of U.S. factory jobs have been lost in the past decade. Now, in North Carolina, high school students are being encouraged to think about taking manufacturing jobs. But this isn't the furniture-making or textile labor of generations past — it's a new kind of highly technical work in aviation.