AI and the job search, inflation's impact on consumers: Wealth!

On today's episode of Wealth!, host Brad Smith explores inflation trends, the growing demand for AI skills, and the well-being of consumers in the current economic landscape.

As high inflation continues to pose challenges for Americans, the show welcomes Stefanie Stantcheva, a professor of economics at Harvard University, to delve into the impact of rising prices on individuals across all income classes. Complementing this discussion, Yahoo Finance's Kerry Hannon joins the show to offer practical strategies for combating inflation when saving for retirement.

Shifting gears, the episode explores the rapidly evolving realm of artificial intelligence and its implications for the job market. Coursera (COUR) CEO Jeff Maggioncalda shares his perspective on the growing need for job seekers to possess AI-related skills and how his company aims to help.

Finally, Wealth! delves into the wants and well-being of consumers in the current economic climate. As many individuals feel their well-being is being affected, the show explores the trend of turning hobbies into full-time jobs.

This post was written by Angel Smith

Video transcript

Welcome to wealth everyone.

I'm Brad Smith and this is Yahoo Finances guide to building your financial footprint.

Our community of experts will give you the resources, the tools, the tips and tricks that you need to grow your money.

On today's show.

May consumer price index showed inflation moderating will talk to a number of experts about where inflation is still sticky and how you can hedge against it.

And the A I skills that you need to land your next job will discuss how of the labor market is adjusting to the A I boom.

Plus turning your side hustle into your main hustle.

We get tips from someone who went from pharmacist to full time travel guide and blogger.

All that much more coming up throughout today's show.

But first our top story today, a double whammy for Wall Street here stocks there in the green after the consumer price index for May showed inflation cooling and we're seeing treasury yields fall after CP I.

And ahead of the fed's decision on interest rates, we're largely expecting the fed to hold rates steady this month.

But the moderation seen in May's CP I report is boosting some hopes of an earlier rate cut the odds of a rate cut in July increasing 2 16.5% from around 12% yesterday.

And here's the f the core focus point.

We're seeing an even greater jump in the odds for a September cut 61% probability versus the 47 percent that we saw just yesterday.

So let's talk about what this means for your investment portfolio here with more.

We've got RJ Gallo who is the Federated Army's senior portfolio manager.

Great to see you here.

RJ.

So first and foremost, as you look through this data, where did your mind immediately go to in terms of today's meeting and how investors should be tr perhaps trying to not fight the FED but anticipate the fed.

Well, good morning uh in terms of today's data and the impact on the Fed meeting.

Uh First of all, today's data was good news for the Federal Reserve.

They, they need inflation to come down to get the confidence that they say they require in order to layer in eases.

I think it's important for all investors to realize that the Fed's objective here is to eventually ease up on what they deem to be restrictive monetary policy with the fed funds rate of five and a quarter to 550.

Uh It is deemed to be restrictive in their eyes.

Some people in the market may disagree.

Uh And the FED is looking for an opportunity to reduce interest rates.

I don't think today's data uh suddenly opens the door to, to a FED cut in July.

Um However, it is consistent with the idea of a gradual disinflation.

You know, just for context, we still have inflation running on a three and a six month annualized basis on core CP I north of 3.5%.

Uh That is not really consistent with the fed's 2% objective on the personal consumption expenditures deflator.

So they're not there yet.

But this is moving in that direction.

I think that the investors should anticipate that the FED will probably ease this year but not coming up soon.

And we need more data to really open the door for that easing to take place.

You know, one of the things that we've been trying to continue to inform and educate on is the importance and difference between the year over year readings and some of the month, over month readings that can perhaps give us a little bit more of a real time sense here.

And you also highlighted this in your note to us.

Why should that be a key focus right now, year over year rating, uh rates of change are convenient.

People tend to think in, in annual periods when it comes to all kinds of things in the economy and in the investment markets.

Um the problem with looking back 12 months and seeing the trailing 12 month change, it can be subject to distortion from base effects.

So if you're coming off a period where you had rapid growth in inflation one year ago, you're starting from a higher base.

So the rate of change over the 12 months that we're going to look at today might be depressed a little bit by what happened a year ago.

I like to look a little more short term month, over month, uh three months, annualized, annualized, six months annualized.

Although those data will be more volatile by the simple annual organization of short term data, it's more commensurate with what's happening today and it's less subject to the base effects problem that I just described.

And if you look at it that way, look at the data as we came out today, the three month and six month annually changed in the uh core, core CP I data that we just got this morning is still running a little too hot.

Three month annually is 3.3% well above two and six month annually is actually 3.7.

Now, the good news is the three month and six month annualized paces are now coming down from where they were over the last couple of months.

So I again, I think this is consistent with what the FED wants and needs to see, but it's not sufficient to get that easing in the very near term.

You know, uh I just want to talk about one more factor within this report.

And then we'll get into some investment strategy here for viewers as well here, the index for owners equivalent rent uh as we saw Shelter index increase 4/10 of a percent.

May the largest factor in the monthly increase in the index for all items, less food and energy.

You, you take that into consideration.

The FED has been laser focused on this owner equivalent rent piece.

So where does today's data?

Do you think add fuel to their conversation?

Uh It is not cooperating enough.

Uh The the owner's equivalent rent component is still too high.

Uh It raised it increased this month from prior month at a 0.4% pace.

Uh That's still too hot.

Uh Recall that this has a very heavy weighting in the CP I Shelter has like a a weighting of almost a third I believe in the CP I.

Uh some are critical of the way that inflation of of shelter costs is actually calculated.

It's based upon looking at what the value of one's home would rent for weren't available in the rental market.

And so in order to, to impute that value, they look at uh the value of apartments and homes that are being rented uh in real time as opposed to those that are owned.

Uh And those rental markets, the data from places like Zillow and others suggest that uh there has been some meaningful disinflation in the rental market yet the owner's equivalent rent series uh isn't yet dis inflating enough.

Um Given the quirks in measuring what I could rent my home for.

Uh you know, sometimes it's helpful to look at what inflation is doing X shelter.

Uh So for example, if you look at services excluding shelter, uh you know, that number is is much more, much more um reasonable.

So for example, all items less uh food, shelter and energy that increased 0.0 in the most recent reading.

So when you step away from that shelter component, you see the data is encouraging and in the direction that I was saying, where eventually we should be getting a fed comfort level with easing and the shelter component is not helping just yet.

But, but over time, it should roll in, it should get there and proving that it is one of the stickiest elements of inflation.

So with that in mind, let's put some strategy on top of it.

How can people who are trying to hedge against where the stickier areas of inflation continue to show up in reports like this uh are enacting investment strategy?

Uh And what is the kind of top uh play that they could perhaps bring out of that, that inflationary hedge playbook if you will?

Well, I wouldn't call it a direct uh inflation hedge, it's not linear in the sense that if inflation goes up, uh this asset goes down or vice versa.

But I would say this uh inflation has been the dominant theme driving all financial markets for well over two years.

The fed initially missed the boat on the on what was causing the inflation uh felt it was going to be transitory.

It took years for it to come back down.

But ultimately, the fed acted appropriately by tightening monetary policy drastically.

And we are now debating whether or not inflation is slow enough uh to, to allow a fed easing.

That is something that was very hard to envision when the CP I was 678 or 9% year over year, uh not all that long ago.

So the inflation problem is easing up.

It has huge impacts on the cost of living for, by definition, for homeowners, for businesses.

And I think individual voters, everybody should be encouraged by the fact that inflation has slowed in terms of your, your investment strategy in the context of a slowing inflation world, especially slowing inflation here in the United States, I'd be be buying some fixed income stocks have taken off.

They've done very, very well.

The total returns on stocks vastly outpaced the total returns on cash or bonds over the last 12 and 24 months.

And that's wonderful, especially for individual investors or uh institutional investors with a long horizon.

But at this point, you now face a treasury yield curve where every point point on the treasury yield curve is north of 4%.

And we think ultimately, those yields will be coming down.

Investing in cash allows you to get 5% for now.

But ultimately, when the fed does start to ease those treasury yields are gonna come down bond yields in the corporate marketplace and the Muni marketplace will come down and you'll be getting higher price returns by taking some bond investment risk as opposed to cash going forward and stocks might have already gotten as ebullient as they can.

We like stocks and Federated and we have a decent waiting in them in our asset allocation models still a little bit overweight but ultimately investors who are sitting in cash waiting for an opportunity to buy some bonds.

That opportunity is here.

Uh You, you can, you can feel pretty good that you're buying bonds at a much higher yield and a better perspective.

Total return than over the last couple of years with the total return in bonds have been terrible.

RJ Gallo, who is the Federated Army's senior portfolio manager.

RJ.

Thanks so much for taking the time here this morning.

Appreciate it.

Thank you for having me.

Certainly.

Well, we've been discussing it.

Let's turn back to one of the most important sectors in the inflation, print shelter, the cost to own or rent a home has stayed pretty high all year.

Even as prices in other sectors have gone down here with the latest, we've got our very own, Danny Romero, who's been reading into this, Danny, what do you make of it?

Brad Shelter remains a sticky component in the inflation picture.

But economists tell me that the disinflation process in Shelter is underway.

Shelter posted 8.4% monthly gain the fourth consecutive month of gains and on a yearly basis, Shelter came in at 5.4%.

The slowest annual increase since April of 2022.

Remember the Shelter index makes up a third of the overall CP I basket and there are two components that economists pay close attention to and that hold the biggest weight in the shelter figure that's owner equivalent rent.

O that's the hypothetical rent you would earn if you rented out your property and rent, which lags real time data because the government collects rent data every six months causing a lag in that index.

So o came in at 0.4% gain last month while rents came in at a 0.3% rise la last month.

Now, the reason why renters have been seeing slower rent increases has been due to the new apartment supply that has been added to the market.

And so some renters are reaping those benefits in some markets as some landlords are really offering some form of an incentive to attract renters into the market.

Now, I want to say that typically rents do go up in the spring and summer months because people take advantage of the warmer weather to move.

Now, some industry experts say it's unlikely that we will see high rent price increases this year or next year due to the increase of supply Brad.

All right, Danny, thanks so much.

Appreciate you breaking that down further here.

Just a little bit more on the o, and shelter.

And what if the government gave out free money to buy an EV?

Well, it's not too far off from reality.

According to the US Department of the Treasury and the IRS, the federal government has saved consumers over $1 billion by issuing tax credits for electric vehicle buyers.

And that's just so far in 2024 those credits are worth $4000 for buyers of used evs and $7500 for new EV buyers at the point of sale.

That's thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act and yes, you heard right.

Customers could get an immediate discount right when they're buying an EV prior to this year, consumers had to wait until filing their annual tax return to get the credit.

Now, this is part of part of the Biden administration's push to make EVs more affordable and reduce green house gas emissions.

Despite the federal push, ev makers have been struggling to attract new customers.

Just this week, we spoke to John Lawler CFO of Ford and Paul Jacobson, CFO of General Motors on waning eev adoption.

Take a listen the way we think about evs.

It's not a matter of if it's when and how fast.

And so we did see a slow down relative to what people expected, but I think there was a false signal coming out of COVID is how quick the demand was going to grow.

We've actually seen growth moderate a little bit this year for the industry now.

Despite the government push, it seems like it still isn't enough in entirety for consumers to make the switch.

We've gotten past the early adoption phase and we'll see what the next implemented strategy is to get more buyers into the market.

Well, we've got all your markets action straight ahead.

Stay tuned.

You're watching our Finance May's consumer price index also one of the core inflation readings that the FO MC, the Federal Open Market Committee evaluates coming in lower than expected.

Despite it being unchanged month over month, it's still up 3.3% year over year and the higher cost of living has made saving for retirement even more difficult and to break down how higher prices are impacting retirement savings.

We've got Yahoo Finance's very own carry, Hannon here with us.

Hey, Carrie, hey Brad, good to be here.

Um Yeah.

Uh this is yes, you know, good news that things have stabilized a bit, but, you know, high prices have been relentless on people and, and frankly, people are more concerned and worried about paying their monthly bills and saving for retirement.

So, you know, we have even with the latest report, medical expenses are still up, food is still up, you know, housing even above your mortgage, a bank rate survey I saw recently showed that since 2020 the costs of your say premiums for your home insurance for your um all kinds of variety of things, your property tax and so forth are up 26%.

These are costs that people can't get away from and even your student loan costs.

So what we're talking about here is, yes, in fact, uh an Allianz survey uh recently showed that seven out of 10 savers have kind of hit the pause button or even um cut back on what they're saving completely.

Now, Fidelity has a recent study out.

Uh the their most recent number showing that, you know, more people are, are taking loans from their 401k than they did before.

This all comes down to cash flow and sort of feeling the squeeze.

But Brad, I wanna say we're not talking necessarily about workers and people who have access to an employer provided retirement plan.

If your employer is automatically enrolling you in a retirement plan and whisking your money pre-tax into these plans.

You're probably not doing anything.

We're talking about the 56 million Americans who work for companies that you do not have retirement plans, employer provided retirement plans and they absolutely have to voluntarily make the decision to save for retirement.

These are the folks that are really getting pinned on this thing and that's what concerns me because, you know, people who can, uh, automatically save for retirement, it's a whole different thing and, and studies show that those who have to do it voluntarily do 50% less even on the best of days.

Interesting.

So, what can folks do to ramp savings back up?

Carrie?

Yeah.

But there are some things you can do and the most important thing if you're doing this on your own, do it yourself, retirement, at least don't give up completely.

Try to automatically, even if it's $50 every paycheck or whatever, it might be, automatically set it up from your checking account into a Roth Ira, something that is out of sight, out of mind, automated.

So even as these pressing bills really, you know, gnaw at you, this is coming out and you can ramp that up as you go along.

I also think it's really helpful to kind of adjust your mindset if you can possibly just make yourself sit down and run one of these free retirement calculators that are on fidelity vanguard, a ARP Schwab, whatever, whichever venue you wanna head to.

And even though it's a little daunting, you get a sense of what you're saving for.

So it just shifting your picture to looking to the future because I think it's really difficult for people to worry about the future when they're trying to make their monthly bills right now.

But it's hugely important if you're stopping.

If you're taking a loan from your retirement account.

You are stopping that money from continuing to grow for you.

Yes, you're gonna pay it back with interest to yourself.

That's fine.

But at the same time, you're really losing some of that compounding and that will come back to bite you uh in later years.

Carrie, thanks so much.

Really appreciate it.

Important stuff there.

Thanks, Brad.

Well, inflation has eased over the last year, but most Americans aren't feeling that way.

And while the fed is working to cool prices even more, some people feel that they're doing and what they're doing is making inflation even worse here to break down how people are feeling and explain the trends that we're seeing in inflation.

We've got Stephanie Sanche who is the Harvard University Professor of Economics.

Great to have you here with us.

Ok, let's break down what consumers are feeling right now.

We've heard them to find a few different ways, whether that's value conscious or whether that's battle weary.

As we heard.

Uh Dana Peterson, the uh conference board, chief economist.

Tell us just a couple weeks back.

How would you define the consumer?

And, and what is the mindset?

Yeah, what we see is that people really feel like inflation is lowering their living standard.

So uh people have an over overwhelming feeling that wages just don't keep up with inflation.

Um This is very widespread, whether you're lower income or higher income.

Um And people actually tend to attribute this a lot to employer discretion.

So if people don't see wage rises, they tend to say it's because my employer doesn't want to increase my wage.

Um, and so people who think that employers have actually a lot of discretion, uh, and choose not to increase wages.

Um, and another thing that's really interesting is that although there have been many wage increases during this period, uh, it's very rarely the case that people attribute them to inflationary adjustments.

Uh Most people who have received wage increases will say that it has happened because of their job performance or career progression, especially for those who have switched jobs during that period.

Uh And so any wage increase is not really attributed to inflationary adjustment either.

And, and so to what extent do you expect that we'll continue to see people try to job hop potentially to get those wage increases or to get those per uh per performance and promotions in order to offset inflation to the best of their ability.

Yeah, I think it's, it's, it's probably going to continue happening because inflation affects us in many different roles.

We're consumers.

Um And we're affected in terms of our uh quantity and quality of things we can buy, we're workers.

Um and we are affected by the wage increases that we get, we're also asset or debt holders and inflation also impacts us in that role.

And then we're also just human beings with emotions and what we see is that there's a real suffering from inflation uh in terms of the very negative emotions that generates like fear and anger and stress that is quite widespread.

Um And hand in hand with that goes a big sense of inequity.

Um People feel like those with higher incomes are much better able to keep pace with inflation and just not be as hurt.

So there's a real sense in which inflation, you know, fosters inequality and, and, and it's perceived to be quite unfair to, to what extent do you believe people have a firm grasp on, not just the fed's dual mandate, but what is actually in their control as it pertains to fighting inflation?

So I think it's, it's quite tough to understand exactly what, you know, what the role of the FED is, what tools uh what tools it has and what we can see is that uh there's a, there's a widespread perception, for instance, that high interest rates lead to higher inflation, um which is, you know, understandable if you just look at the correlation that's out there, you know, in periods of inflation, you will see in general higher interest rates, but the causality presumably goes uh goes the other way.

Um And so there, there are these uh there are these beliefs that might be very uh very different from what the Fed actually is doing and what that does is that there's very little support for standard monetary policies that we economists might think are very standard to fight inflation such as increasing interest rates or reducing money supply.

Um Instead there's much more support for fiscal policy, particularly reducing the government debt, which is, you know, perceived by people to be the number one cause of inflation is, is government action uh according to people.

Um and to try to do that, uh you know, especially by more in more progressive ways rather than cutting spending on key social programs.

And there's also a lot more support for less standard policies that target companies like more antitrust regulation uh or increasing corporate taxes.

Um as well as something interesting that has wide bipartisan support, which is freezing the prices of essentials, like for instance, gas prices or food prices.

And so all of these things in mind who, who's bearing the brunt of the blame for inflation at, at this point.

So according to, according to people, if you ask very openly, you know, what's the number one cause of inflation?

It's very clearly the government.

Um And there is a bit of a partisan gap here.

Uh Republican respondents will tend to blame the government more than democrat respondents, but it's quite high across the board.

Um And you know, within that, uh within that category, it's typically just the increases in spending that have happened and the ballooning government debt.

Uh So this is according to people, the number one cause um the number two cause according to people is on the supply side.

So that is due to supply chain disruptions um especially during the pandemic and just these cost increases that have happened.

So those are the top two reasons that people perceive Stephanie Sancha who is the Harvard University Professor of Economics.

Thank you so much for taking the time.

We've got much more on wealth after the break.

You're watching Yahoo finance stocks moving higher off the back of a softer than expected inflation report for the month of May.

As we're taking a look at investors, looking ahead to the fed press conference this afternoon, which has the potential to bring a little bit of cold water to the rally, perhaps to discuss how to protect your portfolio against an uncertain backdrop.

John Mayer, who is the JP Morgan Asset Management chief ETF Strategist joins us as part of the ETF report brought to you by invest QQQ.

Great to have you here in the studio with us.

Thanks for having me.

Absolutely.

So let's talk about this.

I mean, we we categorized it earlier as a double whammy.

You got the CP I to this morning.

So economic data on one part of the, of the day and then once you get into the trading day, you've got the fed decision that's coming forward, followed by the press conference as well.

So traders trying to figure out how through ETF S they can hedge themselves in case of any volatility on both of those instances there.

Right.

Well, yeah, obviously the numbers were super strong.

The CP I numbers as you've been talking about all morning, no need to repeat them have been much stronger than expected.

Now, you know, midday today you'll have uh the, the fed coming out.

Basically, from my opinion, I think they're gonna be a bit more dovish.

Um And if, if that's the case, then this rally likely will continue.

And if that's the case, then I think positioning for growth makes a lot of sense in this environment because if you have potentially two rate cuts this year, I think September is on the table, um the the market swap market pricing in November.

Um and then you could get a cut in December.

So two cuts would be positive.

And I think that would be a, a tail and for, for growth, a way to play that on, on the growth is looking for, you know, being that the market has been very concentrated and several names, I think the market right now will be focused on actively managed ETF S and JP Morgan has many a actively manage ETF S and I think looking at large cap L at this point, um particularly if the fed comes in and there is a little more Dovish, I think is a place to be.

You, you said positioning for growth.

How does that look tactically in action tactically?

Well, what I would do is is have a Barbell approach.

So have some portion of your portfolio exposed to growth.

Quality names names that are uh companies that are less reliant on the capital markets because obviously, rates are high um companies that have strong cash flows that have good earnings and um are less susceptible, susceptible to the business cycle.

So quality names um which I think a large cap end would uh make sense.

Also, on the the short side, on the fixed income side, we have a fund called G PST J PST is run out of our liquidity group and has a yield of over 5%.

And given that the yield curve is inverted, um it's dis inverted slightly but still dis inverted at about 41 basis points or so from 2 to 10 yielding 5%.

Why take any risk?

Why not take that yield?

Because um until the yield curve dis convert and we get um more clarity on on interest rates, I think stay short.

And so with that in mind, I mean, we're looking at ETF S as perhaps uh an ability to remove some volatility from your portfolio by taking on perhaps a whole sector or a quality ba of names.

But then you have to have kind of this rule of thumb.

What is the rule of thumb for how you should be looking at and judging performance of your ETF that you're adding on to your portfolio versus the broader market as well here.

Well, with ETF S, whether it be a market cap weighted ETF or actively managed ETF, you're really buying a bask basket of securities.

Now a market cap weighted ETF particularly large cap tends to focus on some of the larger names that have done very well.

So it becomes self fulfilling.

The larger names get a larger exposure in the portfolio.

That's why at this point in time, if we have a breakdown in correlations, which I think we will over time, a greater dispersion, active management.

Fundamental analysis of the underlying names in a portfolio uh is is a really uh relevant pro approach right now.

What do you think drives that breakdown in in correlation that you were just mentioning a moment ago?

What what's the, what's the catalyst of that?

Well, I think you have this concentration first, you know the first it's been bag seven maybe it's four names at this point driving a the the concentration of those top names, the index driving the performance.

Now a lot of the story has been the A I story as the A IA I story broadens out and filters into the broader economy into other sectors.

It's gonna be a bene other sectors are gonna be a beneficiary, health care or utilities in terms of efficiency.

You know, the cap Capex cycle is really strong.

Um If you can improve efficiencies and improve margins, you're gonna have a broader um your greater dispersion of, of performance.

John Mayer, who is the JP Morgan Asset Management chief ETF strategist John.

Great to see you.

Great to see you.

Thanks.

Let's get to much more wealth, but that's gonna come after the break.

You're watching Yahoo Finance everyone.

It's a tease right there.

Generative A I could add the equivalent of $2.6 trillion to the 4.2 well, upwards of $4.4 trillion to the global economy here.

So that's the range here according to a 2023 mckenzie study and employers went in on the action.

According to the online company Coursera, there have been six 134,000 enrollments in A I related courses in 2024.

So far, that's the equivalent of four enrollments per minute up from one enrollment per minute in 2023 for more on the demand for A I courses and some tips for people trying to get into an A I field.

We've got Jeff Magincalda who is the, of course, Sarah Ceo, good friend of the show.

Jeff.

Great to see you.

And thanks for uh stopping in to really break down the demand for some of these A I related skills.

I, I believe you and I have talked about this in the past trying to get a sense back in 2023 of what that uptick was looking like.

And we've got some more fresh numbers to put on top of that.

What are you seeing over at Coursera?

Yeah, we're, what we're seeing, Brad is that the, uh, the impact of generative A I is starting to ripple through, from just people talking about it to people starting to use it and actually train people for it.

Uh, there are a lot of statistics that show that employers are valuing people who have A I skills, they're looking to upskill their own people And they're saying uh that they, they would rather have an inexperienced person who knows a I than a more experienced person who doesn't.

So as you said, we've seen our enrollments in general of A I go to four enrollments in gen of A I courses per minute in 2024.

That's up four times since 2023.

And so with that in mind, how are you going to make sure that for all the places, course area is because I mean, you've got partnerships with universities, you've got, of course, got your core platform.

You know, what does that do for pricing when you have a surge in demand like this?

Yeah.

You know, we have found that the way we've architected our uh generative A I capabilities on Coursera and we do a number of things.

We, we have used A I to translate courses into 22 different languages.

So that now pretty much anybody in the world who speaks any language can take any course on Coursera.

Uh that was a one time translation.

We updated a little bit over time but, but not super costly.

The way that we do the coach, which is the A I assistant is we really get the answers largely from the content in the course.

And this really reduces the cost that we have to spend on using the large language model.

So I think the, the way that companies build their, their, their gene A I tools and services and how efficiently they use these models is really a big factor.

So we're not seeing a huge operating expense that's coming from providing these A I services to learners around the world.

Is, is there a reason that you see so many people trying to get into A I and generative A I specific courses even?

Is it, you know, to get a promotion or is it to make a career pivot or a switch or just figure out what the heck is going on with it?

I I if there is kind of AAA survey that you're having people upon entry or even exit of a program give as to why they or a reason as to why they're so interested.

Yeah, so we see this at a lot of different levels.

At the institutional level, there are a lot of motivations, businesses are really focused on productivity gains.

I mean, that's what we're hearing is, businesses are saying we can really produce higher quality outputs for lower cost if we embrace git A I, that's what business are doing now.

Universities as institutions, they are being overwhelmed by gen of A I because employers are telling them we want your graduates to have A I skills when they graduate students are saying I want to learn gen of A I skills.

There was just AAA survey from sage that said 77 7% of the faculty do not feel that their university is prepared to teach students gen of A I.

So it's just coming so fast and so big that institutions are trying to respond to that.

So for institutional readiness, we we're definitely seeing that now on the individual side, this kind of tailed two cities in a in emerging labor pools.

A lot of folks in India, Southeast Asia, Latin America, they're saying if I learn these ja I skills, I can get remote jobs with com companies in the US companies with Europe, others around the world in the US employ.

Uh employees are starting to say if I don't learn these skills, I might lose my job to somebody who's working in a different country.

So there's a, there are gonna be winners and losers in the labor market based on who learns how to use.

Gen ob I, you know, just while we've got you here, Jeff, uh I, I took a look at the stock this morning and, and I honestly was surprised that it had drifted to this level here.

What do you think that investors are trying to best understand about the pivot that Coursera is trying to make right now, especially given some of the analyst coverage that, that's been frankly unfavorable for the company.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think what it is is, uh, the way I like to think of it is like a big, a big tidal wave.

People know that there's a tidal wave coming and unless you can get your surfboard to the right place at the right time and, and ride that way it will, it could go under you.

If you miss it, it could crash over you if you, if you're a little bit too late.

The basic thing that Wall Street is saying is, is this gonna be a threat or an opportunity for Coursera and Ed Tech, either it's gonna be something that is a very big opportunity because so many people around the world are gonna need new skills and so many institutions around the world, businesses and campuses and governments are gonna have to redo the way their whole institutions work.

If it's more of an opportunity, then this is gonna be very positive.

If it's, if it could potentially commoditize all content.

And A I does the learning for everybody.

Well, that would clearly be a threat.

And I think while she's trying to figure out is this more opportunity or is it more threat?

Clearly, we see the opportunity side of it, which is using A I to better educate people so they're more proficient in using A I in their jobs.

Certainly, Jeff, it's great to catch up with you.

Thanks so much for taking some time with us here on Yahoo Finance.

Appreciate it, Jeff Maggio Caldo, who was the Coursera Ceo.

Well, feeling a little burnt out at work, you may not be alone.

According to a newly released survey from Gallup in 2023 only 34% of employees worldwide feel like they are thriving in their overall well being.

But digging into the data, that percentage is much more stark.

If you look at just younger workers between 2022 and 2023 the percentage of employees under 35 who felt like they were thriving fell 4% to just 31%.

However, we should note it's not all bad news for employees.

According to the study, 41% of respondents say they experienced a lot of stress that the previous day uh a decline of 3% from the year before.

And so now could the reason behind that better management of workloads are just caring less?

Well, the survey also shows that 77% of the global workforce considers themselves either not engaged or actively disengaged at work.

And these statistics have real world effects.

According to Gallup, lack of employment engagement contributes $8.9 trillion of losses to the global economy.

So where does this leave?

Employees in the future.

According to the study, over 50% of workers are watching for or actively seeking a new job.

So, if you're on linkedin right now, looking for that next opportunity, just know you may have some competition and some others throwing their hat into the ring as well.

We'll be right back with more wealth on Yahoo finance.

Have a hobby.

You'd like to make money off of, well, guess what?

You're not alone, 55% of Americans want to turn their passion into profit according to Vista print.

But the process can be daunting to break down how you can turn a side hustle into your main money maker.

We've got Navia Ismael who is the dose of travel founder here with us in studio.

Great to have you here.

Uh, you gotta break this down because a lot of people out there are thinking all right, would I spend margins of my time doing and working on a passion or side project?

How do I make that the full time gig?

And you've gone about doing this?

Yeah.

I mean, it's taken a long time to get here.

I think I was a pharmacist first and now I run a travel club, a pharmacist.

Yes.

What a change.

Ok. Yeah, you can blame the pandemic on that.

I was burned out on that one.

so that led to building and my passion.

So I've been traveling ever since we've been able to And before then, and now I quit my job in 2022 just to travel and somehow this kind of came out of it.

What was the first place that you went to and said, you know what I think I can create enough content, enough of an experience to be able to tell other people about it.

And also make sure that I'm monetizing my own, you know, ability to do storytelling and also perhaps drum up some partnerships along the way.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's from the very beginning.

So I was an au pair when I was in college.

So I moved to Madrid Spain and I was 11 nanny taking care of three kids.

And I started talking about that because that was a affordable way to travel as a college student.

Um And I started making videos, people were really interested.

And then that's kind of how it began.

I started speaking at different platforms, publications about how to travel on a budget because I think obviously wealth and money is like really important when it comes to travel.

So that was how I was able to offset um the cost and write for publications.

And then I started to work with brands.

One of the common debates that I see at least on social right now is the number of people who are getting offers from companies to do work, but it might not fully be compensated.

How did you go about perhaps that time period where it was a brand that you wanted to work with, but you also knew there wasn't going to be a check attached to it maybe, but you still needed to build up a portfolio.

And then when along the way, did you realize?

OK, you know what I need you guys to, to pay me for this, right?

This is such a good question because that's how I was able to make that pivot when I was working my full time job.

I think I was able more likely to take these unpaid opportunities to get that experience.

Because at some point, you do need experience when you're completely jumping ship like pharmacist to running a travel club and a full time traveler, totally different, totally different skill set.

And so I did that for a few years before I fully took it.

And then once you have a portfolio, which now I can say I worked with X brand and whatever, then I'm able to charge and they're going to be willing to pay because they can see what I can do for them.

I mean, how does that conversation go?

I mean, people, people need the actionable tips, especially if they're gonna say, you know what I'm, I'm leaving the company today.

I'm gonna go start my own thing.

And now I've got to figure out how to represent myself in those conversations with the behemoths out there that you're trying to make sure, hey man, I just wanna send you this invoice.

I just wanna make sure it gets paid.

Exactly.

I think it the same skills apply.

Like negotiating is really important, being able to like Valley like advocate for yourself and say like, hey, I need to get paid for this.

This is what I'm looking for.

I'm willing to budge on it, but this is like my starting rate but also having an online presence where you're able to showcase your work is so key.

I think social media and like having a personal brand carries so much weight nowadays.

So for example, if I work with a brand, it's up there.

So they're going to know that I worked with this brand.

Um And that really helps with like the negotiating power.

Are there brands that you've had to turn down?

Oh yeah, all the time.

Yeah, it still happens even now.

Interesting.

We gotta go favorite destination.

You've been to uh Cape Town, South Africa.

Oh, interesting.

All right.

We're gonna add that one to the list.

Nabila Ismael Dose of Travel founder.

Thanks so much for taking the time.

Thanks for having me.

Absolutely.

Well, Apple's latest announcements at their worldwide developers conference known in your hood as WW DC may have helped the company's shares rise to a record high on Tuesday, but consumers are still digesting what new tricks and tools may be coming to their products in the near future for more let's bring in our own Dan Halley for this week's edition of tech support new weekly segment.

We're diving into the latest technology and tell you our viewer how you can benefit from it.

So, Dan, uh I mean, I know I'm gonna have to trade in my 12 Pro Max, I guess and get the 15 or something by the end of this year to take advantage of this.

Yeah, Brad uh kind of side story.

I'm writing a piece on how this is Apple's kind of way of getting into generative A I but also getting you to buy a new iphone because it only works with a 15 max uh or 15 Pro Max.

So if you bought an iphone 15 last year, you're out of luck.

But let's go over some of the, the features that you will get uh with I Os 18.

Uh They're pretty interesting.

Uh I think one of the most important is uh obviously there's a customizable home screen now.

So you're no longer having to stay with that rigid grid.

You can move apps around as you see fit, you can open up uh your images uh so that, you know, your home screen photo isn't just a picture that's covered in tons of, of icons.

Now, you can also change the colors of them.

You can put them in light mode, dark mode.

So it's, it's a fun little uh feature that you're, you're able to use.

I think that's something that a lot people are gonna like.

There's also a new, uh, ability to hide, uh, apps.

You can make them hidden behind a password and then hide folders.

Uh We'll leave it up to your imagination, what you would do with apps like that.

Uh, uh That's called Lock an app.

Uh It's an interesting feature and I think, uh some people may, may like it.

Uh, they're also adding, uh, something called uh R CS uh rich communications service.

This is for messages.

Uh And that's an important factor in the blue bubble, green bubble war.

Basically, uh you're not going to be sending photos from your iphone to an Android phone and have them turn into little tiny squares that are, you know, difficult to see your terrible video quality.

Now you're gonna get high quality photos, high quality video uh as well as uh encryption.

When you go back and forth with Android.

I think that still gonna have that green bubble though.

So the stigma remains, uh there's also gonna be a big update for the Photos app.

Uh They're adding new capabilities in there as well as a new design that kind of focuses more on uh not just the photos but what the photos uh mean.

So ties into different events that you may have gone to, uh you'll be able to uh categorize them.

Uh Say you wanna look for images of a uh rock climbing expedition that you did I'm not doing that, but maybe I did, uh, I could just type in, uh, rock climbing and I'll pull that, that up.

And there's also the Showstopper, for some reason is the calculator app going to ipad.

Uh, I know it sounds silly but I, I got to see it in action and it is really impressive.

And the reason for that is they added this feature where you can literally write, uh, your math uh and then right uh draw an equal sign and it will give you the solution.

If you slightly change what you have in the equation, it will change the, the uh uh uh the solution immediately.

So it's, it's incredibly impressive.

I mean, you have to see it.

Uh it, it's, it's completely wild.

It'll draw graphs for you and everything along those lines.

It's also gonna be available on, on the iphone as well.

Uh And then finally, there's uh for the watch.

Uh there's gonna be a new training mode that'll help you get in shape.

Uh It's basically gonna log how your training has been going if you uh outperformed your normal uh uh training regimen or you underperformed.

Uh And then kind of help you figure out why along those lines.

So honestly, it's, it's a huge slew of updates outside of, of just the, the artificial intelligence that they announced.

Uh And these are all features that you'll be able to get regardless of what version of the iphone.

Uh, you have to a reasonable degree.

Exactly, Dan, thanks so much for breaking this down for us.

Appreciate it everyone.

Let's do a final check of the markets here.

We're taking a look at the dow, the S and P 500 the NASDAQ all in positive territory right now.

We're counting you down essentially to that fed decision coming at two pm, 230 press conference.

That's it for wealth for us for right now though.

I'm Brad Smith.

Thanks so much for watching.

Stay tuned.

Market domination with Julie Hyman and Josh Lipton comes up at 3 p.m. Eastern time.

And of course, we've got some special coverage of the fed decision for you today ahead of that.