How immigration can bolster an aging workforce

This podcast is brought to you by WISE, the app for international people using money around the globe.

With Wise, you can send, spend, and receive up to forty currencies and save up to fifty-five percent compared to major banks.

Plus, WISE won't add any hidden fees, so whether you're sending Euros to Paris or spending pesos in Puerto Vallarta, you know you're getting a fair exchange rate with no extra markups.

Be smart.

Join 15 million customers who choose WISE.

Learn more by visiting wise.com/slash US slash compare.

T's and C's apply.

This podcast is supported by Odo.

Some say Odo business management software is like fertilizer for businesses because the simple, efficient software promotes growth.

Others say Odoo is like a magic beanstalk because it scales with you and is magically affordable.

And some describe Odoo's programs for manufacturing, accounting, and more as building blocks for creating a custom software suite.

So Odo is fertilizer, magic beanstock building blocks for business.

Odo, exactly what businesses need.

Sign up at odoo.com.

That's odoo.com.

On day three in the UK, a not-so-random walk on the sunny side of the street from American Public Media.

This is Marketplay.

In London, England, one last time, I'm Kai Rizdali.

It's Thursday, today, the 17th of July.

Good as always to have you along, everybody.

We have come to the the UK, we being me and ADP Chief Economist Nilo Richardson, for our series, The Age of Work, to get a glimpse, perhaps, of our economic future.

This place, the UK, is getting older faster than the United States is.

By 2050, one out of every four people over here is going to be 65 or older.

That's more than 10 years ahead of when it's going to happen for us.

So far this week, we've talked about two possible ways to deal with that.

You can keep older people working longer, or you can use technology to make the workers you have more productive.

Today, we're going to look at a third way, which put me and Neela on Schumert Road the other day down in South London.

Now,

this is where it's at, Kai.

I'd be good if it was like 10 degrees cooler.

That's all I'm saying.

That's a little warm.

Yeah.

Believe me when I tell you it was hot and sunny, very not London-like, but the streets were busy.

Nothing like an open-air butcher shop, I'll tell you that.

There were barbershops and spice stores and a guy grilling meat at a stall on the corner.

Oh my goodness.

That's great.

I may have to grab something on the way out.

I'm just saying.

The whole place had a real international vibe.

We heard at least three different languages being spoken, maybe more.

It's the soundtrack.

It's like a global soundtrack.

Peckham, that's this neighborhood, has been home to immigrants for decades.

There are so many Nigerians here, it's called Little Lagos.

But lots of people from China, the Caribbean, India, Turkey, and Vietnam, and elsewhere have come here too.

But there is a political element at hand that does have to be mentioned.

You know how I say all the time immigration is a labor market issue?

The UK right now, just like the United States, is in the middle of an intense immigration backlash.

Prime Minister Kier Starmer has called it, and this is a quote, a failed experiment in open borders.

The catch, again, just like home, is that immigrants play a huge role in filling jobs that domestic workers just don't want to do.

Down one end of Schumert Road, where it was a little bit quieter, sits the merciful God African market.

Baskets and racks full of goods outside.

Can you imagine the size of the like pot you have to have to have a spoon this big?

Nice to see you.

Sorry to bother you.

Are you busy?

We are always busy.

Well, that's good.

That's good.

Tell us who you are when you get a second.

My name is Ola.

Ola Samusi.

We buy and sell, as you can see.

Imagine the smallest, most crowded bodega you've ever seen.

The merciful God African market was that and more.

Bags of rice and kitchen gadgets, gourds carved into drums stacked floor to ceiling, and aisles so narrow we couldn't stand shoulder to shoulder.

The main thing that we sell here, most products come from Africa.

I smell spices too, right?

There are spices in here?

There are spices, look like this.

Is it all over the continent, or is it parts of what part of Africa?

It's all over Africa, all over the continent,

majorly Nigeria.

Nigeria.

Yeah.

You are from Nigeria too?

Yes, please.

How long have you been in London?

I've been

on and off, like 10 years ago.

But I go and come, I understand the markets, I know I help out to sell and buy to so you do you do a little import-export.

That's your

yes, we do that.

Ola sells things here you can't get at most London grocery stores: pounded yams, dried plantains, those spices.

Nigerians in London come here to get a taste of home.

How's business?

Before, we used to make like

800 pounds a day.

800 pounds a day.

Yes.

Okay.

Now, averagely.

Uh-huh.

Averagely.

But now it's like hardly do we make 300 pounds.

300 pounds now.

Hardly.

Hard to get there.

What accounts for the difference?

That's a big difference.

Yes, that's a big difference.

So

maybe next month

there will be price increase.

It has not been stopping.

We don't know why it kept going up.

And you you can't figure out why.

That is the problem.

But sometimes I suspect it's from US Trump tariff.

Even though you source in Nigeria, you think that.

That is something else.

You see, when we buy things from Nigeria, we tell them, why is the price so, oh, go and ask Trump.

We buy things from China.

We buy things from Canada.

The tariff are all connected.

Does it kind of surprise you that you're doing your job in your store in London and things that are happening 4,000 miles away?

Thank you.

That

surprises me

because it's as if

Trump is holding us by our juggler.

I cannot just fathom what's really going to why is always everything

America, America, America.

I don't know.

But people say tariff.

But sometimes the annoying thing is that sometimes scares our customers away.

It sounds like you don't feel you have a lot of control.

That is something.

Price control.

We don't.

What does it mean for this business and for you that you've gone from 800 pounds to hardly 300 pounds?

What does that mean?

For your lifestyle, for the business?

Like, okay, thank you.

It's the impact.

So

everyone is feeling it.

Because now I have to cut my coat.

I have to manage my lifestyle now because I know there are things I could not afford.

Today, I have to stop my sky.

What's your sky television?

Yes.

Your cable subscription, basically.

Thank you.

Because I have to pay for this, pay for that.

Just too much.

All we are thinking now is that to

pay rent, pay gas, transport.

That's the only thing we focus on now.

How old are you, Ola?

I'm 67.

67?

Yep.

How much longer are you going to work like this?

I thought of that yesterday.

I think I'll continue working till I die.

I don't know what else to do because I can't make endmates.

Every day we need money.

More money.

So I don't think I can stop working until I cannot work again.

It's a small shop.

There are people waiting, and we are in the way.

Let's shall we?

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

There is some gentrification happening in Peckham.

There's a Pilates place around the corner, a fancy-looking coffee shop.

You can explain all of global trade through coffee.

Yeah, no joke, right?

If you want to pick one street in one city, coming down here would not be a bad idea.

We stepped into a hair salon across the street, quite a few empty chairs, just one stylist with just a single customer.

Hi, sorry to interrupt.

Is this okay?

It's probably

individual.

Sure.

We're not going to do video.

That's all.

No cameras here.

Okay, okay.

Hi.

Hi, Kayla.

Good to see you.

Good to see you, too.

Patience Godwin owns the place, braiding extensions into her client's hair the whole time we spoke.

She just opened up in April.

Tell us about this road.

I mean, obviously you found the place because it was open, but

what is it about here that made you want to open your business here?

I didn't really know anywhere to have a shop, but I just wanted a place place in Peckham.

Why?

I don't know.

Probably because I've always been in Peckham.

And with Peckham, it's so easy to be able to for customers to locate you.

So it's busy.

What is it like to live in Peckham?

I don't live in Peckham.

Oh, you don't live in Peckham?

You just wanted to operate your business in Peckham?

Peckham, yeah.

I had once lived in Peckham before I moved.

It wasn't really bad.

Yeah, but the only thing I see is that Peckham is changing now.

Say more about that.

What do you mean?

It's just when you come out Peckham from seven o'clock in the evening or eight o'clock, you don't barely see like black people.

So I'm sorry I'm using black and white.

It's more of white people now in Peckham.

Peckham is not like before.

Anybody can just get a shop.

You can't get a shop like that.

You can't even get to rent a flat in Peckham.

It's gone so expensive.

So it's only if you can afford it, fine.

If you can't, then you move.

There are a lot of people in Peckham and certainly a lot of shops on this street run by by people who've come to London from other places.

Is that part of what makes it attractive for you?

Yes, because we have this diversity.

And even people come to Peckham just to be able to experience that kind of

people.

Like you will see an Indian man speaking like a rubber language like Baoni and all that.

And they're not Nigerians, but then they could speak the language.

You're smiling when you say that.

That's pretty.

Yeah, I'm from Nigeria.

So, you know, when they say that to you, Baoni, kilofair, and then you go like, oh, so now you have to come to Nigeria.

Most of them, they have farms in Nigeria now and in Ghana.

Have you noticed that anything that's happening in the UK or your clients, for example, do they ever talk about what's going on in the economy?

Everybody's feeling it.

There's no one that is not feeling it.

Everybody's feeling the pinch.

And things are expensive generally.

Do you think you're making a good living here?

Do you do well for yourself?

Or is it

easy to get by?

It's not easy.

I mean, let me speak about myself now, not about any other person.

I've gotten this job now.

I've got to pay this rent.

I'm beginning to build my plante again.

But I know I'll get there.

At the moment, I'm probably making lost.

I mean, in every business, it's like that.

Then, after I'm just giving myself like maybe six months, or let me give myself a year,

I should be able to make money from here to be able to serve for my future tomorrow, make money from here to take care of my kids, to pay my rent in my house, to be able to do every other thing that this money is meant to come out from here.

Do you send the money back to family and people in Nigeria?

Yes, I do.

I've got mom and dad in Nigeria, so I have to look after my parents.

Yeah, every month I have to.

I tell my kids, you see how how I'm looking after my mom and my dad.

So when you become, do they take the hint?

When you start making that money, don't forget that,

you know, so, and that's what my parents used to say to me as well.

So, and they are enjoying

every one of us,

we come together and we look after them.

Sorry to interrupt.

Good luck with the business.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for talking to us.

Appreciate it.

Turns out you can't really separate the UK economy from the US economy, from the Nigerian economy.

We're going to cross the street again on Schumer Road and get a refreshing drink on a hot sunny day after the break.

But first, let's do the numbers.

Dow Industrial's up about 229 points today, 1.5%, 1%, 44,484.

The NASDAQ rose 153 points, about 3 quarters percent, 20,884.

The S ⁇ P 500 gained 33, that's points, half a percent, 62, and 97.

You might have heard yesterday, President Trump said that Coca-Cola had agreed to use cane sugar and Coke sold in the United States.

Well, the company did not confirm or deny, but why are we telling you this?

Well, U.S.

Coke currently uses corn syrup as a sweetener the change would of course not be great for american corn farmers shares of commodities giant archer daniels midland major producer of corn syrup was down eight tenths one percent on that news today the mining company energy fuels announced pilot program to produce a heavy rare earth element dysprosium at a mine in utah said it would produce its first kilogram of the element within 30 days the stock found 11 and two tenths percent today you are listening to market

This is Marketplace.

I'm Kai Rizdahl.

All right, so here's something.

It turns out since the UK left the European Union, immigration here has actually increased.

Fewer people from the EU, more though from places farther away, India.

and Pakistan and Nigeria.

Nila Richardson and I are on Schumert Road in Peckham, South London.

It's a working-class neighborhood home to generations of immigrants.

I guess this is their version of a bodega.

Totally, right?

I mean, it's great.

Clean all that fruit and stuff?

So three bananas for a pound fifty.

That's not bad.

There are businesses on Schumert Road that are struggling.

UK inflation data came out yesterday, up 3.6% year on year.

Unemployment was this morning 4.7%, the highest it's been in four years.

All of that said, though, there was a place two doors down from Ola's market and right across the street from Patients that had a line out the door the whole time we were there.

Yeah, freaking sugar cane, man.

It's just breaking in.

We should just go stand there, actually.

Have I mentioned it was hot and sunny?

Yet people were lined up in front of a tight little counter with basically nowhere to sit to get some pressed sugar cane juice.

This is, I bet, going to be much better than a dirty soda.

Oh, God.

Just a little Utah callback for you there if you remember.

Patrick Williams came out from behind the counter to talk.

You're crazy busy.

I hate to interrupt.

Do you want to?

No, that's okay.

If we do it now, then it's going to get busier later anyway.

It's always going to be busy.

Well, that's good, right?

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, that's a source of plug undermine at the moment.

Well,

and you've got the pure cane.

There you go.

Where does the cane come from?

Our cane came in this morning at 2 a.m.

from Uganda.

Uganda?

Uganda.

You get to hold your own microphone.

Okay, thank you.

Just right up here in Nice Gustav now.

You import cane every day from Uganda?

Like Once a week or twice a week, it depends on the older.

Do you haul yourself out to the airport to go get it?

No, luckily we get someone to do that for you.

Patrick runs this place with his wife Sangeeta.

They've been here on Schumert Road for about 10 months, but selling cane juice at festivals and markets for eight years now.

Why'd you put this shop here?

A, I just loved the road.

Why?

Just because of its rich

history, Shermont Road Market was the Queen's favourite market back in the day.

Her horses were stabled at the bottom of the road.

It had a lot of tradition for the working class area of Peckham.

And then in the, I would say, late 60s to 70s, the immigration came over and they started opening up their own shops.

So they had their

history here.

So before the immigration, I would say there were

parents and their kids that had grown up making their money and they're living off the street with shops.

And then the immigration that came over and when they bought their shops or created their own shops, they also then were able to buy houses and provide for their children.

and then here we are on the same streets that we're standing on the shoulders of everyone that came here before us.

I liked it for that particular reason.

I just love all the shops and the vibe, the smells and the atmosphere you get on the road, the different characters that you get to meet, especially the older generation that are on the road with their experiences and stories.

About that older generation, most of these shops are run by people who are not as young as you are.

Yeah.

Talk about your sort of fit in the demographic here.

I mean, I think we fit in really neatly because every auntie or uncle that owns a shop on here reminds us of our own.

On my mum's side, my great-grandmother came from Nigeria, my great-granddad came from Ghana.

On my dad's side, my great-grandparents came from India to Jamaica.

So, the cultures, the stories, the experience is all something that is natural to us.

So, I think we fit in, and I think they're very happy that we are as a younger version of themselves.

They regularly say, You remind my, especially my missus, you remind us of what we was like when we opened up a shop.

So, these are the things that we base our we're standing on their shoulders.

Oh that's amazing.

What is the number one lesson or piece of advice that your adoptive aunties and uncles tell you about running the shop, about living on the street?

What are they trying to impart to you in their stories?

I mean there's different stories.

There's like business stories, there's cultural stories, there's family stories.

So business wise is you know it's you have to work with the ups and downs.

Some days food prices are high.

Stuff that arrives from another country could be late.

You know, it's adaptable to all our situations.

So today we opened at 12.

There was a slight shipment delay, so we opened up at 15 minutes past, but that's part of having fresh produce.

Culturally,

it's something that my parents and other parents always believe me.

The journey is the journey within.

It's the battle with you.

A great quote that my uncle used to say, speak your truth.

Own your space, but don't let the world turn you cruel.

So we take that on as well

as you're standing here pressing sugar cane and and running your business does it ever it must occur to you that you're just like this tiny little cog in this ginormous global thing you've got you got sugar cane coming in you're on a street with nigerians and ghanaians and of course and we also stock uh pineapple from mauritius we have mexican lychee we have um

colombian uh baby mangoes we have our atamaya sugar apples which is from brazil this is a global economy in one little store well Well, that's what we like to do.

We've got like Moroccan mint, we have Spanish limes, we have South African lemons, and the idea about having the fridge is to have different tropical fruit in our fridge so that the young parents or even older parents can bring their kids in and try out some different fruits.

So this is the reason why we stop from around the world to attract that.

Nila Ritzitson, you're going to go into me and buy me a juice cream.

I will, I will.

It's my treat.

Well, it's your store, so I think we're following you, but whatever.

So this is Sanghi.

My miss is the boss, the CEO.

Sorry to see you.

Good to meet you.

Yeah.

I'll take this off your hands if you need to get back there and help her out.

Can I get two juices?

Oh, sorry.

Wait, all right, wait.

There's a whole menu here.

Pure cane, freshman, six flavors, to be exact.

Cane classic.

We bought them all because, again, it was hot.

Yeah, one of each.

One of each.

Yes, please.

Yeah.

Two things as we leave, Peckham.

Number one, that cane juice was amazing.

Number two, though, and more to the point, a simple reality.

How countries respond to the changing demographics of the global workforce is going to reshape the entire global economy.

And that is where we're going to pick it up.

Neela Richardson, live here in the studio with me in the BBC, she's a chief economist at ADP, our partner in this project.

Hello again.

Hi, Kai.

Good to see you.

So

let's first of all test my premise that the way countries handle this change in the demographics is going to reshape the global economy.

Yes, no, am I exaggerating?

Absolutely.

There's only one way that economies grow, and every economist out there knows this.

I'm going to condense two years of macroeconomics into two sentences.

It's when there are more workers and those workers get more productive.

Kai, what happens when the technology that makes workers productive is in one part of the world, the advanced world, and the people that use that productivity to create higher standards of living and growth are in another part of the world, where we're getting to that tipping point.

This is a story we were chatting a little bit before we came into the studio.

This is a story, yes, of macroeconomics and the planet and all of that.

It's a story mostly about people, though, right?

And doing what they have to do to get by now as things change.

Yeah, because in this economy, people are having to reinvent themselves.

And what I see in all of these stories is a time clock.

In Stuart, I see the 62-year-old man who had to reinvent himself and he is timing the years till retirement so he can save.

I see in Hamad the doctor who had the beautiful robot dog that you want to cuddle with at night, Kai.

I know you do.

He said that there were two years until his grand vision of a drone delivery system reinvented healthcare.

And then there was patients.

Right.

Patients who we met in Peckham.

She gave herself six months to a year to reinvent her life so that she can afford the things that she not only needed, but wanted.

All right, the really interesting part of that, though, is that those changes are happening at the human scale, a couple of years, right?

The thing we're talking about in the macro sense is decades in the making, and governments have to get on the stick with this.

It's decades in the making, but the future is now here.

There's no delay anymore because people, as we saw, people are dealing with the effects of the demographic change now.

Let me ask you, coming out of Peckham and that really,

I mean, truly lovely immigrant neighborhood.

Immigration is, as I talked about in the piece, and as we know from reading the news, both here and at home, it's in retrograde, right?

And it's not a popular thing.

Where are governments and what can companies do about that?

Well, companies are moving forward.

Look, companies are hiring where the talent and where the skills are.

They have to.

They can't wait.

And so even small and medium-sized companies are sourcing the world for the talent they need to grow.

So it's really about society getting on on board with the changes that are coming.

They are inevitable.

Demographics are destiny, and there's no getting around that we live in a globally connected sugar cane drink world.

A sugarcane drink world where you have product from everywhere.

And the person who's creating that product has ancestry from all over.

And that's the world we live in.

That's the world that the companies have to do business in.

And that's the world of today and tomorrow.

Important to point out, I think, that the companies probably recognize that better than actual people in government recognize it, right?

Well, they have to do business.

They're the ones making the stuff, hiring the people, sourcing the talent.

They are on the ground, whether they're small, as we saw on Peckham,

influenced by the global markets, or large, sourcing people from around the world.

They see the reality of demographic change in an interconnected world.

As a little bit of a tease for where we're going next with this,

as developed economies lose their advantage in the prime age age workforce,

what regions of the world, what countries, if you like, are going to be gaining?

Southeast Asia and Africa.

That's where all the growth, net new growth of the human prime age worker, yes, human, I have to make a distinction

from robots right now.

But that's where the prime age workforce, those 25 to 54-year-olds, will grow and hopefully thrive if we get this right.

15 seconds, what's the most amazing thing you saw?

The thing that sticks with you most?

I don't know.

That sugar cane juice is really, really good.

I'm gonna stick with that.

Not the robot dog, which was impressive, but I had come back to Peckham for that drink.

Neela Richardson, chief economist at ADP, and our trusted partner on this project.

Neela, thank you.

It's always a pleasure.

All right, we're gonna go three for three in London with no final note.

That's my bad.

We just had too much content, I gotta tell you.

Our daily production team includes Andy Corbin, Nicholas Guillong, Maria Hollenhorst, Iru Ekbanobi, Sarah Leeson, Sean McHenry, and Sophia Terenzio.

Maria and Andy did all the heavy lifting here in London.

Charlton Thorpe made it all sound good.

I'm Kyle Risdall.

We will see you tomorrow, everybody.

Amy's in for me back in LA while I go home.

This is APM.

Now's the time to start your next adventure behind the wheel of an exciting new Toyota hybrid.

With the largest lineup of hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and electrified vehicles to choose from, Toyota has the one for you.

Every new Toyota hybrid comes with Toyota Care, two-year complementary scheduled maintenance, an exclusive hybrid battery warranty, and Toyota's legendary quality and reliability.

Visit your local Toyota dealer today, Toyota.

Let's go places.

See your local Toyota dealer for hybrid battery warranty details.