Yuki Noguchi
Yuki Noguchi is a correspondent on the Business Desk based out of NPR's headquarters in Washington, DC. Since joining NPR in 2008, she's covered a range of business and economic news, with a special focus on the workplace — anything that affects how and why we work. In recent years she has covered the rise of the contract workforce, the #MeToo movement, the Great Recession, and the subprime housing crisis. In 2011, she covered the earthquake and tsunami in her parents' native Japan. Her coverage of the impact of opioids on workers and their families won a 2019 Gracie Award and received First Place and Best In Show in the radio category from the National Headliner Awards. She also loves featuring offbeat topics, and has eaten insects in service of journalism.
Yuki started her career as a reporter, then an editor, for The Washington Post. She reported on stories mostly about business and technology.
Yuki grew up in St. Louis, inflicts her cooking on her two boys, and has a degree in history from Yale.
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Amazon was called out for its harsh co-worker critiques, but peer reviews have been popular in American offices for years. Some say they make a team better; others call the reviews "very toxic." -
Earlier this year, the online retailer eliminated managers and embraced "holacracy" — a system of self-governance. It's one of a handful of firms that's trying to make middle management obsolete. -
As the Obama administration looks to expand the number of employees eligible for overtime pay, more companies may curtail the use of email after hours to cut labor costs. -
The Labor Department has suggested standards an employer must meet to consider a worker an independent contractor. Employment lawyers say this will lead to more lawsuits against employers.
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The president's proposal would make 5 million more Americans eligible for overtime pay. But the changes don't mean that employers will pay more.
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The problem has had a wide impact, keeping farmworkers, Ultimate Fighting Championship athletes and foreign students from entering the U.S. The agency has 100 experts working on a fix. -
The Labor Department said Friday that employers added 280,000 jobs. The pickup in hiring brought more people back into the workforce, which pushed the unemployment rate up a notch to 5.5 percent.
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Many workers like the programs, and employers say they help hold down health insurance costs. But there are legal questions about how far companies can go to encourage participation. -
Some firms use motion sensors and wireless tags to find out how people actually work. That can yield useful data — like which free snacks tend to attract people to break rooms more than others. -
Retailers rely on systems that require workers to be ready to work a shift — whether or not they end up working. The state attorney general is looking into the way big retailers handle scheduling.
