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New York City hiring a Director of Rodent Mitigation

Yahoo Finance's Akiko Fujita and Rachelle Akuffo discuss New York City's job posting for a rat overlord to handle the city's rodent problem.

Video Transcript

AKIKO FUJITA: All right, we're going to do a hard pivot here to talk about rodents. New York City has a rat problem. We all know that. Anybody who's lived in the city, visited the city, knows. That won't come as a surprise. But what you might not know is a solution could come with a big career opportunity. Yes, the city is now actively looking for a director of rodent mitigation, or rat overload, to take care of the problem. The salary is in the neighborhood of $170,000 a year. If you've got experience, maybe you can get even more.

Rachelle, anybody who has visited New York knows, but I want to put out this stat because I think this puts it in perspective. Rodents make up 25% of the human population in New York. We're talking 2 million rats. Is $170,000 salary enough to tackle all that? I mean, this is really going to test the labor market, I would argue. I mean, who wants to take that job?

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RACHELLE AKUFFO: I mean, the salary, yes, that's very nice, but look at what you-- look at its face. Look at what you have to put up with. And where are you supposed to get rat catching experience from? Like, where did that come up with people's lives that you have rat catching experience that you'd qualify for this job? It's horrifying. But look, times are tough. If you could do it with $170,000 and you're willing to risk life and limb to get bitten by rats, more power to you.

AKIKO FUJITA: You know what we need to show? If anybody's ever seen the pizza rat. I mean, that, to me, just shows-- like, that exemplifies New York when you see a rat carrying a pizza on the subway. By the way, you know, this New York Times story that kind of got a lot of us talking points out a really key issue here, which is, it's not just about going after the rats. It's a trash problem, too.

If you see trash day, everybody throws their trash out, the food out on the streets. That draws all the rats in. You've then got a breeding problem. So I mean, I don't know. If you're willing to take the job for $170,000, more power to you. I would argue you might have a little more leverage in bringing that salary up higher, given the task you would have to take on.

RACHELLE AKUFFO: And to your fair point there with the trash, that's-- because there is so much trash out there, this is why the rats are so healthy. That's why they could pull a slice of pizza up the stairs. Horrible, but, hey, something for everybody. We'll have to leave it there and move along.