Americans looking for a new job are confronting a hiring rate near its lowest level since the Great Recession. Americans trying to buy a home are confronting affordability conditions that remain among the worst in decades. Those pressures are usually discussed separately. Together, they are creating something more consequential: an economy where changing your circumstances…
The labor market is avoiding mass layoffs, but hiring and quitting are both subdued. That produces a different kind of slowdown: one in which workers keep their jobs because finding a better one has gotten harder. American employers had 7.3 million job openings in July, according to Labor Department data released Tuesday. They hired 5.1…
The advertising giant is shrinking at the same time its technology platform is growing more capable. That combination points to a deeper change in how advertising work gets organized. WPP may eliminate as many as another 1,000 jobs before the end of the year, extending a reduction that has already removed roughly 11,000 positions since…
The government says digitizing traffic enforcement can reduce bribery and improve road safety. It also moves discretion from the roadside into cameras, databases and control rooms. Beginning in September, Ghana plans to fundamentally change what happens when a driver breaks a traffic law. Police officers will stop conducting routine roadside checks for more than 47…
The kingdom has spent years citing non-oil growth as proof the economy is changing. June’s business data offer a harder test: whether that growth reaches payrolls, revenues and permits, or stops at the aggregate. Arab News reported that Saudi Arabia’s Operating Revenues Index rose 6.1 percent year on year in June, supported by a 16.9 percent…
Walmart cut prices on 11,000 items and is collecting $2.9 billion in tariff refunds. U.S. traffic still slowed. The miss says less about one retailer than about how much room households have left. Walmart reported Thursday that U.S. comparable sales rose 2.6 percent in its fiscal second quarter, against analyst estimates ranging from 3.1 to…
Alix Martichoux reported for Nexstar that the Department of Labor confirmed no national database of WARN Act filings exists, leaving workers to search state by state for notices their own employers are legally required to file. The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act compels employers with 100 or more full-time employees to give 60 days…
September and October used to sit outside the center of the transatlantic travel calendar. Air Canada now expects both months to produce the strongest September and October revenue in the company’s history, as more premium travelers move trips to Europe and Japan away from the hottest and most crowded weeks of summer. The shift began…
Japan spent decades trying to create the economic conditions it has now. Wages are rising. Companies are earning more. Stocks are near record territory. The Bank of Japan has raised interest rates to their highest level in more than three decades. Yet Japan’s Statistics Bureau reported that real consumption by households of two or more…
Gasoline did the work. Construction, portfolio management and services went the other way. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Thursday that the Producer Price Index for final demand was unchanged in July, below the 0.2 percent consensus, with the annual rate slowing to 4.7 percent from 5.5 percent in June. Coverage moved immediately to the…