Charting the Global Economy: US Jobs Data Eases Pressure on Fed
Foreign Buyers Swoop on Cape Town Homes, Pricing Out Locals
Massachusetts to Follow NYC in Making Landlords Pay Broker Fees
NYC Commutes Resume After Midtown Bus Terminal Crash Chaos
Struggling Downtowns Are Looking to Lure New Crowds
What Gothenburg Got Out of Congestion Pricing
While employers added more jobs in June than forecast and the unemployment rate ticked lower, growth in private payrolls weakened.
Elsewhere, the manufacturing slowdown in Asia deepened. Survey data showed purchasing managers indexes for Taiwan, Indonesia and Vietnam firmly in contraction territory.
Here are some of the charts that appeared on Bloomberg this week on the latest developments in the global economy, markets and geopolitics:
US
US job growth exceeded expectations in June as an unusual surge in public education employment masked a slowdown in hiring across the rest of the economy. Private payrolls rose the least since October, largely reflecting hiring in health care. The jobless rate declined to 4.1%, indicating employers remain reticent to lay off workers.
A buildup of unsold houses sitting on the market for weeks is becoming a new reality in once-booming housing areas across the Sun Belt. Real estate agents in the South and Southwest say they're seeing more people list homes, giving up on hopes that mortgage rates will drop anytime soon. In Florida, homeowners are fleeing soaring insurance costs, and in Colorado, investors are culling rental properties.
Europe
Euro-area inflation settled at the European Central Bank's target in June, strengthening arguments to press pause on a year-long campaign of interest-rate cuts. A stronger euro and lower energy costs are helping keep price pressures in check — as is lackluster expansion by the region's 20-nation economy.
The UK economy grew in the first quarter by the most in a year as Britons spent more and saved less before the Labour government's tax hikes and extra US tariffs came into effect. The outlook has darkened since the start of April amid a sharp drop in employment, weak retail sales and plunging exports to the US.
Swedish retail sales fell the most in more than three decades in May, continuing a run of disappointing data and increasing pressure on the country's central bank to lower rates again. The slump compounds the recent below-forecasts data readings for Sweden including a surprise contraction in first-quarter economic output and a rise in the unemployment rate to 9% in May.
Asia
The slowdown in Asia's manufacturing activity deepened further in June, a warning sign for the region's growth prospects as tariffs on shipments to the US are poised to increase next week. Export-reliant economies including Taiwan and Vietnam saw their purchasing managers indexes deteriorate further, with factories reporting a continued decline in new orders, output and staffing as the trade war saps demand.
Japan's annual wage negotiations concluded with the largest pay increase in 34 years, an outcome that supports the central bank's view that a cycle of higher wages and prices is emerging. Workers at 5,162 companies affiliated with the nation's largest union federation Rengo secured an average wage increase of 5.25%, according to the final update of pay deals announced by the union group
US President Donald Trump floated the idea of keeping 25% tariffs on Japan's cars as talks between the two nations continued just before a slew of higher duties are set to kick in if a trade deal isn't reached.
Emerging Markets
Cargo thefts in Mexico topped 24,000 in 2024, up about 16%, data from transportation risk consultancy Overhaul show. That trails the US and Europe in total incidents. But in loss-ratio terms, which compare the number of thefts to economic activity, Mexico is the worst in the world.
World
Poland's central bank unexpectedly cut interest rates after a one-month pause and said inflation is likely to ease within its target in the coming months. A day after the Wednesday move, central bank Governor Adam Glapinski said the reduction was not the beginning of a cycle of monetary easing, even as he held out for another potential move in September. Tanzania also cut, while Ethiopia and the Bank of Central African States kept borrowing costs on hold.
--With assistance from Irina Anghel, Maya Averbuch, Agnieszka Barteczko, Charlie Duxbury, Claire Jiao, Sakura Murakami, Andrea Navarro, Mark Niquette, Jana Randow, Michael Sasso, Zoe Schneeweiss, Erica Yokoyama, Craig Stirling and Jeremy Diamond.
SNAP Cuts in Big Tax Bill Will Hit a Lot of Trump Voters Too
America's Top Consumer-Sentiment Economist Is Worried
For Brazil's Criminals, Coffee Beans Are the Target
Sperm Freezing Is a New Hot Market for Startups
Pistachios Are Everywhere Right Now, Not Just in Dubai Chocolate
©2025 Bloomberg L.P.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CBS News
10 minutes ago
- CBS News
Driver crashes into Glendale gift shop after collision
A business was badly damaged just before midnight Sunday when a driver crashed into a Glendale storefront, police said. According to the Glendale Police Department, a traffic collision between two vehicles at the intersection of Glendale and Garfield avenues sent one of the cars into Sevana Gifts. Luckily, no one was inside the store at the time of the crash and no injuries were reported to either driver. It's not yet clear how the initial crash occurred. At the scene on Monday morning, plastic wrapping covered the storefront after the car was towed away. It's not yet clear how long Sevana Gifts will need to be closed for repairs.
New York Times
10 minutes ago
- New York Times
Which Workers Will A.I. Hurt Most: The Young or the Experienced?
When Amazon's chief executive, Andy Jassy, wrote last month that he expected the company's use of artificial intelligence to 'reduce our total work force' over the next few years, it confirmed the fear among many workers that A.I. would replace them. The fear was reinforced two weeks later when Microsoft said it was laying off about 9,000 people, roughly 4 percent of its work force. That artificial intelligence is poised to displace white-collar workers is indisputable. But what kind of workers, exactly? Mr. Jassy's announcement landed in the middle of a debate over just this question. Some experts argue that A.I. is most likely to affect novice workers, whose tasks are generally simplest and therefore easiest to automate. Dario Amodei, the chief executive of the A.I. company Anthropic, recently told Axios that the technology could cannibalize half of all entry-level white-collar roles within five years. An uptick in the unemployment rate for recent college graduates has aggravated this concern, even if it doesn't prove that A.I. is the cause of their job-market struggles. But other captains of the A.I. industry have taken the opposite view, arguing that younger workers are likely to benefit from A.I. and that experienced workers will ultimately be more vulnerable. In an interview at a New York Times event in late June, Brad Lightcap, the chief operating officer of OpenAI, suggested that the technology could pose problems for 'a class of worker that I think is more tenured, is more oriented toward a routine in a certain way of doing things.' The ultimate answer to this question will have vast implications. If entry-level jobs are most at risk, it could require a rethinking of how we educate college students, or even the value of college itself. And if older workers are most at risk, it could lead to economic and even political instability as large-scale layoffs become a persistent feature of the labor market. David Furlonger, a vice president at the research firm Gartner who helps oversee its survey of chief executives, has considered the implications if A.I. displaces more experienced workers. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
New York Times
10 minutes ago
- New York Times
Welcome to Your Job Interview. Your Interviewer Is A.I.
When Jennifer Dunn, 54, landed an interview last month through a recruiting firm for a vice president of marketing job, she looked forward to talking to someone about the role and learning more about the potential employer. Instead, a virtual artificial intelligence recruiter named Alex sent her a text message to schedule the interview. And when Ms. Dunn got on the phone at the appointed time for the meeting, Alex was waiting to talk to her. 'Are you a human?' Ms. Dunn asked. 'No, I'm not a human,' Alex replied. 'But I'm here to make the interview process smoother.' For the next 20 minutes, Ms. Dunn, a marketing professional in San Antonio, answered Alex's questions about her qualifications — though Alex could not answer most of her questions about the job. Even though Alex had a friendly tone, the conversation 'felt hollow,' Ms. Dunn said. In the end, she hung up before finishing the interview. You might have thought artificial intelligence was coming for your job. First it's coming for your job interviewer. Job seekers across the country are starting to encounter faceless voices and avatars backed by A.I. in their interviews. These autonomous interviewers are part of a wave of artificial intelligence known as 'agentic A.I.,' where A.I. agents are directed to act on their own to generate real-time conversations and build on responses. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
