Economic and jobs news thread

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[Yuli Ban]

Which helps China
The gold part
The two biggest stories of the 2020s that no one's talking about: the renewable energy exponential boom, and the meteoric rise of gold and silver combined with the CCP also buying epic amounts of gold to back the yuan

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Amazon cuts about 16,000 corporate jobs in the latest round of layoffs
https://apnews.com/article/amazon-layof ... 8c00863443

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Updated 6:45 AM CST, January 28, 2026

Amazon is slashing about 16,000 corporate jobs in the second round of mass layoffs for the ecommerce company in three months.

The tech giant has said it plans to use generative artificial intelligence to replace corporate workers. It has also been reducing a workforce that swelled during the pandemic.

Beth Galetti, a senior vice president at Amazon, said in a blog post Wednesday that the company has been “reducing layers, increasing ownership, and removing bureaucracy.”

The company did not say what business units would be impacted, or where the job cuts would occur.

The latest reductions follow a round of job cuts in October, when Amazon said it was laying off 14,000 workers. While some Amazon units completed those “organizational changes” in October, others did not finish until now, Galetti said.

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Private payrolls rose by just 22,000 in January, far short of expectations, ADP says

Source: CNBC

Published Wed, Feb 4 2026 8:15 AM EST Updated 1 Min Ago

The U.S. labor market barely budged in January, with hiring below even muted expectations, according a report Wednesday from payrolls processing firm ADP.

Private companies added just 22,000 positions for the month and the number would have been negative had it not been for a surge of 74,000 hires in the education and health services category. The total was less than the downwardly revised 37,000 increase in December and below the Dow Jones consensus forecast for 45,000.

The report starts 2026 off on basically the same note where 2025 ended: A lackluster job market in a low-hire, low-fire environment that likely will do little to quell fears from Federal Reserve policymakers that more support may be needed.

Outside of the health care-related jobs, the primary driver behind employment growth last year, financial activities added 14,000 positions while construction rose by 9,000 and both the trade, transportation and utilities and the leisure and hospitality industries contributed 4,000. However, several sectors reported losses.

Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/04/adp-job ... -2026.html

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[firestar464]

More on that by Nebraska Public Media:

https://nebraskapublicmedia.org/en/news ... n-workers/

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In economic speeches, Trump claims inflation victory nearly 20 times even as prices bite

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... r-AA1VSfEb

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U.S. payrolls rose by 130,000 in January, more than expected; unemployment rate at 4.3%

Source: CNBC

Published Wed, Feb 11 2026 8:32 AM EST Updated 6 Min Ago

Job growth was stronger than expected to start 2026, providing some relief to concerns about the state of the U.S. labor market.

Nonfarm payrolls increased by 130,000 for January, above the Dow Jones consensus estimate for 55,000, according to seasonally adjusted figures the Bureau of Labor Statistics released Wednesday. The total also was an improvement over December, which saw a gain of 48,000 after a slight downward revision.

The unemployment rate edged lower to 4.3%, below the forecast to stay unchanged at 4.4% from the prior month. A more encompassing measure that includes discouraged workers and those holding part-time positions for economic reasons slipped to 8%, down 0.4 percentage point from December.



Markets rose following the news, with stock market futures ticking higher. Treasury yields also posted strong gains. The report, delayed nearly a week by the partial government shutdown that ended Feb. 3, held consistent with a labor market in a low-growth mode, though with only scattered signs of increasing layoffs.

Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/11/jobs-re ... 2026-.html

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BLS jobs report revises 2025 down to +181,000 total jobs added for the year
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

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Fourth-quarter U.S. GDP up just 1.4%, badly missing estimate; inflation firms at 3%

Last edited Fri Feb 20, 2026, 09:44 AM - Edit history (1)

Source: CBS News

Published Fri, Feb 20 2026 8:31 AM EST Updated 15 Min Ago

U.S. growth slowed more than expected near the end of 2025 as the government shutdown impacted spending and investment, while a key inflation metric showed high prices are still a factor for the economy, according to data released Friday. Gross domestic product rose at an annualized rate of just 1.4%, according to the Commerce Department, well below the Dow Jones estimate for a 2.5% gain.

Consumer spending rose at a slower pace for the period while government spending tumbled sharply in a quarter marked by the record-length shutdown. The department estimated that the shutdown subtracted about 1 percentage point from growth, though it added that the exact impacts “cannot be quantified.”

For the full year in 2025, the U.S. economy grew at a 2.2% pace, down from the 2.8% increase in 2024.

“The Federal government shutdown clearly sent the economy careening off its strong growth path in the fourth quarter which is a one-off that won’t be repeated in early 2026,” said Chris Rupkey, chief economist at Fwdbonds. Just prior to the data release, President Donald Trump warned that the GDP number would be soft, blaming it on the government shutdown that ended in November.

Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/20/pce-inf ... -2025.html

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Martin Lewis ambushes Badenoch on Good Morning Britain over student loans plan

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... dent-loans

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Economy Core wholesale prices rose 0.8% in January, much more than expected

The core PPI, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, increased a seasonally adjusted 0.8%, more than the 0.6% gain in December and well ahead of the Dow Jones consensus estimate for 0.3%.
On an all-items basis, headline PPI rose 0.5%, also above the forecast for 0.3% and 0.1 percentage point more than the prior month.
For the full year, core wholesale prices accelerated 3.6%, while the headline index posted a 2.9% gain.

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https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/27/ppi-january-2026-.html