Topic
The aggregate of U.S. employment, hiring, and wage trends, tracked via metrics like jobless claims, payroll growth, and job openings.
Moody's Analytics' Mark Zandi calls the U.S. economy vulnerable, citing payroll growth near 40,000 a month and essentially zero outside healthcare. Markets put 50% odds on an October Fed hike after 3.7% CPI, Pimco's Tiffany Wilding said.
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LinkedIn began a free 14-week course on starting a business in September, enrolling 30 of its own employees, Fortune reported. Because the students are LinkedIn staff, the pilot can test a syllabus but cannot yet show what outside workers will pay for it.
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US initial jobless claims were 197,000 in the week ended Oct. 3, the fourth straight week below 200,000, Labor Department data showed. Employers are holding on to staff without adding many, so the strain falls on people already out of work while the Federal Reserve keeps raising rates.
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Bank of America Institute data show job-switchers' pay growth fell from nearly 18% in 2022 to 8% in early 2026, against 5% for stayers. Employers saved mostly on hiring offers, and a September update shows that premium climbing again.
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Bitcoin briefly crossed $87,000 on Oct. 2 after US employers added just 29,000 jobs in September against about 90,000 expected. Traders added roughly $2.3 billion of futures positions during the climb, so more leverage now rides on the Fed's Oct. 28 decision.
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BLS revisions cut 60,000 jobs from July and August payrolls, turning July into a 10,000 loss, before September added just 29,000. With August PCE inflation at 3.4%, the case for another hike after the Fed's September move to 3.75%-4% now rests mostly on prices.
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US employers added 29,000 jobs in September while the Bureau of Labor Statistics cut 60,000 from its July and August counts. With layoffs still falling, the data describe a hiring freeze that argues for slowing headcount plans and holding cuts in reserve.
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September payrolls of 29,000, against an 84,000 consensus, lifted the Nasdaq 1.2% on Friday and turned a losing week into a 0.45% gain. Every major index was down through Thursday, so the AI-led advance depends on the Fed staying on hold.
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Construction added 109,000 jobs in a year, growing 2.4 times as fast as professional and business services in BLS payrolls released October 2. Wolf Richter credits data centers, factories and power plants, so hiring is following capital spending into physical projects.
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The Conference Board's consumer confidence index fell 6.7 points to 81.9 in September, its lowest in 12 years. Jobs data out the same day held steady. The drop traces to fuel and prices, and those are what a spending forecast built on labour figures alone misses.
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Bitcoin rose to $86,757 after August core PCE came in at 3.0% against 3.3% expected and October hold odds jumped to 74% from 35.8%. The year's sub-$1 billion ETF total understates the buying, because a strong third quarter first had to cover first-half redemptions.
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ADP counted 90,000 new private-sector jobs in September, ending a three-month slowdown. Health care and the skilled trades carried the month, and the trades are hiring into a labor shortage that Fed and ADP economists explain differently.
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US payrolls rose 29,000 in September against a 90,000 forecast and revisions turned July negative, all but ruling out an October Fed hike. Economists cited by Reuters still call inflation the Fed's main input, so Q4 plans can drop the hike case and hold rates flat.
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US initial jobless claims fell to 197,000 last week, below the 200,000 forecast, as employers kept holding off on layoffs. That leaves an October Fed hike turning on inflation, where August's 3.4% PCE reading came in under the 3.7% forecast.
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LinkedIn chief executive Dan Shapero says job seekers send 30% more applications than before the pandemic, as US openings fell to 7.08 million in August. Hiring is also close to a ten-year low, so the figures cannot yet separate an AI-polished applicant pool from plain weaker demand.
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US payrolls grew by 162,000 in August, nearly triple the 55,000 economists expected. For anyone planning headcount, that net gain says less about candidate supply than the hiring and quit rates beneath it.
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More than $100 billion in tariff money has gone back to importers, adding an estimated 0.2 point to third-quarter GDP. It does not repeat, and much of it is already promised to someone else.
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The viral argument over whether a candidate may carry a latte into an interview is running in a hiring market at little more than half its 2022 openings ratio, where rejected applicants are rarely told why.
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An Entrepreneur contributor counts 16.5 million represented workers and roughly 463,000 new members in a year as a warning to employers, and then forecasts that the growth stops. Employers planning 2027 pay get two readings of one number.
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US hiring has run near its weakest level since the Great Recession for two straight years, and an Indeed Hiring Lab economist now calls that the new normal.
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Invest · August 29, 2026 · Confirmed3 publishers