Cool jobs data

New US jobs numbers Friday seem to add insult to injury for Team Recession as data show the labor market cooling just enough, adding more support to a possible soft landing for the world’s largest economy. Healthy job and income gains point to an economy capable of weathering any fallout from the Federal Reserve’s rapid interest-rate increases over the past year, which have come close to taming high inflation. That’s also contributing to renewed confidence among consumers, which may bode well for spending and growth. With unemployment again near record-low levels, though, wages rose more than expected. —David E. Rovella

Two Fed officials say those slower employment gains suggest the labor market is coming into better balance, arguing the central bank may soon need to pivot from raising rates to thinking about how long to hold them at elevated levels. “I expected the economy to slow down in a fairly orderly way,” Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic said Friday. The new numbers are “continuing that pace.”

Ukraine has responded to Kremlin attacks on its grain-shipping infrastructure in kind. Traffic at Russia’s critical Novorossiysk port was halted for several hours on Friday after a Ukrainian drone strike on a naval vessel. Although the closure was short-lived, escalations in Russia’s war—which has killed tens of thousands of Ukrainians—added to uncertainty over Black Sea trade flows amid this year’s harvests. Russia pulled out of a deal last month that had established a safe corridor for grain shipments from three Ukrainian ports, as it started its concerted effort to attack Kyiv’s grain shipping capabilities.

Trucking giant Yellow Corp. is considering a sale of assets and real estate through a bankruptcy filing, which may come as soon as this weekend, according to people with knowledge of the situation. Assets of the beleaguered company have already piqued the interest of a potential financial bidder. The Chapter 11 process could later transition into a liquidation.

In a residential area in southeastern Seoul is a red-brick, four-story building that looks like any other in the neighborhood. But a basement office there is home to the research center whose extraordinary claims about a breakthrough in superconductor technology have shocked the scientific community and captivated the world.

Narendra Modi’s government pulled the carpet out from under technology companies in yet another example of India’s sudden policy shifts. Apple, Samsung and HP are among the biggest names freezing new imports of laptops and tablets to the South Asian country after it abruptly banned inbound shipments without a license. The restriction adds to longstanding Indian measures designed to discourage bringing in foreign electronics.

For Apple, it’s another unexpected obstacle. Weak demand for its handsets and other gadgets has caused the company’s market value to fall below the historic $3 trillion level. The iPhone maker’s outlook for the fourth quarter has sparked worries about more coal in the company’s stocking come the holidays.

About 15 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, a massive structure emerges from the Atlantic Ocean. Nearby it will have the biggest turbines in the world, as tall as the Washington Monument with the Statue of Liberty stacked on top. It’s the first offshore power substation in the US and in October it is expected to start delivering electricity from Vineyard Wind, the nation’s first commercial-scale offshore wind farm. By 2024, the project is expected to generate enough electricity to power 400,000 homes.

When General Motors announced in March that it would name its new luxury car customization shop in Warren, Michigan, after Suzanne Vanderbilt, a pioneering designer who shaped the Cadillacs of the 1950s, the gesture felt appropriate. The facility was built to do work on the Celestiq, a totally new, elite car created with women at the helm. The $340,000 electric hatchback will be Cadillac’s new flagship vehicle, promising technologies including next-generation hands-free driver assistance, a 55-inch digital dashboard and smart glass in the roof that can be tinted at a touch.

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