Evelyn Reynolds

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    With June jobs report looming, DOGE government layoffs could start becoming a factor

    While the impact from the DOGE layoffs has been fairly muted so far in relation to total job growth, recent trends show that’s about to change.
    Applications from workers at federal agencies have soared by 150%, a trend that has been particularly acute at knowledge-work jobs such as data analytics, marketing and software development.
    The BLS releases the June nonfarm payrolls count Thursday. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones expect to see growth of just 115,000.

    A hiring sign is displayed in a Dominos Pizza window on June 25, 2025 in Austin, Texas.
    Brandon Bell | Getty Images

    For federal government workers who worked at agencies tied to this year’s job cuts, an apparent slowdown in the labor market is happening at the worst possible time.
    A gradual pullback in hiring and job openings has come at the same time that hundreds of thousands of federal workers are out looking for employment, the casualty of layoffs recommended by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.

    Although economists almost universally downplay it, one straw in the wind may have come Wednesday, when payrolls processor ADP said private sector hiring in June unexpectedly contracted by 33,000 jobs, far lower than economists’ estimate of 100,000.
    And while the impact from the DOGE layoffs has been fairly muted so far in relation to total job growth, recent trends show that’s about to change, according to data from the Indeed Hiring Lab.
    Weak white collar demand
    “There are still a lot of questions about how that’s all going to trickle into the labor market. A lot of people are out there looking for work from the federal government,” Indeed senior economist Cory Stahle said. “The big question is whether or not they’re going to be able to find them given the weaker demand for the higher education, white-collar jobs now.”
    From January through April of this year, the number of job openings fell by 5% while the hiring rate has hovered around levels last seen in 2014, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
    At the same time, Indeed said it has seen applications from workers at federal agencies soar by 150%, a trend that has been particularly acute at knowledge-work jobs such as data analytics, marketing and software development. While May provided some hope, with applications dipping by 4%, there are still signs that the DOGE efforts are having an impact on the broader labor picture.

    “Demand coming from employers has really pulled back a lot more for these white-collar jobs than it has for many of other kind of in-person skilled labor roles,” Stahle said. “So that’s a real big challenge for anybody entering the labor market right now.”
    Slowdown in payrolls
    The DOGE factor is a significant consideration as policymakers look for cracks in what had been a strong, and virtually uninterrupted, expansion in the labor market since the Covid pandemic.
    An update on conditions comes Thursday when the BLS releases the June nonfarm payrolls count. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones expect to see growth of just 115,000, which, if accurate, would mean that every month in the first half of the year produced fewer than 150,000 new jobs. Outside of the pandemic year in 2020, it’s the slowest start to a year since the financial crisis.

    The unemployment rate is expected to edge higher to 4.3%.
    The efforts this year by DOGE to pare the federal workforce have resulted in more than 280,000 positions cut, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
    To be sure, it’s difficult to gauge what the exact impact on the headline jobs numbers will be, given that many of the displaced workers have found other employment and some of the initial layoffs have been reversed. Also, job openings at the federal level are virtually unchanged this year, though that doesn’t necessarily mean the vacancies will be filled.
    However, Stahle said the efforts by the Trump administration to reduce head count are not the only obstacles facing job seekers.
    He also noted that tech jobs are harder to come by as the Federal Reserve keeps its interest rate benchmark elevated, even in the face of persistent calls from President Donald Trump to ease monetary policy.
    Higher rates discourage debt-dependent tech companies from borrowing and thus expanding, keeping hiring in check, Stahle said.
    “A lot of the tech startups and other companies rely on borrowing to grow and hire, and if the cost of borrowing goes up, it can naturally restrict things,” Stahle said. “They went on a hiring spree [after the Covid pandemic].They brought in a lot of people and haven’t necessarily needed to hire as a result.” More

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    Trump Says U.S. Has Reached Trade Deal With Vietnam

    The president said he had agreed to initial trade terms with Vietnam, the second country to strike a limited deal after Mr. Trump threatened steep tariffs.President Trump said on Wednesday that the United States had reached a trade deal with Vietnam, one that would roll back some of the punishing tariffs he had issued on Vietnamese products in return for that nation’s agreeing to open its market to American goods.The preliminary deal will also indirectly affect China, an important trading partner of Vietnam.“It will be a Great Deal of Cooperation between our two Countries,” Mr. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social announcing the deal.According to Mr. Trump, the deal imposes a 20 percent tariff on all imports from Vietnam and a 40 percent tariff on any “transshipping.”That provision is aimed at addressing Trump administration criticisms that countries like Vietnam have become a channel for Chinese manufacturers to bypass U.S. tariffs and funnel goods into the United States.Which products would fall under the higher tariff rate is unclear. It could refer to goods imported to the United States from Vietnam that actually originated in China. But it could also apply to Vietnamese products that use a certain amount of Chinese parts. The deal could include a lower tariff on goods that are made in Vietnam with fewer Chinese parts and materials, and a higher tariff rate for Vietnamese goods that contain many Chinese components.Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, wrote on X that “if another country sells their content through products exported by Vietnam to us — they’ll get hit with a 40 percent tariff.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    The private sector lost 33,000 jobs in June, badly missing expectations for a 100,000 increase, ADP says

    Private sector hiring unexpectedly contracted in June, payrolls processing firm ADP said Wednesday.
    It’s a potential sign that the economy may not be as sturdy as investors believe.

    People visit booths set up by the City of Sunrise and their police department at the Mega JobNewsUSA South Florida Job Fair at the Amerant Bank Arena on April 30, 2025 in Sunrise, Florida.
    Joe Raedle | Getty Images

    Private sector hiring unexpectedly contracted in June, payrolls processing firm ADP said Wednesday, in a possible sign that the economy may not be as sturdy as investors believe as they bid the S&P 500 back up to record territory to end the month.
    Private payrolls lost 33,000 jobs in June, the ADP report showed, the first decrease since March 2023. Economists polled by Dow Jones forecast an increase of 100,000 for the month. The May job growth figure was revised even lower to just 29,000 jobs added from 37,000.

    “Though layoffs continue to be rare, a hesitancy to hire and a reluctance to replace departing workers led to job losses last month,” Nela Richardson, ADP’s chief economist, said in a press release published Wednesday morning.
    To be sure, the ADP report has a spotty track record on predicting the subsequent government jobs report, which investors tend to weigh more heavily. May’s soft ADP data ended up differing significantly from the monthly jobs report figures that came later in the week.
    This week, the government’s nonfarm payrolls report will be out on Thursday with economists expecting a healthy 110,000 increase for June, per Dow Jones estimates. Economists are expecting the unemployment rate to tick higher to 4.3% from 4.2%. Some economists could revise down their jobs reports estimates following ADP’s data.
    Weekly jobless claims data is also due Thursday, with economists penciling in 240,000. This string of labor stats comes during a shortened trading week, with the market closing early on Thursday and remaining dark on Friday in honor of the July 4 holiday.

    Service roles hit hardest

    The bulk of job losses came in service roles tied to professional and business services and health and education, according to the ADP. Professional/business services notched a decline of 56,000, while health/education saw a net loss of 52,000.

    Financial activity roles also contributed to this month’s decline with a drop of 14,000 on balance.
    But the contraction was capped by payroll expansions in goods-producing roles across industries such as manufacturing and mining. All together, goods-producing positions grew by 32,000 in the month, while payrolls for service roles overall fell by 66,000.
    The Midwest and Western U.S. saw the strongest contractions in June, declining by 24,000 and 20,000, respectively. Meanwhile, the Northeast shed 3,000 roles. The Southern U.S. was the sole region tracked by the ADP to see payrolls expand on net in the month, recording an increase of 13,000 positions.
    The smallest firms tended to see more job losses this month than their larger counterparts. In fact, businesses with more than 500 employees saw the biggest payroll growth in the month with an increase of 30,000, per the ADP. By comparison, businesses with fewer than 20 employees accounted for 29,000 lost roles on net.
    Annual income growth decreased modestly from May for both job stayers and hoppers. The rate of pay increase for those staying in their jobs ticked down to 4.4% from 4.5%, while those getting new roles slid to 6.8% from 7%.
    The S&P 500 is up more than 4% for the year, posting a stunning comeback in the second quarter after worries about President Donald Trump’s tariff fights nearly sent the benchmark into a bear market.

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    Trump’s Big Policy Bill Puts U.S. on Perilous Fiscal Path

    Among the most expensive pieces of legislation in years, the Republican legislation could reshape the country’s finances for a generation.Washington has not exactly won a reputation for fiscal discipline over the last few decades, as both Republicans and Democrats passed bills that have, bit by bit, degraded the nation’s finances.But the legislation that Republicans passed through the Senate on Tuesday stands apart in its harm to the budget, analysts say. Not only did an initial analysis show it adding at least $3.3 trillion to the nation’s debt over the next 10 years — making it among the most expensive bills in a generation — but it would also reduce the amount of tax revenue the country collects for decades. Such a shortfall could begin a seismic shift in the nation’s fiscal trajectory and raise the risk of a debt crisis.The threat is a reflection of the fact that Senate Republicans have voted to make tax cuts that the party first passed in 2017 a permanent feature of the tax code. That means the growth in the country’s debt, already at levels economists find alarming, would only accelerate as the bill shaves down the country’s main source of money.“We are looking at the most expensive piece of legislation probably since the 1960s,” said Jessica Riedl, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank. “The danger is that Congress is piling trillions of new borrowing on top of deficits that are already leaping.”Historically, lawmakers have been unable to make such a large change in the country’s finances without bipartisan support, helping contain how much debt is added at a time.That is because reconciliation, the special legislative procedure that Republicans used to avoid the filibuster in the Senate and pass the bill along party lines, has long included the requirement that bills cannot add to the debt for more than a decade. But Republicans decided to disregard that rule, relying on an accounting gimmick to argue that the $3.8 trillion cost of extending the 2017 tax cuts is actually zero and therefore they can continue indefinitely.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    As Debt Piles Up, Countries See Fiscal Relief as Political Leverage

    With developing nations crushed by unaffordable borrowing and Washington on the sidelines, some leaders are brokering debt forgiveness deals.At a summit meeting in Rome last month, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy announced that the European Union was working on a multimillion-dollar plan to provide Africa with some debt relief. The move followed a $15.5 million bailout of Syria by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, erasing the war-torn country’s debt to the World Bank and helping a regional neighbor rebuild.The steps are small given the magnitude of the crushing $8.8 trillion debt that weighs on poor and middle-income countries. Many of these nations spend more on interest payments than on schools and medical care.Ideas for a more coordinated approach to debt and development financing will be discussed at a United Nations conference this week in Spain. But the outlook for comprehensive action is bleak. Twenty-five years ago, wealthy nations, including the United States, struck an extraordinary agreement to forgive hundreds of billions of dollars in debt owed by poor countries.Today, President Trump’s retreat from multilateral organizations and relief programs, in addition to rising tensions between the United States and China, is hampering joint efforts to address the deepening sinkhole of debt.But as the world’s wealthiest country withdraws, China could do more to relieve the strain on struggling economies, experts say.No other country has lent more to Africa, Asia and Latin America than China. After a lending binge that began in the mid-2000s and gained momentum in the 2010s, China now accounts for nearly a third of loan repayments made by nations in these regions.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Trump’s Threat of More Tariffs Slows Trade Deals

    As America’s largest trading partners race toward deals, they are increasingly worried about being hit with future tariffs on their critical industries.Governments around the globe are racing to negotiate trade deals with the United States in order to forestall President Trump’s punishing tariffs, which could kick in on July 9. But the discussions have been slowed because Mr. Trump has threatened to impose more tariffs even if those deals are in place.Mr. Trump announced what he refers to as “reciprocal tariffs” on April 8, saying they were in response to other countries’ unfair trading practices. But he agreed to pause those levies for 90 days to give countries time to reach trade deals with the United States. Some administration officials recently suggested that the deadline could be extended, but Mr. Trump has signaled that he is ready to slap tariffs on countries he views as uncooperative. “We have countries that are negotiating in good faith, but they should be aware that if we can’t get across the line because they are being recalcitrant, then we could spring back to the April 2 levels,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in an interview with Bloomberg Television on Monday.India, Vietnam, Japan, the European Union, Malaysia and other governments have been working toward deals that could smooth relations with the United States and avoid double-digit tariffs. But the Trump administration has been moving forward with plans to impose another set of tariffs on certain industries that it views as essential to national security, a threat that has foreign leaders worried that there could be more pain ahead.These tariffs are dependent on the outcomes of trade investigations into lumber and timber, copper and critical minerals by the Commerce Department, which are expected to be completed soon and submitted to the White House, according to people familiar with the matter. A determination that imports pose a national security threat would allow the president to issue tariffs on those products in the coming weeks. Investigations on pharmaceuticals, semiconductors and electronic devices are also proceeding and could be finished in time for tariffs as early as next month, the people said.Mr. Bessent added that tariffs on imports of items such as lumber were being imposed on a different track from the reciprocal tariffs that were announced in April and are not part of the current round of trade negotiations.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Trump Signals U.S. Is Nearing Trade Deals but Says Some Countries Will Face Tariffs

    President Trump said the United States would send out letters telling other countries “what they have to pay,” even as other officials said negotiations could be extended past a July deadline.President Trump suggested on Friday that the United States was close to reaching trade deals with multiple countries but held out the prospect of reimposing high tariffs on some trading partners, introducing fresh uncertainty into his trade talks.Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary, had suggested earlier in the day that the administration might give countries more time to negotiate beyond a quickly approaching deadline for tariffs to snap back into effect on July 8. In an interview on Friday, Mr. Bessent said that negotiations with trading partners could be “wrapped up by Labor Day,” adding that “nothing gets done in Washington well in advance.”But at a news conference on Friday, the president seemed inclined to keep everyone guessing. Asked whether he would reimpose tariffs on July 8, he responded, “We can do whatever we want.”“We could extend it. We could make it shorter,” Mr. Trump said. “I’d like to make it shorter. I’d like to just send letters out to everybody, ‘Congratulations, you’re paying 25 percent.’”Mr. Trump also said that the United States was in the “process” of making deals with some countries, but that other countries would receive a letter stating the tariffs their exports now face.“We’re just going to tell them what they have to pay,” he said.Mr. Trump quickly followed up his remarks with a social media post threatening tariffs against Canada, which is set to begin collecting taxes charged on American tech companies on Monday.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Core inflation rate rose to 2.7% in May, more than expected, Fed’s preferred gauge shows

    Prices that consumers pay rose slightly in May, while the annual inflation rate edged further away from the Federal Reserve’s target, according to a Commerce Department report Friday.
    The personal consumption expenditures price index, the Fed’s primary inflation reading, rose a seasonally adjusted 0.1% for the month, putting the annual inflation rate at 2.3%. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for respective levels of 0.1% and 2.3%.

    Excluding food and energy, core PCE posted respective readings of 0.2% and 2.7%, compared to estimates for 0.1% and 2.6%. Fed policymakers consider core to be a better measure of long-term trends because of historic volatility in the two categories. The annual rate was 0.1 percentage point ahead of the April reading.
    Along with the inflation numbers, consumer spending and income showed further signs of weakening. Spending fell 0.1% for the month, compared to the estimate for an increase of 0.1%. Personal income declined 0.4%, against the forecast for a gain of 0.3%.
    Markets had little reaction to the data, with stock market futures indicating a positive open on Wall Street while Treasury yields also rose.
    The report comes with the Fed contemplating its next move on interest rates.
    Markets largely expect the central bank to remain on hold at its late July meeting. However, a few officials of late have been advocating a cut as long as inflation data shows muted pressures from the tariffs President Donald Trump has instituted since taking office in January.

    Trump has been pushing the Fed to ease, insisting that inflation is low and the Fed can always switch gears if prices start moving higher again.
    Fed Chair Jerome Powell, though, has advocated a more cautious report, despite increasingly aggressive pressure from the president. Trump has been criticizing Powell on a regular basis lately, earlier this week calling him “stupid” and indicating that he will name a successor soon.
    Inflation pressures generally were muted in May.
    Food prices increased 0.2%, but that was offset by a 1% decline in energy-related goods and services costs, including a 2.2% slide in gasoline and other energy goods. Shelter prices increased 0.3%. More