Evelyn Reynolds

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    Private payroll growth slowed to 62,000 in April, well below expectations

    Private sector payrolls rose by just 62,000 for the month, the smallest gain since July 2024, down from 147,000 in March and missing the Dow Jones consensus estimate for an increase of 120,000.
    Leisure and hospitality posted the biggest gain, adding 27,000 jobs. Others that showed increases included trade, transportation and utilities (21,000), financial activities (20,000) and construction (16,000).

    Companies slowed hiring sharply in April as they braced against potential impacts from President Donald Trump’s tariffs against U.S. trading partners, ADP reported Wednesday.
    Private sector payrolls rose by just 62,000 for the month, the smallest gain since July 2024, amid heightened uncertainty over the degree of the tariffs and the impact they would have on hiring plans and broader economic conditions.

    The total marked a deceleration from the downwardly revised gain of 147,000 in March and missed the Dow Jones consensus estimate for an increase of 120,000.
    “Unease is the word of the day. Employers are trying to reconcile policy and consumer uncertainty with a run of mostly positive economic data,” said ADP chief economist Nela Richardson. “It can be difficult to make hiring decisions in such an environment.”
    Wage gains also took a step backwards, rising 4.5% from a year ago for those staying in their jobs, down 0.1 percentage point from March. However, job changers saw an increase to 6.9%, up 0.2 percentage point.
    From a sector standpoint, leisure and hospitality posted the biggest gain, adding 27,000 jobs. Others that showed increases included trade, transportation and utilities (21,000), financial activities (20,000) and construction (16,000). Education and health services lost 23,000 positions while information services fell by 8,000.
    The ADP estimate serves as a precursor to Friday’s nonfarm payrolls report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the two reports can differ substantially. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones are looking for job growth of 133,000 in the BLS report, which unlike ADP includes government hiring. The unemployment rate is expected to be unchanged at 4.2%. More

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    Euro zone economy expands by better-than-expected 0.4% in the first quarter

    Euro zone GDP grew 0.4% in the first quarter, according to a preliminary reading, ahead of the 0.2% expected by economists.
    Germany, Europe’s largest economy, rose 0.2% over the same period.

    Freight containers are stacked in the east of the banking city on the site of the DB transshipment station. The skyscrapers of the banking skyline rise up behind them. US President Trump’s aggressive US customs policy can also be seen as a trade war against the rest of the world.
    Photo by Arne Dedert/picture alliance via Getty Images

    The euro zone economy grew by a stronger-than-expected 0.4% in the first quarter, flash data from statistics agency Eurostat showed Wednesday, as global tariff tensions cast uncertainty upon the bloc’s trajectory.
    Economists polled by Reuters had forecast a 0.2% expansion in the first three months of the year, following a revised 0.2% growth print in the last quarter of 2024.

    Figures published earlier Wednesday showed the gross domestic product (GDP) of Germany, Europe’s largest economy, rose 0.2% over the same period. French GDP added 0.1% across the three-month stretch.
    Continuing a recent trend, southern European and smaller economies outperformed, with the Spanish and Lithuanian GDPs adding 0.6% each, while Italy’s economic output grew by 0.3%. The economy of Ireland, which tends to have volatile readings due to its high proportion of multinational companies, expanded by 3.2% in the first quarter.
    Franziska Palmas, senior Europe economist at Capital Economics, said the latest euro zone GDP reading showed the area’s economy started 2025 on a stronger footing than activity surveys had suggested.
    “Nevertheless, we still expect growth to slow sharply in the next six months as the US tariffs introduced in April will hit activity,” Palmas said, adding that any boost coming from the huge fiscal stimulus expected in Germany would mostly be felt next year.
    The euro was choppy Wednesday, trading 0.08% lower against the U.S. dollar at 10:35 a.m. in London following the print, and 0.2% higher against the British pound. Germany’s 10-year bond yield, seen as the benchmark for the euro area, was three basis points lower.

    Euro zone economic growth has been lackluster for much of 2023 and 2024, even as the European Central Bank has been cutting interest rates in an effort to stimulate growth and boost economic activity. The ECB’s deposit facility rate, its key rate, was taken down to 2.25% earlier this month — down from highs of 4% in mid-2023.
    The ECB in March said it was expecting the euro zone economy to grow by 0.9% in 2025, slightly below its January forecast. Fresh projections are due out in June, with central bank policymakers last week suggesting to CNBC that the forecasts would prove crucial in the rate decision-making process.
    On the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund World Bank Spring meetings, the policymakers and other economists and officials widely noted the U.S.’ tariff policy as a key concern when it comes to growth.
    ECB President Christine Lagarde noted that, while the “disinflationary process is so much on track that we are nearing completion,” there were shocks that would “dampen” economic growth.
    The European Union, which includes the euro zone countries, is facing 20% blanket trade tariffs from the U.S., which has briefly reduced these measures alongside levies on other counterparties until July for negotiations. The EU has also put its own retaliatory measures on hold for now. The bloc is also subject to additional tariffs on steel, aluminum and autos.
    Data released on Tuesday nevertheless showed that economic sentiment in the euro area fell in April, hitting its lowest level since December 2024.
    While growth has been subdued, euro zone inflation has been nearing the ECB’s 2% target, coming in at 2.2% in March. The latest inflation data release is expected later this week. More

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    Here’s What 7 Americans Think of Trump’s First 100 Days

    The first 100 days of President Trump’s second term have been a whirlwind of action, with the imposition of steep tariffs worldwide, the detention of immigrants and deep cuts to the federal work force.The New York Times has been talking with a group of voters who all cast their ballots in last November’s election with some trepidation. While they had expressed a range of hopes and concerns about the new administration, they have now seen enough to make some early judgments at the close of the first 100 days. (A recent Times/Siena College poll also found that majorities of voters, even many who approve of the job Mr. Trump is doing, view his first few months as “chaotic” and “scary.”)‘I don’t regret voting for him.’Jaime Escobar Jr., 46, from Roma, TexasAs mayor of the small border town of Roma, Jaime Escobar Jr. was accustomed to assessing whether strategies were working. At this point, Mr. Escobar remained mostly optimistic, but he was still wary.“I’m not saying I’m 100 percent happy with everything, but for the most part, I feel that Trump is tackling the issues that the American voters thought were important,” he said, referring to immigration and the economy. “I don’t regret voting for him.”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 Signs Executive Order Walking Back Some Auto Tariffs

    Most levies on imported cars and car parts will remain in place, but automakers have secured some relaxation of the trade policy.President Trump signed a pair of executive orders on Tuesday that walked back some tariffs for carmakers, removing levies that Ford, General Motors and others have complained would backfire on U.S. manufacturing by raising the cost of production and squeezing their profits.The changes will modify Mr. Trump’s tariffs so carmakers that pay a 25 percent tariff on auto imports are not subject to other levies, for example on steel and aluminum, or on certain imports from Canada and Mexico, according to the orders. However, the rules do not appear to protect automakers from tariffs on steel and aluminum that their suppliers pay and pass on.Carmakers will also be able to qualify for tariff relief for a proportion of the cost of their imported components, though those benefits will be phased out over the next two years.At a in Michigan on Tuesday night, Mr. Trump said that he was showing “a little flexibility” to the automakers but that he wanted them to make their components in the United States.“We gave them a little time before we slaughter them if they don’t do this,” he said.The decision to reduce the scope of the tariffs is the latest sign that the Trump administration’s decision to impose stiff levies on nearly all trading partners has created challenges and economic uncertainty for American companies. But even with the concessions announced Tuesday, administration policies will add thousands of dollars to car prices and endanger the financial health of automakers and their suppliers, analysts said.Mr. Trump signed the executive orders aboard Air Force One as he flew to Michigan, home to America’s largest automakers, for a speech marking his 100 days in office.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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    White House-Amazon Spat Culminates in Trump Calling Bezos ‘Very Nice’

    The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, attacked the retail giant over a report that suggested Amazon would highlight tariff-related price increases. Amazon said it was “not going to happen.”President Trump’s 100th day in office started with what seemed to be a fresh and fast-escalating spat between the White House and Amazon.Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, came out swinging in her press briefing on Tuesday morning, accusing Amazon of being “hostile and political” after a report — disputed by the company — from Punchbowl News saying that the online retail giant would start displaying the exact cost of tariff-related price increases alongside all its products.Displaying the import fees would have made clear to American consumers that they were shouldering the costs of Mr. Trump’s tariff policies rather than China, as he and his top officials have often claimed would be the case.After the report was published, Mr. Trump spoke about it over the phone with Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder, according to three people familiar with the exchange. Amazon spokesmen hurriedly issued denials that the policy was going into effect, and by Tuesday afternoon Mr. Trump was back to praising Mr. Bezos.“Jeff Bezos is very nice,” Mr. Trump said to reporters as he embarked on a trip to Michigan for a rally commemorating the first 100 days of his second term. “He solved the problem very quickly. He did the right thing. Good guy.”This arc between Mr. Trump and Mr. Bezos that played out over just a few hours seemed telling. The Amazon mogul is among the billionaires who have gone to ever new lengths to get in good with this White House. Mr. Trump, in turn, has managed to woo such billionaires by promising he’d be better for business. And yet, at the first sign that Mr. Bezos might be prioritizing his businesses interests in a way that would harm Mr. Trump’s political fortunes, the White House didn’t hesitate to lash out publicly.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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    How Trump May Unintentionally Cut Carbon Emissions

    President Trump has expressed little interest in fighting climate change. One of his key cabinet officials has even sought to evaluate whether humanity benefits from a warming climate, in a bid to undermine environmental rules.Yet even as he works to accelerate oil and gas production, Mr. Trump’s economic approach may inadvertently reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as consumption slows in response to a global trade war.Any reprieve for the planet, however, would be brief. Over the longer term, tanking the economy with tit-for-tat tariffs is likely to impede progress, because of how much clean energy deployment depends on overseas supply chains and because voters are less likely to support climate policy when they’re financially stressed.Carbon emissions, largely a byproduct of going places and making things, have always been tethered to economic growth. Forecasters increasingly anticipate that Mr. Trump’s aggressive use of tariffs could tip the economy into recession as companies and consumers cut spending in the face of higher prices for imported goods.“If we’re talking about a traditional recession, people fly less, they buy less stuff, there’s less investment in capital goods,” said Alex Heil, a senior economist at the Conference Board, who focuses on energy and climate. “And just a slowdown in economic activity is likely to slow down carbon emissions.”That is what happened in the last two recessions. Global carbon emissions dipped slightly, before resuming their upward march. (Emissions in the United States continued to decline after 2008 as cheap natural gas displaced coal, and it’s possible that a similar peak is nearing for the rest of the world.)Carbon Emissions Slow When the Economy Takes a Hit

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    Global annual carbon emissions
    Source: Global Carbon BudgetBy The New York TimesWe 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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    New Data Provide a Pre-Tariff Snapshot of a Stable but Slowing Labor Market

    But the effects of the levies, which have created uncertainty for businesses, have not yet been fully felt.The labor market remained sound in March, with job openings declining but layoffs remaining near record lows, while rates of new hiring were slow but steady, according to data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Tuesday.The numbers from last month are a snapshot of the state of the U.S. economy and labor market before the start of the global trade volatility brought on by President Trump’s tariff campaign.“It reflects a labor market that ‘could have been,’ given the damage tariffs will do,” argued Guy Berger, the director of economic research at the Burning Glass Institute, which studies the labor market. “We have the foundations of a labor market stabilization,” he added, “but trade policy has other ideas.”The prevailing environment before April of subdued hiring and few firings was not an easy one for active job seekers, especially in certain sectors like tech and manufacturing. But the stability of the overall job market was undeniable — so much so that some labor economists started to worry that the conditions bordered on stagnant.Now, the economy is facing a radically different set of challenges.Consumer sentiment has plunged since January, when the import taxes were announced by the White House, as fears of both job loss and higher inflation have surged among households and top business leaders.The effects of the tariffs on shipping have not yet been fully felt. But experts in global freight logistics, such as Craig Fuller, the founder of FreightWaves, expect that to change in the coming days and weeks as companies face tariffs ranging from 10 percent to well over 120 percent on many Chinese goods.Federal job openings declined by 36,000 in March, a result of the Trump administration’s steep cutbacks to the federal civil service. And in the overall labor market, job openings fell by 288,000. Some financial analysts are focused on a broader, monthslong pre-tariff slowdown.“The main story is that job openings are down,” said Neil Dutta, the head of economics at the research firm Renaissance Macro. “We are at the point where opening declines push up unemployment.”The jobs report for April will help fill out some of the economic picture. Economists expect unemployment to have been largely unchanged and for moderate job growth to have continued. But forecasters are bracing for surprises because of the uncertainty surrounding the tariffs.The employment picture and consumer spending remain bright for now — a point that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has emphasized in his public remarks.But many analysts, including Daniel Altman, the chief economist at Instawork, a job search and recruitment site, are in wait-and-see mode.“I think the jobs report will be more revealing,” Mr. Altman said. More

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    Consumer outlook hits lowest since 2011 as tariff fears mount, Conference Board survey shows

    The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index fell to 86 on the month, down 7.9 points from its prior reading and below the Dow Jones estimate for 87.7.
    The board’s expectations index, which measures how respondents look at the next six months, tumbled to 54.4, a decline of 12.5 points and the lowest reading since October 2011.
    Also, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that employment postings in March fell to their lowest level since September 2024.

    Consumer attitudes about both the present and near future dimmed again in April, as tariffs dented sentiment and confidence in employment hit levels last seen around the global financial crisis.
    The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index fell to 86 on the month, down 7.9 points from its prior reading and below the Dow Jones estimate for 87.7. It was the lowest reading in nearly five years.

    However, the view of conditions further out deteriorated even more.
    The board’s expectations index, which measures how respondents look at the next six months, tumbled to 54.4, a decline of 12.5 points and the lowest reading since October 2011. Board officials said the reading is consistent with a recession.
    “The three expectation components—business conditions, employment prospects, and future income—all deteriorated sharply, reflecting pervasive pessimism about the future,” said Stephanie Guichard, the board’s senior economist for global indicator.
    Guichard added that the confidence surveys overall were at “levels not seen since the onset of the Covid pandemic.”
    Indeed, the level of respondents expecting employment to fall over the next six months hit 32.1%, “nearly as high as in April 2009, in the middle of the Great Recession,” Guichard added. That contraction lasted from December 2007 until June 2009. The level of respondents seeing jobs as “hard to get” rose to 16.6%, up half a percentage point from March, while those seeing jobs as “plentiful” fell to 31.7%, down from 33.6%.

    Future income prospects also turned negative for the first time in five years.
    The downbeat views extended to the stock market, with 48.5% expecting lower prices in the next 12 months, the worst reading since October 2011. Inflation expectations also surged, at 7% for the next year, the highest since November 2022.
    Driving the pessimism was fear over tariffs, which reached an all-time high for the survey. Recession expectations hit a two-year high as well.
    In related data Tuesday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that employment postings in March fell to their lowest level since September 2024. The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed 7.19 million positions, down from 7.48 million in February and below the Wall Street expectation of 7.5 million.
    Government postings fell by 59,000 amid President Donald Trump’s efforts to pare down the federal workforce. Transportation, warehousing and utilities also saw a drop of 59,000.
    The JOLTS survey showed hiring was little changed while layoffs fell by 222,000.

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