Good morning. The Bureau of Labor Statistics is set release preliminary benchmark revisions to net payroll growth for the 12 months ended in March 2025 Tuesday morning. The revised job figures are expected to show U.S. companies hired fewer workers than initially reported. 

Also, after President Trump fired the chief of the agency that gathers the country’s labor and price data, his advisers are preparing a report laying out alleged shortcomings of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ jobs data, according to people familiar with the matter.

Five weeks after President Trump fired the chief of the agency that gathers the country’s labor and price data, his advisers are preparing a report laying out alleged shortcomings of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ jobs data, according to people familiar with the matter.

The report takes a critical look at the BLS and lays out a historical overview of the agency’s jobs-data revisions, they said.

The administration is considering publishing the study, written by the Council of Economic Advisers, in the coming weeks, according to these people.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics will release revised job figures Tuesday morning that are expected to show U.S. companies hired fewer workers than initially reported.

The data—preliminary benchmark revisions to net payroll growth for the 12 months ended in March 2025—could cloud what was initially thought of as a strong labor market for much of the last year. (Barron’s)

Global investors will get some important news on employment and inflation in the U.S. this week, which likely will stoke concerns the world’s largest economy is facing its biggest stagflation risk since the early 1980s.

Stagflation, commonly defined as a period of slowing growth, quickening inflation and rising unemployment, largely has been absent from the U.S. economy since the late 1970s. That’s largely the result of long downward trajectories in both consumer price pressures and headline unemployment over the past four decades.

Even during the worst of the Covid pandemic, which ultimately lifted the consumer price index to as high as 9.1% and headline unemployment briefly past 14%, the economy continued to grow, and stagflation was avoided.

The numbers coming this week aren’t going to indicate anything that extreme, but they are likely to present an even tougher challenge for both investors—and the Federal Reserve—over the coming year. (Barron’s)

Falling lumber prices are sounding an alarm on Wall Street about potential problems on Main Street.

Wood markets have been whipsawed of late by trade uncertainty and a deteriorating housing market. Futures have dropped 24% since hitting a three-year high at the beginning of August and ended Monday at $526.50 per thousand board feet.

The price drop might have been greater—but two of North America’s biggest sawyers said last week that they would curtail output, slowing the decline.

Crashing wood prices are troubling because they have been a reliable leading indicator on the direction of the housing market as well as broader economic activity.

The perceived probability of finding a new job in the next three months dropped by 5.8 percentage points to 44.9%, the lowest score since the Fed started surveying households on the subject in 2013. The decline was broad-based across age, income and education groups, but was most pronounced among people with a high school education.

The average rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage fell to 6.29% Friday, the lowest level since October and down 16 basis points (0.16 percentage point) from a day earlier, according to Mortgage News Daily, a tracker of home-lending rates.

After doing some research, Gutwein decided to purchase two so-called tax credits from a firm called Nepsis. He paid $120,000, which Nepsis said would reduce his taxes by $200,000. The credits came from an Arkansas-based company called White River Energy Corp., according to the purchase agreement.

9 a.m.: Johnson Redbook Retail Sales Index
7 p.m.: U.N. General Assembly

8:30 a.m.: PPI
10 a.m.: Monthly Wholesale Trade

Expectations of faster U.S. interest-rate cuts are weighing on bond yields around the world, counteracting—for now—concerns about debt levels.

Yields on long-dated U.K. government bonds, or gilts, fell Monday, despite worries that the heavily indebted country could be heading for a fiscal crisis. Some economists see the U.K. as a “canary in the coal mine” for other debt-laden developed economies.

“The missing ingredient here is a trigger,” said Ruth Gregory, deputy chief U.K. economist at Capital Economics.

The yield on 30-year French government bonds, meanwhile, slipped even as Prime Minister François Bayrou prepared for a confidence vote over plans to rein in the country’s budget deficit.

The moves show that, despite the slow-burn worries about advanced economies’ finances, downward moves in U.S. bond yields are helping stave off a crisis. Moves in Treasurys are often echoed in other developed bond markets. — Ed Ballard

European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde will have to tread carefully at this week's monetary-policy meeting should she be asked about France's political paralysis, Berenberg's Holger Schmieding says in a note. "Lagarde will have to mince her words carefully this Thursday, neither suggesting that the ECB may eventually bail out an unrepentant fiscal sinner nor taking such a harsh line as to unsettle markets that still give France the benefit of the doubt," he says. While the ECB has no mandate to bail out a country, it could act to prevent contagion to other countries, and support any that returns to sustainable fiscal policies, Schmieding says. — Edward Frankl

• German industry performed better than initially thought, offering a very positive start to the third quarter, HSBC economist Stefan Schilbe says in a note. Industrial production rose 1.3% in July, with the sharp 1.9% plunge in June revised upward to just a 0.1% decline. (Dow Jones Newswires)
• French industrial production fell back modestly in July, retreating from its strong growth in the prior month, as uncertainty reigns over the country’s economic direction after the ousting of its government this week.

WSJ Pro Central Banking brings you central banking news, analysis and insights from WSJ’s global team of reporters and editors. This newsletter was compiled by markets reporter Vicky Ge Huang in New York. Send your tips, suggestions and feedback to vicky.huang@wsj.com.