Early hints of a slowing labor market are raising the stakes for today's release of the May jobs report, anticipated to show cooler hiring but a steady unemployment rate.

The European Central Bank on Thursday reduced its key interest rate to the lowest level since early 2023, and signaled it is nearing the end of its rate-cutting cycle as inflation abates.

China’s central bank injected around $139 billion into markets on Friday to counter a potential cash crunch amid trade tensions.

And India’s central bank delivered a larger-than-expected rate cut, as sound economic conditions at home and tariff risks abroad make a case for more policy easing.

Analysts polled by The Wall Street Journal are expecting the Labor Department’s report to show that the U.S. added a net 125,000 jobs in May, below the average pace of 155,000 over the preceding three months. They project the unemployment rate will stay constant at 4.2%, in part because less net immigration under the Trump administration is curtailing the size of the labor force.

• ECB Has Won Battle Against Inflation in the Eurozone, Villeroy Say

Two high-profile visits to China in recent months by senior Australian central bank officials have returned a verdict of confidence that the Middle Kingdom remains well-placed to ride out the upheavals emerging from Washington’s haphazard approach to trade policy.

Against the backdrop of a further tumble in forecasts for growth in the global economy, the governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, Michele Bullock, spent three days in China last week. Her visit came hot on the heels of a trip to China by Deputy Gov. Andrew Hauser in April. Read more.

BlackRock Chief Executive Larry Fink expects to feel the impact of tariffs later this year. The Federal Reserve's favored inflation gauge is now sitting just above the central bank's 2% target, but Fink doesn't expect that to last. "The biggest thing we're missing here in the United States is the inflationary backdrop. If the tariffs are instituted over the next five months, I think we're going to see very elevated inflation," Fink said Thursday at Forbes Iconoclast Summit in New York. The head of the world's largest investment firm says tariffs could soon cause a double whammy of higher inflation and slower growth.

The U.S. Treasury indicated it is going to get much stricter in analyzing the currency policies of its trading partners, though it stopped short of labeling any country as an exchange-rate manipulator. In its first assessment under the new White House regime, the Treasury on Thursday said it found no major U.S. trading partner manipulated its currency against the dollar in 2024. However, it added China stands out for its lack of transparency around its currency-intervention practices. The Treasury had raised similar concerns in its most recent prior report in November. (Barron's)

8:30 a.m.: U.S. Employment Report
1 p.m.: SEC Crypto Task Force roundtable

10 a.m.: Monthly Wholesale Trade
10 a.m.: Employment Trends Index

The probability a Federal Reserve rate cut in July has increased this week and weak U.S. nonfarm payrolls data could boost those bets, says MUFG's Derek Halpenny in a note. Money markets price in a 33% probability of a rate cut in July, LSEG data show. The data, which are due at 1230 GMT, would likely need to show the U.S. created under 100,000 jobs in May in order to boost pricing of a July rate reduction, the analyst says. The Fed would also need to see a higher unemployment rate and slower growth before signalling prospects of a July rate cut, he says. The consensus in The Wall Street Journal's poll is for the nonfarm payrolls to rise by 125,000 in May. — Emese Bartha

The U.S. housing market is staging a comeback, but the rebound is sharply divided, according to Realtor.com. The number of homes for sale in the U.S. topped 1 million for the first time since 2019, but only metros in the South or West have fully returned to prepandemic inventory levels. The Northeast and Midwest remain stuck in a supply squeeze. All 50 of the largest U.S. metros posted annual inventory gains in May 2025. Newly listed homes rose 7.2% year-over-year. But these increases haven't translated into a hot spring buying season. Homes took a median 51 days to sell, six days longer than last year, and price cuts rose for the fifth straight month. — Chris Wack

• A slump in demand for Canadian goods south of the border saw the country rack up a record trade deficit in April as the hit to the economy from President Trump’s tariff war grows.
• Conversations between business leaders and senior Bank of Canada policymakers show companies no longer fear “catastrophic outcomes” from the abrupt change in U.S. trade policy, a central bank official said.
• Ireland’s economy grew three times as rapidly as first estimated in the first quarter, driven by stockpiling of pharmaceuticals and other goods by U.S. businesses ahead of threatened tariffs.
• Industrial production in the eurozone’s two largest economies declined in the first month of President Trump’s global tariff blitz, with goods exports to the U.S. from Germany also falling sharply.
• Food prices fell in May as declines in corn and palm oil outweighed historically high prices for butter and bovine meat, data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations showed on Friday.

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.