Good morning. The labor market remains in focus ahead of Friday's U.S. employment report. Weekly unemployment claims are due out Thursday morning. The Labor Department’s monthly job openings and labor turnover survey showed openings and hiring declined in November, while ADP estimated private-sector hiring shifted back into gear in December. The eurozone’s November unemployment rate fell for the first time in seven months.

Also on tap are reports on U.S. productivity and trade.

Job openings and hiring declined in November, the Labor Department’s monthly job openings and labor turnover survey showed.

The economy had about 7.1 million open jobs in November, down from nearly 7.5 million in October, the JOLTS report showed Wednesday. The rate of job openings declined to 4.3%, from 4.5% a month earlier.

The eurozone’s unemployment rate in November unexpectedly declined for the first time in seven months, showing the labor market’s resilience despite last year’s uncertain economic environment.

Unemployment in the currency area crept down to 6.3% from 6.4% in October, where it had been since May, the European Union’s statistics agency Eurostat said Thursday. The rate was last lower in November 2024, when it equaled its 6.2% record low.

A Commerce Department agency laid out further plans to catch up on publishing economic data that was delayed by the fall’s government shutdown.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis said Wednesday it will publish a report covering October and November personal income, consumer spending and personal-consumption expenditures inflation data on Thursday, Jan. 22. The October numbers, originally due Nov. 26, are arriving nearly two months late.

President Trump and his advisers are planning a sweeping initiative to dominate the Venezuelan oil industry for years to come, and the president has told aides he believes his efforts could help lower oil prices to his favored level of $50 a barrel, according to people familiar with the matter.

A plan under consideration envisions the U.S. exerting some control over Venezuela’s state-run oil company Petróleos de Venezuela SA, or PdVSA, including acquiring and marketing the bulk of the company’s oil production, people familiar with the matter said.

If successful, the plan could effectively give the U.S. stewardship of most of the oil reserves in the Western Hemisphere, when factoring in deposits in the U.S. and other countries where U.S. companies control production. It could also fulfill two of the administrations’ primary goals: to box Russia and China out of Venezuela and to push energy prices lower for U.S. consumers.

Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had expected to see 48,000 new private-sector jobs in ADP’s figures, which are derived from the anonymized payrolls of the company’s corporate clients.

Inflation-weary consumers finally have something to cheer about: cheap oil.

But it comes at a cost. Oil-producing regions such as West Texas and North Dakota are suffering from layoffs and slowing growth, and some research suggests the drop in prices hurts the overall U.S. economy as much as it helps.

The unit, among the world’s largest investment firms with more than $7 trillion in client assets, has to vote shares in thousands of companies. This coming proxy season, it will start using an internal artificial-intelligence-powered platform it is calling Proxy IQ to assist on U.S. company votes, according to a memo seen by The Wall Street Journal.

“I am immediately taking steps to ban large institutional investors from buying more single-family homes, and I will be calling on Congress to codify it. People live in homes, not corporations,” Trump said in a social-media post Wednesday.

It isn’t clear if Trump can carry out such a ban without congressional approval, and big investors would still be able to hold on to their hundreds of thousands of existing homes. Yet if the president is able to enact a ban, it would likely ripple through a number of major housing markets across the country.

President Trump lashed out at U.S. weapons manufacturers Wednesday, announcing new restrictions on executive pay and stock buybacks while also threatening to cancel contracts with one of the country’s largest defense contractors.

An executive order posted Wednesday evening said companies “are not permitted in any way, shape, or form to pay dividends or buy back stock, until such time as they are able to produce a superior product, on time and on budget.”

8:30 a.m.: Preliminary Productivity and Costs
8:30 a.m.: U.S. International Trade in Goods & Services
8:30 a.m.: Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report - Initial Claims
10 a.m.: Monthly Wholesale Trade
12:45 p.m.: World Economic Situation and Prospects report launch

8:30 a.m.: New Residential Construction - Housing Starts and Building Permits
8:30 a.m.: U.S. Employment Report
10 a.m.: University of Michigan Survey of Consumers - preliminary

The U.S. private-credit market faces a higher default risk than the U.S. high-yield bond market, HSBC's Song Jin Lee and Tom Russell say in a note. Private credit refers to lending by private-credit funds, mostly to midsize companies. "Private credit has attracted weaker-rated companies that might otherwise have funded themselves in the public markets," they say. Companies in the U.S. high-yield bond market have better credit ratings than companies in the private-credit market, the analysts say. — Miriam Mukuru

U.K. businesses expect inflation to stay above the Bank of England 2% target over the medium term, the BOE Decision Maker Panel survey for December shows. Businesses' year-ahead expected inflation was 3.4% in the three months to December. The three-year-ahead expected inflation was 2.9% in the three months to December. "Firms' general CPI expectations suggest inflation persistence ahead," Pantheon Macroeconomics economist Rob Wood says in a note. — Miriam Mukuru

India's central bank is likely to keep rates steady for now, CareEdge Ratings writes in a note. Even though there is scope for another rate cut of 25 bps, the Reserve Bank of India will likely opt to preserve policy space in case the growth outlook worsens. Domestic fundamentals remain largely resilient, with the advance estimate of 7.4% for fiscal-year GDP growth reflecting moderating but resilient growth, it adds. However, ongoing global uncertainties and delays in a trade deal with the U.S. are expected to pose challenges for Indian goods exports, while manufacturing sector growth is expected to moderate notably due to lingering tariff-related pressures, it adds. — Kimberley Kao

• Confidence among businesses in the eurozone fell in December, tracking a slowdown in business activity at the end of 2025. The European Commission said Thursday that its Economic Sentiment Indicator, which measures attitudes of businesses across multiple sectors of the economy, inched down to 96.7 in the month, compared with 97.1 in November. The reading was in line with a consensus of analysts polled by The Wall Street Journal.
• German manufacturing orders jumped in November, with large-scale orders once again boosting the factory sector as tariff uncertainty subsides. Total orders were up 5.6% on month, following a 1.6% uptick in October, statistics agency Destatis said Thursday. Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal forecast a drop of 0.8% for November.
• Swiss inflation edged up in the final month of 2025, likely alleviating the pressure on the country’s central bank to cut rates below zero. Annual consumer-price inflation climbed to 0.1% in December from 0.0% in November, the first rise in five months.

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.