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This week brings a full slate of economic indicators and Federal Reserve chatter, including data on housing, layoffs, consumer spending, consumer confidence, factory activity and a fireside chat with Fed Chair Jerome Powell. We'll bring you the latest every morning. —Jeff Sparshott
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Hot Healthcare Hiring Bolsters Cooling U.S. Labor Market
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A healthcare hiring boom is helping offset weaker job growth in other areas of the softening U.S. economy, boosting its chances of skirting a recession. The industry could serve as a strong job generator for years to come as an aging population and Covid-19 fuel widespread worker shortages and greater needs for healthcare services, Gwynn Guilford and Gabriel T. Rubin write.
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Healthcare providers—including hospitals, clinics, pharmacies and doctors’ offices—accounted for 30% of U.S. job gains in the six months through October, though less than 11% of the country’s total employment, Labor Department figures show. Job growth has accelerated this year in healthcare while slowing in other fields as consumer spending weakens, home sales slump and other economic activity ebbs.
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European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde appears at a European Parliament committee hearing at 9 a.m. ET.
U.S. new-home sales are expected to fall to an annual pace of 725,000 in October from 759,000 one month earlier. (10 a.m. ET)
The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas's manufacturing survey is expected to rise to minus 17 in November from minus 19.2 one month earlier. (10:30 a.m. ET)
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The WSJ’s Evan Gershkovich is being wrongfully detained in Russia after he was arrested while on a reporting trip and accused of espionage—a charge the Journal and the U.S. government vehemently deny. Follow the latest coverage, sign up for an email alert, and learn how you can use social media to support Evan.
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The Latest on the Economy
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Why Is Everyone So Unhappy at Work Right Now?
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Americans, by many measures, are unhappier at work than they have been in years. Despite wage increases, more paid time off and greater control over where they work, the number of U.S. workers who say they are angry, stressed and disengaged is climbing, according to Gallup’s 2023 workplace report. A BambooHR analysis shows job-satisfaction scores have fallen to their lowest point since early 2020. WSJ's Vanessa Fuhrmans and Lindsay Ellis talk to workers around the country to find the sources of discontent, from inflation that has dented recent pay gains to return-to-office mandates to a cooling job market. The disconnect with workers has managers frustrated, and no quick fix seems to be at hand.
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American Borrowers Are Getting Closer to Maxing Out
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A happy holiday shopping season might not end up being an especially cheery time for lenders. Credit-card use is growing, but so are delinquency rates. Rising delinquencies and net charge-offs show that some Americans’ spending habits might not be sustainable, Telis Demos writes.
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Black Friday Spending Was Strong. How People Pay for Gifts Is Upending Retailers. (Read)
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Retailers Have Cleaned Up Their Inventories for the Holidays (Read)
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The New Economics of Audio Books (Read)
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The Biggest Delivery Business in the U.S. Is No Longer UPS or FedEx
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Amazon.com has grabbed the crown of biggest delivery business in the U.S. The Seattle e-commerce giant a decade ago was a major customer for UPS and FedEx, and some executives from the incumbents and analysts mocked the notion that it could someday supplant them. Amazon’s outsize growth combined with strategy shifts at FedEx and UPS have changed the balance, Dana Mattioli and Esther Fung report.
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Owners Keep Zombie Malls Alive Even When Towns Want to Pull the Plug
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There are hundreds of malls throughout the U.S. that are more dead than alive. As their values fall below the balances of their outstanding debt, owners usually stop paying the mortgages and look to either renegotiate with their lenders or hand back the keys. That’s when Namdar Realty Group and Mason Asset Management like to swoop in. WSJ's Kate King looks at how the New York-based real-estate partners make money by buying malls cheap and keeping them going, even as town officials beg them to pull the plug.
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Investors See Interest-Rate Cuts Coming Soon, Recession or Not
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Wall Street is gearing up for rate cuts. Twenty months after the Federal Reserve began a historic campaign against inflation, investors now believe there is a much greater chance that the central bank will cut rates in just four months than raise them again in the foreseeable future. WSJ's Sam Goldfarb looks at recent data and explains why expectations have shifted.
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🎧 Take On the Week: What Third-Quarter Earnings Tell Us About What’s Next for Markets (Listen)
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Investors Are Hungry for Risk—and Holding Record Cash Sums (Read)
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Who Needs a Record Label? VC-Like Investments Power New Music Artists (Read)
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Now for Some Good News About Climate
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There is no shortage of bad green-energy news. Automakers are fretting about electric-vehicle growth, higher interest rates are smashing financial plans, permitting for big projects still takes forever and offshore wind is a mess. WSJ's Ed Ballard finds a ray of sunshine: Driven by falling costs and better technology, growth in renewables has consistently exceeded expectations. The explosion of clean energy offers hope for cutting fossil-fuel use.
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Natural-Gas Pipelines Are Old. Will Regulators Let Utilities Invest in Them? (Read)
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Why Americans Can’t Buy Cheap Chinese Electric Vehicles
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Chinese automakers are winning over millions of consumers around the world with affordable electric vehicles. They are conspicuously absent from one big market: the U.S. Washington has effectively built a fortress to keep out Chinese EVs. But some U.S. officials say even the significant U.S. trade barriers might not be enough, going forward, to keep them out of American markets and protect domestic manufacturers, Yuka Hayashi writes.
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Tesla vs. Toyota Is the New Hot Battle in Cars (Read)
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Real Time Economics comes to you from WSJ reporters and editors around the world. Today's issue was curated and edited by Jeff Sparshott (@jeffsparshott) and Greg Ip (@greg_ip) in Washington, D.C., and editors in London.
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How are we doing? Please send us any questions, comments or suggestions by replying to this email. Thank you.
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