Delayed U.S. Jobs Data to Fill In Labor Market Blanks

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Luke Vargas (0:18)

Australian authorities say the men accused in Sunday's Bondi Beach shooting were motivated by Islamic State. Plus President Trump takes his legal campaign against media outlets across the pond and get ready for a jobs report with a twist.

SPEAKER_3 (0:34)

There's been a bit of a black hole in terms of updated official government numbers. So we're going to get some answers that will hopefully fill in the blanks.

Luke Vargas (0:43)

It's Tuesday, December 16th. I'm Luke Vargas for The Wall Street Journal. And here is the AM Edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today.

SPEAKER_4 (0:58)

It would appear that there is evidence that this was inspired by a terrorist organization by ISIS.

Luke Vargas (1:06)

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has shared new information from police investigating the shooters who attacked a Hanukkah event in Sydney over the weekend, where 15 people were killed and dozens injured. Police said they found two homemade Islamic state flags as well as improvised explosive devices in a car registered to a 24-year-old man accused alongside his 50-year-old father of carrying out Australia's worst mass shooting in 30 years. Journal Senior Reporter John Eman says authorities are also examining a trip by the accused gunman to the Philippines last month.

John Eman (1:41)

So there's a lot of interest in the part of authorities to understand what exactly happened on this trip and why they ended up going to the Philippines. The Australians haven't said very much, but Filipino authorities have confirmed that they did list Davao, which is this major city in the Southern Philippines, as a destination. Davao is on the island of Mindanao, which has hosted Islamic insurgencies in recent decades, some of which have been very violent and have interacted with regional terror cells and even global groups like the Islamic State. So, there are a lot of questions about what exactly the two men would have been doing in the Southern Philippines if they received training. That's something that authorities are actively looking into.

Luke Vargas (2:28)

Prime Minister Albanese said Australia is reaching out to international security partners to see if they know more about the suspects.

President Trump is suing the BBC for defamation over the British broadcaster's edit of his speech before the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot. At issue is a documentary aired by news program Panorama in the run-up to the 2024 US election that combined two sections of Trump's remarks and, according to him, omitted his statement calling on supporters to march peacefully to the Capitol. The suit, filed in a federal court in Florida, seeks $10 billion in damages. The BBC didn't immediately return a request for comment. Its chairman has issued an apology to the president and previously told staff there was no basis for a defamation case. The US military says it killed eight people in a further round of strikes on suspected drug-smuggling boats in the eastern Pacific. Southern Command said the vessels were in international waters, with the attacks targeting people it described as narco-terrorists. While the administration treats suspected smuggling boats as legal military targets, critics say the alleged criminals aren't in an armed conflict with the US., making strikes on them illegal and a possible war crime. Well, some of the fog hanging over the US labor market will lift slightly today with the release of two months of delayed jobs data at 8:30 a.m. Eastern. But it's not a complete picture. As for the first time in nearly 80 years, the October unemployment rate is missing. Nevertheless, Journal Economics reporter Chow Dang says the dual jobs report should help to clarify whether the labor market is patchy and cooling, as private indicators suggest.

SPEAKER_3 (4:18)

In recent months, the jobs market has cooled significantly. Companies aren't expanding their workforces because of rising inflation and tariff uncertainty. And then you have Trump's administration policies targeting immigrants. That's curbing the number of jobseekers. Economists generally describe the current environment as low fire, low hire, which basically means that companies aren't laying off workers in a huge, huge way, but they're also not willing to hire too many workers. And that's for several reasons. One of the reasons actually is executives believe that artificial intelligence may be able to handle more work. And that's leading to some announcements about white-collar layoffs.

Luke Vargas (5:01)

And for more coverage on today's jobs data, head to wsj.com.

In other markets news, Canada is giving the OK for mining companies Tech Resources and Anglo-American to merge. The new company, called AngloTech, would be one of the world's largest copper producers and could help to enhance Canada's processing of critical minerals. PayPal wants to form a bank. The digital payments company, which also owns Venmo, has applied to establish a Utah chartered industrial loan company, enabling it to offer business loans and savings accounts and reduce its reliance on third parties. The application comes as payments companies, crypto, and buy-now-pay-later platforms have made moves to operate more like banks and big financial institutions. And Argentina's central bank will soon allow the peso to trade within expanded bands, while still stopping short of letting it float freely like the US dollar and other currencies. The move comes in response to investors who've demanded President Javier Millet's government correct an overvalued currency. The central bank also said it planned to boost its foreign currency reserves. Both moves were welcomed by the IMF, which has bailed out Argentina with tens of billions of dollars. Coming up, it's not just you. Christmas ads really did start early this year. We'll look at the fight to attract inflation-weary shoppers after the break.