US economy adds 216,000 jobs in December, far more than expected

Published

1 year ago

January 9, 2024

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US employers added 216,000 jobs in December, a surprisingly strong increase that fuels doubt as to when the Federal Reserve will begin cutting rates this year.

Last month’s payroll growth came in over November’s higher-than-expected 199,000 advance — and well ahead of the 170,000 economists expected, according to Refinitiv data.

The figure marks an average monthly payroll gain of 232,000 over the previous 12 months — a strong figure considering the economy was gripped with stubbornly high inflation and the highest borrowing rate Americans have seen in 22 years.

It reinforces the notion that the Feds not going to be in a rush to cut rates. former New York Fed President William Dudley told Bloomberg on Friday.

Dudley added that the economys doing pretty well and that May is more likely for the Fed to start cutting.

“Theyll need to see some signs that the economy is slowing,” Dudley said. “The wage trend for now is something that is likely concerning to policymakers.”

The Labor Department said employment continued to trend up in government, which saw the biggest gain of 52,000 in December — followed by health care, social assistance, and construction, the Labor Department said on Friday.

Only two industries lost jobs: transportation and warehousing, which dipped 23,000 last month.

The Labor Department’s data revised November’s payroll gains down by 26,000, while October’s figure was revised down by 45,000.

The Fed has lifted the benchmark federal funds rate to a 22-year high, between 5.25% and 5.5%, in hopes of tamping down inflation to its highly-coveted 2% target.

But at the minutes of its December meeting released Wednesday, Federal Reserve officials indicated that interest rates were at or near their peak when they voted to leave the rate unchanged last month but offered few clues as to when they might implement cuts.

Almost all participants indicated that a lower target range for the federal funds rate would be appropriate by the end of 2024, said the minutes, with a number of participants highlighting increased uncertainty about how long strict monetary policy would need to be maintained.

Data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday also noted that the unemployment rate stayed the same, at 3.7%, a tick lower than the 3.8% rate Refinitiv economists also predicted.

Average hourly earnings — a key measure of inflation — increased 15 cents, or 0.4% for the month, to $34.27. Over the past 12 months, hourly earnings are up 4.1%.

The wage advance comes just after New York’s minimum-wage pay bump took effect, lifting the minimum wage in New York City, Long Island, and Westchester County $1, from $15 to $16.

In the remainder of New York State — which is one of 22 states getting minimum wage hikes in the new year — the new minimum wage is $15, up from $14.20.

A separate report released by the Labor Department on Tuesday showed that job openings unexpectedly slowed to 8.7 million at the end of November, the lowest level since March 2021.

The figure marks a decrease from the downward revised 9.3 million openings reported the previous month, a signal of shaky confidence in the job market.

Though the dip came out of the blue for economists, it backs up data recently released by American employment website Indeed, which found that as of Dec. 29, 2023, open positions on the site declined more than 15% from a year earlier.

Following the release of the latest Consumer Price Index in November — which tracks changes in the costs of everyday goods and services and showed that US inflation rose 3.1% — Fed chair Jerome Powell said the historic tightening of monetary policy is likely over.

Powell dovetailed the report with projections from all 19 policymakers that showed near unanimity that borrowing costs would fall in 2024 — as many as three times.

While Fed policymakers did not want to take another rate hike off the table, it is no longer the central banks base case, he said in remarks made in a press conference following the end of the central banks final policy meeting of 2023.

December’s CPI report is set to be released on Jan. 11.

Central bankers will decide on whether or not to keep interest rates steady, between 5.25% and 5.5%, following their next two-day meeting, which will conclude on Jan. 31.

Sports

Source: USC flips Ducks’ Topui, No. 3 DT in 2026

Published

3 hours ago

April 1, 2025

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Source: USC flips Ducks' Topui, No. 3 DT in 2026

Eli LedermanApr 1, 2025, 06:09 PM ET
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USC secured the commitment of former Oregon defensive tackle pledge Tomuhini Topui on Tuesday, a source told ESPN, handing the Trojans their latest recruiting victory in the 2026 cycle over the Big Ten rival Ducks.

Topui, ESPN’s No. 3 defensive tackle and No. 72 overall recruit in the 2026 class, spent five and half months committed to Oregon before pulling his pledge from the program on March 27. Topui attended USC’s initial spring camp practice that afternoon, and seven days later the 6-foot-4, 295-pound defender gave the Trojans his pledge to become the sixth ESPN 300 defender in the program’s 2026 class.

Topui’s commitment gives USC its 10th ESPN 300 pledge this cycle — more than any other program nationally — and pulls a fourth top-100 recruit into the impressive defensive class the Trojans are building this spring. Alongside Topui, USC’s defensive class includes in-state cornerbacks R.J. Sermons (No. 26 in ESPN Junior 300) and Brandon Lockhart (No. 77); four-star outside linebacker Xavier Griffin (No. 27) out of Gainesville, Georgia; and two more defensive line pledges between Jaimeon Winfield (No. 143) and Simote Katoanga (No. 174).

The Trojans are working to reestablish their local recruiting presence in the 2026 class under newly hired general manager Chad Bowden. Topui not only gives the Trojans their 11th in-state commit in the cycle, but his pledge represents a potentially important step toward revamping the program’s pipeline to perennial local powerhouse Mater Dei High School, too.

Topui will enter his senior season this fall at Mater Dei, the program that has produced a long line of USC stars including Matt Leinart, Matt Barkley and Amon-Ra St. Brown. However, if Topui ultimately signs with the program later this year, he’ll mark the Trojans’ first Mater Dei signee since the 2022 cycle, when USC pulled three top-300 prospects — Domani Jackson, Raleek Brown and C.J. Williams — from the high school program based in Santa Ana, California.

Topui’s flip to the Trojans also adds another layer to a recruiting rivalry rekindling between USC and Oregon in the 2026 cycle.

Tuesday’s commitment comes less than two months after coach Lincoln Riley and the Trojans flipped four-star Oregon quarterback pledge Jonas Williams, ESPN’s No. 2 dual-threat quarterback in 2026. USC is expected to continue targeting several Ducks commits this spring, including four-star offensive tackle Kodi Greene, another top prospect out of Mater Dei.

Environment

SunZia Wind’s massive 2.4 GW project hits a big milestone

Published

4 hours ago

April 1, 2025

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SunZia Wind’s massive 2.4 GW project hits a big milestone

GE Vernova has produced over half the turbines needed for SunZia Wind, which will be the largest wind farm in the Western Hemisphere when it comes online in 2026.

GE Vernova has manufactured enough turbines at its Pensacola, Florida, factory to supply over 1.2 gigawatts (GW) of the turbines needed for the $5 billion, 2.4 GW SunZia Wind, a project milestone. The wind farm will be sited in Lincoln, Torrance, and San Miguel counties in New Mexico.

At a ribbon-cutting event for Pensacola’s new customer experience center, GE Vernova CEO Scott Strazik noted that since 2023, the company has invested around $70 million in the Pensacola factory.

The Pensacola investments are part of the announcement GE Vernova made in January that it will invest nearly $600 million in its US factories and facilities over the next two years to help meet the surging electricity demands globally. GE Vernova says it’s expecting its investments to create more than 1,500 new US jobs.

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Vic Abate, CEO of GE Vernova Wind, said, “Our dedicated employees in Pensacola are working to address increasing energy demands for the US. The workhorse turbines manufactured at this world-class factory are engineered for reliability and scalability, ensuring our customers can meet growing energy demand.”

SunZia Wind and Transmission will create US history’s largest clean energy infrastructure project.

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Environment

Stablecoin issuer Circle files for IPO as public markets open to crypto

Published

4 hours ago

April 1, 2025

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USDC stablecoin issuer Circle files for IPO as public markets open to crypto

Jeremy Allaire, Co-Founder and CEO, Circle

David A. Grogan | CNBC

Circle, the company behind the USDC stablecoin, has filed for an initial public offering and plans to list on the New York Stock Exchange.

The prospectus, filed with the SEC on Tuesday, lays the groundwork for Circle’s long-anticipated entry into the public markets.

JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup are serving as lead underwriters, and the company is reportedly aiming for a valuation of up to $5 billion. It will trade under ticker symbol CRCL.

It marks Circle’s second attempt at going public. A prior merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) collapsed in late 2022 amid regulatory challenges. Since then, Circle has made strategic moves to position itself closer to the heart of global finance, including the announcement last year that it would relocate its headquarters from Boston to One World Trade Center in New York.

Circle reported $1.68 billion in revenue and reserve income in 2024, up from $1.45 billion in 2023 and $772 million in 2022. The company reported net income last year of about $156 million., down from $268 million a year earlier.

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A successful IPO would make Circle one of the most prominent pure-play crypto companies to list on a U.S. exchange. Coinbase went public through a direct listing in 2021 and has a market cap of about $44 billion.

Circle will be trying to hit the public markets at a volatile moment for tech stocks, with the Nasdaq having just wrapped up its steepest quarterly drop since 2022. The tech IPO market has been mostly dry for over three years, though there are signs of life. Online lender Klarna, digital health company Hinge Health and ticketing marketplace StubHub have all filed their prospectuses recently. Late last week, artificial intelligence infrastructure provider CoreWeave held the biggest IPO for a U.S. venture-backed tech company since 2021. But the company scaled back the offering and the stock had a disappointing first two days of trading before rebounding on Tuesday.

Circle is best known as the issuer of USD Coin (USDC), the world’s second-largest stablecoin by market capitalization.

Pegged one-to-one to the U.S. dollar and backed by cash and short-term Treasury securities, USDC has roughly $60 billion in circulation and makes up about 26% of the total market cap for stablecoins, behind Tether‘s 67% dominance. Its market cap has grown 36% this year, however, compared with Tether’s 5% growth.

The company’s push into public markets reflects a broader moment for the crypto industry, which is enjoying political favor under a more crypto-friendly U.S. administration. The stablecoin sector specifically has been ramping up as the industry gains confidence that the crypto market will get its first piece of U.S. legislation passed and implemented this year, focusing on stablecoins. President Donald Trump has said he hopes lawmakers will send stablecoin legislation to his desk before Congress’s August recess.

Stablecoins’ growth could have investment implications for crypto exchanges like Robinhood and Coinbase as they become a bigger part of crypto trading and cross-border transfers. Coinbase also has an agreement with Circle to share 50% of the revenue of its USDC stablecoin, and Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said on the company’s most recent earnings call that it has a “stretch goal to make USDC the number 1 stablecoin.”

The stablecoin market has grown about 11% so far this year and about 47% in the past year, and has become a “systemically important” part of the crypto market, according to Bernstein. Historically, digital assets in this sector have been used for trading and as collateral in decentralized finance (DeFi), and crypto investors watch them closely for evidence of demand, liquidity and activity in the market.

WATCH: Circle CEO on launching first stablecoin in Japan