| I’m Chris Anstey, an economics editor in Boston, and today we’re looking at Vince Golle and Amara Omeokwe’s reporting on the upcoming US jobs report. Send us feedback and tips to ecodaily@bloomberg.net or get in touch on X via @economics. And if you aren’t yet signed up to receive this newsletter, you can do so here. After an August jobs report that shook confidence about the US being able to avert a recession in coming quarters and a September release that not only restored such faith but also fed inflation concerns, investors and policymakers are bracing for October. Friday’s release, less than a week before the Federal Reserve decides on interest rates, in all likelihood will be a tough one to parse. Flooding and power disruptions from Hurricanes Helene and Milton that crippled many business operations risk an involuntary hit to the October employment count. In addition, the roughly 33,000 Boeing machinists who’ve been on strike will undercut manufacturing payrolls. Another 11,000 workers were on strike elsewhere as of Oct. 12 — a date that marks the survey week for the October report — the Bureau of Labor Statistics said last week. The median forecast for the payroll increase in Bloomberg’s survey stood at 110,000 as of Monday. That would be less than half the September jump and one of the smallest advances since the end of Covid-hit 2020. Bloomberg Economics is expecting the first negative payroll print in about four years. Without a clear indication of whether September’s job strength was something more than a blip, the case is strong for Chair Jerome Powell and his colleagues to keep all options open after Nov. 7, when they’re widely expected to lower the benchmark rate again, by 25 basis points this time. The other big reason of course will be the US election, which could generate a shift in fiscal policy, though the results of the Nov. 5 ballot may not yet be apparent by the time the Fed meets. Bloomberg Economics cautions that a weak October jobs reading wouldn’t just be down to transitory weather effects. The US team, led by Anna Wong, highlights that the manufacturing sector was already shedding jobs before the hurricanes hit, and sees the underlying pace of job growth as below what’s needed to stabilize the unemployment rate. But that may not be clear for many weeks, or months, to come. - How American tax breaks brought a Chinese solar energy giant to Ohio.
- The European Central Bank has made significant progress in bringing down inflation but can’t declare victory just yet, according to Vice President Luis de Guindos.
- Two euro-zone bellwether economies — Ireland and Belgium — expanded last quarter, good news ahead of tomorrow’s reading for the entire region.
- The new South African coalition government’s resolve to control debt and expedite reforms to fire up the lackluster economy will be put to the test when it unveils its first budget on Wednesday.
- The BIS is debating whether to shut down a pilot cross-border payments platform after Vladimir Putin identified the underlying technology as a tool to circumvent sanctions and potentially undermine the dollar’s dominance in global finance.
Fed policymakers have avoided publicly declaring victory in achieving a soft landing for the US economy. And perhaps that’s a good thing considering how the public feels. A survey of more than 5,000 consumers found only modest confidence in the Fed’s ability to manage inflation and unemployment effectively. The average level of trust was measured at 3.2 on a scale of 1 to 7 (with 7 equaling the highest trust), according to a new paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Economists Pei Kuang, Michael Weber and Shihan Xie also found some variation based on politics. Democrats had an average trust score of 3.4 for the Fed’s economic management and 3.8 for its concern for Americans’ economic well-being, while “Republicans report lower levels of trust, with average scores of 3.0 and 3.1 for these metrics, respectively,” they wrote. | 
