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US job openings rise unexpectedly to 8.1 million in November, a sign the labor market is resilient

Business

US job openings rise unexpectedly to 8.1 million in November, a sign the labor market is resilient
Business

Business

US job openings rise unexpectedly to 8.1 million in November, a sign the labor market is resilient

2025-01-07 23:44 Last Updated At:23:51

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. job openings rose unexpectedly in November, showing companies are still looking for workers even as the labor market has cooled overall.

Openings rose to 8.1 million in November, the most since February and up from 7.8 million in October, the Labor Department reported Tuesday. They were down from 8.9 million a year earlier and a peak of 12.2 million in March 2022 as the economy was roaring back from COVID-19 lockdowns. But they still exceed pre-pandemic levels.

Economists had expected job openings to fall slightly in November.

Layoffs rose slightly in November, and the number of people quitting their jobs fell, suggesting that Americans are less confident in their ability to find better jobs elsewhere.

Openings were up in professional and business services, a broad category that includes managerial and technical workers, and in finance and insurance. They fell in the information industry, which includes publishers and telecommunications companies.

The American labor market has cooled from the red hot hiring of 2021-2023. Employers added 180,000 jobs a month in 2024 through November, not bad but down from 251,000 in 2023, 377,000 in 2022 and a record 604,000 in 2021.

When the Labor Department releases December hiring numbers on Friday, they're expected to show that companies, government agencies and nonprofit organizations added nearly 157,000 jobs last month and that the unemployment rate remained at a low 4.2%.

The numbers were volatile during the fall: In October, hurricanes and a strike at Boeing limited job growth to just 36,000. In November, with the strike over, payrolls bounced back, growing to 227,000.

The Federal Reserve closely monitors the labor market for clues about where inflation is headed. Fast hiring could push up wages and prices. Weakness might suggest the economy needs a jolt from lower interest rates.

Responding to inflation that hit four-decade highs two and a half years ago, the Fed raised its benchmark rate 11 times in 2022 and 2023. Inflation came down — from 9.1% in mid-2022 to 2.7% in November, allowing the Fed to start cutting rates. But progress on inflation has stalled in recent months, and year-over-year consumer price increases are stuck above the Fed’s 2% target.

At its December meeting, the Fed cut its benchmark interest rate for the third time in 2024. But the central bank’s policymakers signaled that they’re likely to be more cautious about future rate cuts: They projected just two in 2025, down from the four they had foreseen in September.

Economists also worry that President-elect Donald Trump's proposed policies — including taxes on foreign goods and the deportation of immigrants working in the U.S. illegally — will push prices higher.

“Despite more job openings, hiring is weakening, workers are even more reluctant to quit their jobs, and layoffs are low,'' said Robert Frick, economist at the Navy Federal Credit Union. ”It feels like a wait-and-see scenario as employers and employees alike wait for the next administration’s policies.”

FILE - A "help wanted" sign is seen at an Allstate insurance office in Elgin, Ill., March 19, 2022. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)

FILE - A "help wanted" sign is seen at an Allstate insurance office in Elgin, Ill., March 19, 2022. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)

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An Italian journalist is freed from detention in Iran and returns home

2025-01-08 23:35 Last Updated At:23:42

ROME (AP) — An Italian journalist detained in Iran for three weeks was freed Wednesday and returned home, after her fate had become intertwined with that of an Iranian engineer arrested in Italy and wanted by the United States.

A plane carrying Cecilia Sala, 29, landed at Rome’s Ciampino airport, where Premier Giorgia Meloni was on hand to welcome her alongside Sala’s family members. Sala’s companion, Daniele Raineri, posted a photo of a smiling Sala greeting Meloni in the airport.

Sala’s liberation marked a major diplomatic and political victory for Meloni, whose recent visit to President-elect Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago retreat greatly enhanced her stature internationally at a time when Italy was negotiating Sala’s release.

In announcing that Sala was flying home, Meloni’s office said the premier had personally informed Sala’s parents and credited the release to the government’s “intensive work on diplomatic and intelligence channels.”

Iranian media acknowledged the journalist’s release, citing only the foreign reports. Iranian officials offered no immediate comment.

Sala, a reporter for the Il Foglio daily, was detained in Tehran on Dec. 19, three days after she arrived on a journalist visa. She was accused of violating the laws of the Islamic Republic, the official IRNA news agency said.

Italian commentators had speculated that Iran detained and held Sala as a bargaining chip to ensure the release in Italy of Mohammad Abedini, who was arrested by Italian authorities at Milan’s Malpensa airport three days before, on Dec. 16, on a U.S. warrant.

The U.S. Justice Department has accused Abedini and another Iranian of supplying the drone technology to Iran that was used in a January 2024 attack on a U.S. outpost in Jordan that killed three American troops.

Abedini remains in detention in Italy but has asked a Milan court to grant him house arrest pending an extradition hearing.

Sala’s release was met with cheers in Italy, where her plight had dominated headlines, with lawmakers from across the political spectrum praising the outcome and the opposition Democratic leader Elly Schlein thanking the government specifically.

It came after Meloni made a surprise trip to Florida last weekend to meet Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

Meloni in a statement on X thanked “all those who helped make Cecilia’s return possible, allowing her to re-embrace her family and colleagues.”

Meloni’s visit to Trump had a strong impact on the premier’s international standing, which strengthened Italy’s hand in negotiations, Defense Minister Guido Crosetto said.

“Any time you can reinforce the credibility of a leader of a country at a particular moment, the stronger the country is,” he told Italy’s Sky Tg24.

Sala’s fate had become intertwined with that of Abedini. Each country’s foreign ministry summoned the other’s ambassador to demand the prisoner’s release and decent detention conditions. The diplomatic tangle was particularly complicated for Italy, which is a historic ally of Washington but maintains good relations with Tehran.

Members of Meloni’s cabinet took personal interest in the case given the geopolitical implications. Foreign Minister Antonio Tanaji and Crosetto hailed the diplomatic teamwork involved to secure Sala’s release.

But the release also posed a delicate political question for Italy given Abedini’s status. The United States has complained in the past when Italy has lost track of suspects in the Italian judicial system awaiting hearings for extradition to the U.S.

A hearing on his bid to be given house arrest is scheduled for Jan. 15.

Advocacy group Reporters Without Borders, which had flagged Sala’s detention as an attack on press freedom, cheered her release.

“Now the 25 journalists still held in Iranian prisons must also be released,” the group said in a social media post.

Since the 1979 U.S. Embassy crisis, which saw dozens of hostages released after 444 days in captivity, Iran has used prisoners with Western ties as bargaining chips in negotiations.

In September 2023, five Americans detained for years in Iran were freed in exchange for five Iranians in U.S. custody and for $6 billion in frozen Iranian assets to be released by South Korea.

Western journalists have been held in the past. Roxana Saberi, an American journalist, was detained by Iran in 2009 for around 100 days before being released.

Also detained by Iran was Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian, who was held for more than 540 days before being released in 2016 in a prisoner swap between Iran and the U.S.

Both cases involved Iran making false espionage accusations in closed-door hearings.

Elisabetta Vernoni, mother of Cecilia Sala an Italian journalist who was detained on Dec. 19 as she was reporting in Iran, leaves Palazzo Chigi after meeting with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, in Rome, Thursday Jan. 2, 2025. (Mauro Scrobogna/LaPresse via AP)

Elisabetta Vernoni, mother of Cecilia Sala an Italian journalist who was detained on Dec. 19 as she was reporting in Iran, leaves Palazzo Chigi after meeting with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, in Rome, Thursday Jan. 2, 2025. (Mauro Scrobogna/LaPresse via AP)

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