Eurozone industrial production declined for the second consecutive month in July, even as some manufacturers report growing optimism about demand. The decline was smaller than economists expected.
Output fell 0.1% in July, matching the 0.1% decline in June, according to Eurostat; economists polled by The Wall Street Journal had forecast a steeper drop of 0.4%.
Germany, the eurozone's largest economy, saw the sharpest decline, with production falling 1.5% in July; France fell 0.4%.
A temporary plant shutdown drove a significant drop in German auto production, which is expected to rebound in August, according to Capital Economics economist Megan Fisher.
The latest industrial production figures are hardly disastrous, but they do underline a picture of lost momentum."
Eurozone inflation accelerated to 3.3% in August, its highest level in nearly three years, and Brent crude moved back above $100 a barrel, adding pressure to production costs.
Domestic producer prices for energy rose 5.6% in July, with further increases likely since then.
Read more via The Wall Street Journal
The OECD raised its 2026 global growth forecast but cautioned that a prolonged Middle East conflict and persistently high energy prices could significantly weaken the outlook next year.
Global output is now expected to grow 2.9% in 2026, up from the 2.8% forecast in June, with consumer-price inflation across G20 economies projected at 4.1%.
The AI-driven investment boom has been a key driver of growth, particularly benefiting countries that manufacture semiconductors and electronics for data centers.
The divergence between war-affected and AI-benefiting economies is stark: Saudi Arabia's economy is now expected to shrink 1.8% this year, while South Korea's is forecast to expand 3.7%.
U.S. growth is now projected at 2.2% for 2026 and 2.1% for 2027, revised up from earlier forecasts of 2% and 1.8%.
In a downside scenario combining high oil prices, El Nino-driven food price increases, and falling equity values, global growth could slow to just 2.3% next year.
Local 1199 of the Service Employees International Union has petitioned the National Labor Relations Board to hold an election that could add nearly 190,000 home caregivers to its ranks, in what union leaders are calling the largest union vote in the U.S. since 1940.
The campaign targets personal assistants enrolled in New York's Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program, which allows vulnerable New Yorkers to hire friends or relatives as caregivers, paid through Medicaid.
Nearly 70,000 caregivers have signed union cards; if a majority vote to join, Local 1199's membership would grow by roughly 40%.
Caregivers in New York City earn at least $20.65 an hour, with base pay elsewhere in the state ranging from $18.65 to $20.05.
The program now serves more than 200,000 New Yorkers at a cost of about $11 billion a year, up from roughly 12,000 participants a decade ago.
The consolidation of program administration under a single company, Public Partnerships, made a unified organizing campaign possible, replacing a prior system of roughly 700 intermediary firms.
It's historic because of the sheer volume of workers, caregivers, eligible to vote in this union election. It hasn't happened in American history, not since General Motors."
Read more via The New York Times
A new survey of homebuilders finds that ramped-up immigration enforcement is creating significant labor shortages across the industry, with builders in multiple states reporting impacts on their ability to start and complete construction projects.
Builders in Houston, Richmond, and Jacksonville cited ICE enforcement as a direct cause of labor shortages, higher labor costs, and longer construction cycle times in unprompted survey responses.
The survey was conducted by John Burns Research and Consulting; questions focused on construction cycle times, and comments about ICE and immigration were unsolicited, according to the firm's research director.
ICE arrested 50,925 people in August, the highest monthly total on record, following three consecutive months of record arrests.
Immigrants make up more than 26% of the overall construction workforce, and a far higher share in specific trades: 57% of drywall workers and 53% of roofers, according to a National Association of Home Builders analysis of 2024 Census Bureau data.
Building material costs are up a median 6.7% from last year, compounding the labor strain, according to a separate NAHB survey.
Read more via Axios
A new study drawing on three decades of data finds that infectious disease outbreaks are a significant and underappreciated driver of health worker attrition, with the heaviest losses falling on the countries already most short-staffed.
Researchers estimated that epidemics account for the loss of roughly 17,549 health workers globally each year, equivalent to about 2.6 per 10,000 health workers.
Low- and lower-middle-income countries bear a disproportionate share of those losses; Niger had the highest rate relative to workforce size at 57 losses per 10,000, followed by Somalia and Ethiopia.
India has the greatest estimated losses in absolute numbers, with approximately 7,900 health workers lost annually due to epidemic-related attrition.
Nurses and midwives account for the largest share of losses at roughly 6,125 per year, followed by aides and emergency workers (3,162) and doctors (1,478).
The study, published in PLOS Medicine, drew on data from 194 countries between 1990 and 2019 and found that workers not directly treating infectious disease patients were also affected, likely due to redeployment and disruption of routine services.
Read more via Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance
New York City announced a $131.5 million settlement with DoorDash after the company underpaid or failed to pay tens of thousands of delivery workers, in what the mayor called the largest settlement food delivery workers have ever secured in a U.S. city.
DoorDash will pay $115 million in worker relief and about $16 million in civil penalties, with the bulk of the relief, roughly $83 million, covering time workers spent logged into the app between deliveries.
The median payment to affected workers is around $48, though about 700 workers are owed more than $10,000 each and more than 27,000 are owed more than $1,000.
The settlement includes a three-year monitoring program requiring DoorDash to submit detailed pay data for auditing, with oversight supported by an academic research group and a labor rights organization.
DoorDash attributed many errors to technical bugs and complex delivery situations, and said it has since fixed the issues; the company added, “We screwed up.”
Delivery workers in New York are paid $22.13 per hour for time between pickup and delivery, but pay varies based on performance bonuses, making compliance verification difficult.
China: Chinese automakers continued to gain ground on European rivals in August, with BYD registrations more than doubling year-over-year to 26,007 units across Europe and Leapmotor tripling to 7,630, while Volkswagen sales fell 3.6% and Renault dropped 4.4%. The momentum gap continues to widen even as European brands outsell Chinese automakers in absolute numbers. (Bloomberg)
France: Consumer confidence remains well below its long-term average as diesel prices hit record highs and economic growth stalls. Business sentiment is similarly split, with strength in manufacturing and data centers contrasting with weakness in retail and construction; Bloomberg Economics projects third-quarter growth at around 0.2%. (Bloomberg)
Germany: Thousands of auto workers rallied at plants across the country last Monday, organized by union IG Metall, protesting mass job cuts at Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Bosch. Volkswagen recently approved a restructuring that could bring total job losses to 100,000; BMW reached a cost-cutting agreement affecting up to 8,000 German workers; and Bosch plans to eliminate 13,000 positions on top of 9,000 previously announced. (The Wall Street Journal)
United Kingdom: The unemployment rate held at 4.9% in the three months through July, near a five-year high, as payrolled employment continued to fall in retail and hospitality and vacancies remained at their lowest level in more than a decade outside the pandemic period. Annual wage growth, excluding bonuses, came in at 3.5%, consistent with the Bank of England's inflation target, with a rate decision expected Thursday. (The Wall Street Journal)
