[09/09/15]  U.S. job openings surged to a record high in July and employers appeared to have trouble filling openings, the latest signal of an increasingly tight labor market that could push the Federal Reserve closer to raising interest rates.

The monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS, is one of the job market metrics on Fed Chair Janet Yellen's so-called dashboard. It was published ahead of the U.S. central bank's Sept. 16-17 policy meeting.

Despite the tightening labor market and a strong rebound in economic growth, the probability of a rate hike at...

[09/01/15]  A key report Tuesday dampened hopes that U.S. manufacturing will serve as a growth engine in the second half of the year as a strong dollar and low oil prices continue to hamper production. Instead, manufacturers are bracing for more troubles in the fourth quarter amid China’s economic weakness and global market turmoil. “When there’s doubt among consumers and investors, it means (businesses) are not going out and doing projects,” says Gregory Jenkins, owner of Flinchbaugh, a 30-employee steel parts maker in Manchester, Pa. The Institute for Supply Management said its index of manufacturing activity fell to a two-year low in August, slipping to 51.1% from 52.7% the...

[08/12/15]  The United States government ran a much higher budget deficit in July than a year ago, but it is still on track for the lowest full-year deficit in eight years.

The Treasury Department said Wednesday that the July deficit totaled $149.2 billion, compared with a deficit of $94.6 billion a year earlier. The deterioration stemmed mainly from the fact that Aug. 1 fell on a Saturday. As a result, the government paid out $42 billion in August benefits in late July instead.

Through the first 10 months of this budget year, the deficit stood...

[08/11/15]  American workers’ productivity rebounded in the second quarter, but a weak underlying trend suggested that inflation could pick up more quickly than economists have anticipated.

Nonfarm productivity increased at a 1.3 percent annual rate in the April-to-June period, the Labor Department said on Tuesday. But productivity, which measures hourly output per worker, rose only 0.3 percent from a year ago.

In line with annual revisions to gross domestic product, first-quarter productivity was revised to show a 1.1 percent rate of decline instead of the previously reported 3.1 percent pace of decline.

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[08/07/15]  The American economy delivered pretty much what was expected last month in terms of hiring, giving the Federal Reserve one more piece of evidence that conditions are strong enough to support an increase in the interest rate.

The pace of employment growth was steady, if not spectacular; the economy added 215,000 jobs in July. While not as robust as the gains recorded in May and June, Friday’s Labor Department report came in within 10,000 jobs of what forecasters had predicted, a notable feat of consistency in an economy that employs nearly 150 million people.

The unemployment...