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Japan Today
7 days ago
- Business
- Japan Today
U.S. job openings rise in April
By PAUL WISEMAN U.S. job openings rose unexpectedly in April, showing that the labor market remains resilient in the face of uncertainty arising from President Donald Trump's trade wars. The Labor Department reported Tuesday that employers posted 7.4 million job vacancies in April, up from 7.2 million in March. Economists had expected openings to drift down to 7.1 million. But the number of Americans quitting their jobs— a sign of confidence in their prospects — fell, and layoffs ticked higher. And in another sign the job market has cooled from the hiring boom of 2021-2023, the Labor Department reported one job for every unemployed person. As recently as December 2022, there were two vacancies for every jobless American. Openings remain high by historical standards but have dropped sharply since peaking at 12.1 million in March 2022, when the economy was still roaring back COVID-19 lockdowns. The Labor Department's Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary showed little evidence of cuts to the federal workforce by billionaire Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency. Openings for federal jobs rose to 134,000 in April from 121,000 in March. And federal layoffs fell to 4,000 from 8,000 in March and 19,000 in February. Although it has decelerated, the American job market has remained resilient in the face of high interest rates engineered by the Federal Reserve in 2022 and 2023 to fight a resurgence of inflation. The economic outlook is uncertain, largely because of Trump's economic policies — huge taxes on imports, purges of federal workers and the deportation of immigrants working in the United States illegally. Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics, said the JOLTS report shows that companies are waiting to see how Trump's policies play out. 'Once companies are more certain that bad times are coming, they will start to shed workers,' he wrote in a commentary. 'However, the economy is still near full employment. We suspect companies are still hoarding workers until they are very, very sure about an economic downturn.″ The Labor Department is expected to report Friday that employers added 130,000 jobs last month, down from 177,000 in April. The unemployment rate is expected to stay at a low 4.2%, according to a survey of forecasters by the data firm FactSet. © Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Japan Today
21-05-2025
- Business
- Japan Today
Saying Trump exceeded his authority, 12 states ask court to strike down his sweeping tariffs
By PAUL WISEMAN Twelve states on Wednesday urged a federal court to strike down President Donald Trump's sweeping taxes on imports, saying he had exceeded his authority, left U.S. trade policy dependent on his whims and unleashed economic chaos. They are challenging tariffs that Trump imposed last month on most of the countries in the world in an effort to reverse America's massive and longstanding trade deficits. They are also targeting levies the president had earlier plastered on imports from Canada, China and Mexico to combat the illegal flow of immigrants and the synthetic opioids across the U.S. border. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of International Trade in New York on Wednesday heard arguments in the states' case. Last week, the trade court held a hearing in a similar challenge to Trump's tariffs brought by five small businesses. The court specifically deals with civil lawsuits involving international trade. Its decisions can be appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington and ultimately to the Supreme Court, where the legal challenges to Trump' tariffs are widely expected to end up. At least seven lawsuits are challenging the levies, the centerpiece of Trump's trade policy. Declaring that the United States' trade deficits add up to a national emergency, Trump invoked the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEPPA) and rolled out 10% tariffs on many countries on April 2 — "Liberation Day,'' he called it. He imposed stiffer 'reciprocal'' tariffs of up to 50% on countries that sell more goods to the United States than the U.S. sells them. (Trump later suspended those higher tariffs for 90 days.) The states argue that the emergency economic powers act does not authorize the use of tariffs. Even if it did, they say, the trade deficit does not meet the law's requirement that an emergency be triggered only by an 'unusual and extraordinary threat.'' The U.S. has run a trade deficit with the rest of the world for 49 consecutive years. 'This is not an unusual problem,'' Brian Marshall, an Oregon state attorney, told the judges Wednesday. The Trump administration argues that courts approved President Richard Nixon's emergency use of tariffs in a 1971 economic crisis. The Nixon administration successfully cited its authority under the 1917 Trading With Enemy Act, which preceded and supplied some of the language used in IEPPA. Brett Shumate, the assistant U.S. attorney general representing the administration, argued Wednesday that only Congress, and not the courts, can determine the 'political'' question of whether the president's rationale for declaring an emergency complies with the law. That argument led Judge Jane Restani to ask if courts were helpless to block the president's emergency declarations no matter how 'crazy'' they were. Trump's Liberation Day tariffs shook global financial markets and led many economists to downgrade the outlook for U.S. economic growth. So far, though, the tariffs appear to have had little impact on the world's largest economy. The 12 states pursuing the case are Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Oregon and Vermont. © Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
