The U.S. economy added 171,000 jobs last month, more jobs than economists expected last month, in a report that may benefit President Barack Obama’s hopes for re-election.
The numbers, which have been closely followed in political circles, showed unemployment rising to 7.9 percent from 7.8 percent last month, hitting the average estimate of Read More
Hurricane Sandy has scuttled campaign plans for President Barack Obama and his Republican challenger Mitt Romney off the campaign trail. Perhaps as interesting with regards to next Tuesday’s presidential election, the Department of Labor may delay the release of its October jobs report, according to The Wall Street Journal:
The latest buzz out of Washington is the jobs report may not be released on Friday as originally scheduled due to the severity of Hurricane Sandy. A Labor Department official says a final decision hasn’t been made yet.
The hurricane is unlikely to affect the headline jobs report, according to a FAQ published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics—”In order for sever weather conditions to reduce the estimate of payroll employment, employees have to be off work without pay for the entire pay period”—but a delay would be tracked closely nonetheless. Read More
Former General Electric CEO Jack Welch emailed editors at Reuters and Fortune today to let them know that he won’t be contributing columns to either publication going forward.
While Mr. Welch’s email, published at Fortune, merely notes that he and wife Suzy, with whom Mr. Welch pens his columns, get better “traction” at The Wall Street Journal, Fortune senior editor Stephen Gandel notes that Neutron Jack’s resignation follows reporting by the two organizations on a certain somebody’s jobs report tweet on Friday. Read More
Jack Welch is basically the picture of a serious businessman—bald, steely-eyed, author of such titles as Winning and Jack: Straight from the Gut, owner of a rarely (but sometimes!) questioned reputation from his 20-year tenure as the chief executive officer at General Electric. All of which, presumably, is why the Internet took him so seriously this morning when he went on Twitter and said that the fix was in on the monthly jobs report. Read More
