US President Donald Trump has good reason to cheer that Labor Day shortened this week by a day. That’s because the remaining four brought increasingly worse data about the economy on his watch. From manufacturing to hiring, it’s been grim tidings. And Friday’s jobs report may be the biggest hit of all.

A few years ago unemployment hovered at half-century lows. Now the dreaded percentage is at its highest point since 2021 and the depths of the pandemic. This from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, an arm of the US Department of Labor where last month Trump fired the commissioner after a similarly sobering report. 

Now at 4.3%, unemployment is fanning concerns that the labor market, buffeted by both uncertainty and rising costs tied to Trump’s trade war, is nearing more significant deterioration. The figures add weight to the prior month’s jobs report, which showed a shockingly cooler hiring picture than previously thought. Job growth has moderated materially in recent months, openings have declined and wage gains have eased—all of which weigh on broader economic activity.

“The labor market is going from frozen to cracking,” Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, said in a note. “This is a white-collar and a blue-collar jobs recession.” —David E. Rovella

What You Need to Know Today

Usually this kind of bad news for American workers has a silver lining as far as Wall Street is concerned, because it makes a rate cut by the Federal Reserve more likely. More borrowing, more growth, rising shares and the rest of it.

Only not today it seems. With a rate reduction this month seen by most as in the bag (though not by all—see below), the jobs data drove stocks lower and bonds higher on concern that the central bank may have to rush to prevent further weakness. The sharp cooling sparked a flight to Treasuries, with two-year yields hovering near the lowest since 2022. The data also prompted a fast repricing in money markets, which now project almost three Fed cuts this year. Here’s your markets wrap.

Prime Minister Mark Carney rolled out billions of dollars in relief for Canadian businesses and workers battered by tariff wars with the country’s two largest trading partners. Carney unveiled the aid package Friday, hours after jobs data revealed that Canada’s unemployment rate—not unlike its trade foe to the south—jumped to a four-year high.

The plan targets companies hit by US and Chinese levies and its centerpieces are a C$5 billion ($3.6 billion) fund for businesses to adapt and a “Buy Canadian” federal procurement program. Speaking in front of workers at an aerospace facility in the Toronto area, Carney described Canada as facing a “time of crisis.”  The US is fundamentally reshaping all its trading relationships, he said.

“We’re moving from an age that lasted decades, an age when free trade was a motor of global economic growth to a new age—an age of economic nationalism and mercantilism,” Carney said Friday. “What’s going on is not a transition, it’s a rupture.”

Mark Carney Photographer: Andrew Kravchenko/Bloomberg

Goldman Sachs is making one of the biggest pushes into Middle Eastern private credit yet, betting that a growing need for non-bank lending in the region will open the door for a slew of deals for its clients. As part of the push, the bank is relocating one of the firm’s top private credit executives in its asset management arm from London to the Gulf region.

There’s growing demand for private credit in the Gulf. The need is especially acute in Saudi Arabia, where local banks are dealing with tightening liquidity as they help finance Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030, an economic development program that’s meant to reduce the kingdom’s reliance on oil.

Qualcomm Chief Executive Officer Cristiano Amon said Intel’s production technology isn’t currently good enough for the maker of mobile phone processors to use as a supplier. If US-based Intel is able to advance its manufacturing techniques to produce more efficient chips, then Qualcomm would consider becoming a customer, Amon said Friday in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s Bloomberg Tech. “Intel is not an option today,” Amon said.

Qualcomm is a designer of chips that, like most of the industry, relies on outsourced production. Intel, formerly the world’s largest chipmaker, is trying to turn around its fortunes by attracting outside customers in addition to manufacturing its own designs.

What You’ll Need to Know Tomorrow

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