EV laggards Toyota, Mazda, Subaru and Nissan up their game with massive new investment in next-generation battery production, backed by government subsidies, as Japan races to catch up to global rivals.
Toyota will build one million EVs in 2026 instead of 1.5 million, a Japanese newspaper said. Other automakers have scaled back EV plans as sales slow.
Ford’s executive chair said he recently bought the car, which was built in the first hour of Mustang production and driven on the Indy 500 track by his uncle.
By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER
WASHINGTON (AP) — Hiring by America’s employers picked up a bit in August from July’s tepid pace, and the unemployment rate dipped for the first time since March in a sign that the job market may be cooling but remains sturdy.
Employers added a modest 142,000 jobs, up from a scant 89,000 in July, the Labor Department said Friday. The unemployment rate ticked down to 4.2% from 4.3%, which had been the highest level in nearly three years. Hiring in June and July, though, was revised sharply down by a combined 86,000. July’s job gain was the smallest since the pandemic.
“The labor market is weakening,” said Eugenio Aleman, chief economist at Raymond James Financial. “It is not falling apart, but it is weakening.”
The cooling jobs figures underscore why the Federal Reserve is set to cut its key interest rate when it next meets Sept. 17-18, with inflation falling steadily back to its target of 2%. Still, the August jobs data raises the question of how large a rate cut the Fed will announce. It could decide to reduce its benchmark rate by a typical quarter-point or by a larger-than-usual half-point. In the coming months, the policymakers will also decide how much and how fast to cut rates at their subsequent meetings.
By JILL COLVIN, ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON and JOSH BOAK, Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump suggested to business leaders Thursday that his plans to increase tariffs on foreign imports would solve seemingly unrelated challenges such as the rising cost of child care in the U.S.
The GOP presidential nominee promised to lead what he called a “national economic renaissance” by increasing tariffs, slashing regulations to boost energy production and drastically cutting government spending as well as corporate taxes for companies that produce in the U.S.
Trump was asked at his appearance before the Economic Club of New York about his plans to drive down child care costs to help more women join the workforce.
“Child care is child care, it’s something you have to have in this country. You have to have it,” he said. Then, he said his plans to tax imports from foreign nations at higher levels would “take care” of such problems.
“We’re going to be taking in trillions of dollars, and as much as child care is talked about as being expensive, it’s — relatively speaking — not very expensive, compared to the kind of numbers we’ll be taking in,” he said.