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The Labor Department said Wednesday that it will not be releasing a full jobs report for October because the 43-day federal government shutdown meant it couldn’t calculate the unemployment rate and some other key numbers. Instead, it will release some of the October jobs data most importantly the number of jobs that employers created last month along with the full November jobs report, now due a couple of weeks late on Dec. 16. The department’s “employment situation” report usually comes out the first Friday of the month. But the government shutdown disrupted data collection and delayed the release of the reports. For example, the September jobs report, now coming out Thursday, was originally due Oct. 3. The monthly jobs report consists of two parts: a survey of households that is used to determine the unemployment rate, among other things; and the “establishment” survey of companies, nonprofits and government agencies that is used to track job creation, wages and other measurements of labor market health. The Labor Department said Wednesday that the household survey for October could not be conducted because of the shutdown and could not be done retroactively. But it was able to collect the hiring numbers from employers, and those will come out with the full November report. Wednesday’s announcement means the September jobs numbers will likely get extra scrutiny Thursday. They are the last full measurement of hiring and unemployment that Federal Reserve policymakers will see before they meet Dec. 9-10 and decide whether to cut their benchmark interest rate for the third time this year. The jobs numbers have lately been contentious. After the July jobs report proved disappointing, President Donald Trump abruptly fired the official responsible for collecting the data, Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner Erika McEntarfer. McEntarfer herself was quick to say there was nothing suspicious about Wednesday’s announcement. No conspiracy here, folks, she posted on the social media site Bluesky. “BLS was entirely shutdown for six weeks. Payroll data from firms can be retroactively collected for October. The household survey cannot be conducted retrospectively. This is just a straightforward consequence of having all field staff furloughed for over a month.” ____ This story has been corrected to show that the September jobs report is coming out Thursday, not Friday. Paul Wiseman, AP economics writer AP Economics Writer Christopher Rugaber contributed to this report.
Category:
E-Commerce
Agentic artificial intelligence is coming, whether youre ready for it or not. A PwC survey published earlier this year found that 88% of U.S. companies are beefing up their agentic AI budgets, and a broad majority have adopted AI agents in some capacity. When it comes to using AI agents for shopping or in the commerce space, more than half of consumers say they already are, or will be doing so by the end of the year. But many people still arent quite sure how or when to use AI agents. They may not know where to find them, how to prompt them and, in some cases, if the agent they are interacting with is legit or potentially a disguised bad actor. Fetch, an AI firm founded in 2017 in the U.K., is trying to make the transition to using AI agents for everyday tasks a bit easier and smooth out some of those issues. On Wednesday, the company launched three new products: ASI:One, a new large language model (LLM) interface for interacting with agents; Fetch Business, a portal allowing brands and companies to claim and verify brand agents (similar to a social media-inspired verification system); and Agentverse, a directory and depository of more than 2 million AI agents. Perhaps the most interesting new product, from a laymans perspective, is ASI:One. It’s an interface in which users can interact with AI agents and prompt them to perform certain taskssuch as book a vacation with all flights and hotels, or buy me new shoes, which would prompt specific brand agents for airlines, hotels, and even shoe brands to assist the user. Humayun Sheikh, Fetchs founder and CEO, thinks that the interface will help people learn to utilize AI agents and navigate the agentic AI space in a way similar to how Google helped people learn to navigate the broader internet decades ago. “Google created discoverability and trust for websites. We’re creating the same foundation for agents, Sheik said in a statement provided to Fast Company. There are already more than 1,000 verified brand agents on the platform, including companies such as Costco, Alaska Airlines, Pepsi, and Adidas. That means that users can interact directly with those agentsin a way that they may interact with a human employeeto get information related to prices, product information, and more. The hope, as Sheikh puts it, is that Fetchs platform will help connect consumers directly with brands through agents, and help create a new ecosystem in which AI agents have more utility to the general public in a more personal and pragmatic way. Further, Fetch hopes the personal element of its platform will help get consumers more specific informationdiffering from broader LLM models, such as ChatGPT. Instead of just finding information, your personal AI coordinates with verified brand agents to get things done, Sheikh said. This isn’t searching for options separately and hoping they work together; its orchestration. Your personal AI understands how you make decisions, then works with brand agents that have real inventory, pricing, and booking capabilities. AI agents are quickly moving from an abstract concept to an everyday utility. Fetch is betting that clarity, trust, and verification will be the missing ingredients that help some consumers who have been holding back on adopting the technology to embrace it. If the company succeeds, the way we shop, book, plan, and interact with brands could feel less like surfing the web and more like delegating to a capable assistantone that actually follows through.
Category:
E-Commerce
President Trump nominated Stuart Levenbach as the next director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, choosing a person who has no banking or financial services experience to run a bureau that has been effectively inoperable since Trump was sworn into office. Levenbach is currently an associate director inside the Office of Management and Budget, handling issues related to natural resources, energy, science and water issues. Levenbach’s resume shows significant experience dealing with science and natural resources issues, acting as chief of staff of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration during Trump’s first term. The CFPB has been nonfunctional much of the year. Many of its employees have been ordered not to work, and the only major work the bureau is doing is unwinding the regulations and rules it put into place during President Trump’s first term and during the Biden administration. The bureau’s current acting director is Russell Vought, President Trump’s budget director and Levenbach’s boss. Under the Vacancies Act, Vought can only act as acting director for 210 days, but now that President Trump has nominated someone to the position, that clock has now been suspended until the Senate approves or denies Levenbach’s confirmation as director. The bureau was created after the 2008 financial crisis as part of the Dodd-Frank Act, a law passed to overhaul the financial system and require banks to hold more capital to avoid another financial crisis. The CFPB was created to be a independent advocate for consumers to help them avoid bad actors in the financial system. Ken Sweet, AP business writer
Category:
E-Commerce
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