WSJ What’s News - Delayed U.S. Jobs Data to Fill In Labor Market Blanks

Episode Date: December 16, 2025

A.M. Edition for Dec. 16. Investors will get a closer look at the U.S. employment picture with the release of two months’ worth of data that was delayed by the government shutdown. Plus, Australia��s prime minister says the shooters who attacked a Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach appear to have been inspired by Islamic State. And WSJ advertising editor Suzanne Vrenica says concern about tariffs and consumer spending led to an earlier start to the holiday ads season, otherwise known as “Christmas creep.” Luke Vargas hosts. Sign up for the WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Published by Capital Client Group, Inc. Australian authorities say the men accused in Sunday's Bondi Beach shooting were motivated by Islamic State. Plus, President Trump takes his legal campaign against media outlets across the pond and get ready for a jobs report with a twist. There's been a bit of a black hole in terms of updated official government numbers. So we're going to get some answers that we'll hopefully fill in the blanks. It's Tuesday, December 16th. I'm Luke Vargas for the Wall Street Journal, and here is the AM edition of What's News,

the top headlines and business stories moving your world today. It would appear that there is evidence that this was inspired by a terrorist organization by ISIS. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has shared new information from police investigating the shooters who attacked a Hanukah event in Sydney over the weekend where 15 people were killed and dozens injured. Police said they found two homemade Islamic State flags, as well as improvised explosive devices in a car registered to a 24-year-old man, accused alongside his 50-year-old father of carrying out Australia's worst mass shooting in 30 years. Journal's senior reporter John Emont says authorities are also examining a trip by the accused gunman to the Philippines last month.

So there's a lot of interest on the part of authorities to understand what exactly happened on this trip and why they ended up going to the Philippines. The Australians haven't said very much, but Filipino authorities have confirmed that they did list DeVal, which is a major city in the southern Philippines, as a destination. DeVau is on the island of Mindanao, which has hosted Islamic insurgencies in recent decades, some of which have been very violent. and have interacted with regional terror cells and even global groups like the Islamic State. So there are a lot of questions about what exactly the two men would have been doing in the southern Philippines if they receive training. That's something that authorities are actively looking to. Prime Minister Albanese said Australia is reaching out to international security partners to see if they know more about the suspects. President Trump is suing the BBC for defamation over the British broadcaster's edit of his speech before the January 6th, 2021 Capitol Riot.

At issue is a documentary aired by news program Panorama in the run-up to the 2024 U.S. election that combined two sections of Trump's remarks, and according to him, omitted his statement calling on supporters to march peacefully to the Capitol. The suit filed in a federal court. in Florida seeks $10 billion in damages. The BBC didn't immediately return a request for comment. Its chairman has issued an apology to the president and previously told staff there was no basis for a defamation case. The U.S. military says it killed eight people in a further round of strikes on suspected drug-smuggling boats in the eastern Pacific. Southern Command said the vessels were in international waters, with the attacks targeting people it described as narco-terrorists. While the administration treats suspected smuggling boats as legal military targets,

critics say the alleged criminals aren't in an armed conflict with the U.S., making strikes on them illegal and a possible war crime. Well, some of the fog hanging over the U.S. labor market will lift slightly today with the release of two months of delayed jobs data at 8.30 a.m. Eastern. But it's not a complete picture. As for the first time in nearly 80, years, the October unemployment rate is missing. Nevertheless, Journal Economics reporter Chow Dang says the dual jobs report should help to clarify whether the labor market is patchy and cooling, as private indicators suggest. In recent months, the jobs market has cooled significantly. Companies aren't expanding their workforces because of rising inflation and tariff uncertainty.

And then you have Trump's administration policies targeting immigrants. That's curbing the number of job seekers. Economists generally describe the current environment as low fire, low hire, which basically means that companies aren't laying off workers in a huge, huge way, but they're also not willing to hire too many workers. And that's for several reasons. One of the reasons actually is executives believe that artificial intelligence may be able to handle more work. And that's leading to some announcements about white collar layoffs. And for more coverage on today's jobs data, head to WSJ.com. In other markets news, Canada is giving the OK for mining companies' tech resources and

Anglo-American to merge. The new company called Anglo-Tech would be one of the world's largest copper producers and could help to enhance Canada's processing of critical minerals. PayPal wants to form a bank. The digital payments company, which also owns Venmo, has applied to establish a Utah chartered industrial loan company. company, enabling it to offer business loans and savings accounts and reduce its reliance on third parties. The application comes as payments companies, crypto, and buy-now-pay-later platforms have made moves to

operate more like banks and big financial institutions. And Argentina's central bank will soon allow the peso to trade within expanded bands, while still stopping short of letting it float freely like the U.S. dollar and other currencies. The move comes in response to investors who've demanded president. President Javier Milay's government correct and overvalued currency. The central bank also said it planned to boost its foreign currency reserves. Both moves were welcomed by the IMF, which has bailed out Argentina with tens of billions of dollars. Coming up, it's not just you.

Christmas ads really did start early this year. We'll look at the fight to attract inflation-weary shoppers after the break. We're not trying to spoil the holiday spirit here. But if you thought that the corporate-sponsored Christmas cheer started a bit early this year, your intuition was right. Advertisers have been inundating TV screens with commercials, despite many businesses trying to rein in costs to deal with President Trump's tariffs. For more, our producer, Daniel Bach, spoke to journal advertising editor, Suzanne Vernetza. So far, it looks like advertisers have been much more aggressive this year, especially with TV advertising. Over the past nine weeks alone, we've seen a 13% jump this year compared to a year ago,

which is astounding, given that most advertisers aren't even spending a lot on TV, and that's where they're pulling money away from on budgets to push to social media. And that's just a fraction of what's happening out there. Retailers alone spend about 4% more on digital ads just from November 1st to December 7th, and that's up to about $5.8 billion. So you can just imagine how many ads people are getting bombarded with that have a holiday theme to them. The one other area that I'll tell you, email. Proton Mail just sent out a survey, which has kind of have a staggering stat in it.

50 retailers that they looked at generated 42 billion emails in a 28-day period. So you could say it's a pretty aggressive advertising pace that were in this holiday season. Consumers and retailers are dealing with both inflation and tariffs. How is that showing up so far and how money is being spent this year? Sure. Remember, everybody's looking to get a piece of the holiday spending. So food manufacturers, retailers, clothing, electronics, they got an early read and realized that people were already wildly worried about inflation and the price of goods even before the tariffs hiss. So what happened was they got a good signal early when lots of survey work was done and talking to consumers. And they found out that consumers were actually going to

start earlier looking for bargains. And they needed to figure out as a consumer, how do I spread out the cost of my holiday shopping across a longer time period? And therefore, go earlier, look for the bargains and hopefully save some money. Despite tariffs, despite the fact that we think people are worried about spending, the estimates are showing that consumers are going to spend a trillion dollars this year during the holiday shopping season. And that's a record. So getting that signal then allowed a lot of these advertisers to get out there early. It's called the Christmas creep. You've seen it for years. We used to think that the starting bell was the day after Thanksgiving and it's Black Friday. But nowadays, you're seeing holiday ads as early as August.

And who's spending that money? What retailers are we seeing that are spending big? Obviously, the retailers, the big guys, like the Amazon's, the Walmarts, and the targets, they're very aggressive in the market. Amazon actually has more minutes over the last nine weeks, I would say, than most people on TV with their holiday ads. There's a battle going on, and retail tends to be where you see the most of it. And how are people feeling about seeing all of these ads and seeing them a lot earlier this year? Obviously, consumers often like to say that they hate ads, right? There's times of the year when you really do hate it. Most people really can't stand the political season when those attack ads blanket every screen. But there are a few times of the year when they really don't mind. One obviously is Super Bowl. They love to watch Super Bowl ads. Holiday ads is another time. We enlisted morning consult to pull a thousand consumers to get a better read on this. And we found like two thirds of respondents that they enjoyed holiday themed ads. either somewhat or a lot. Just only 9% said that they disliked them. Obviously, when things start hitting in August, that's when I think people get a little bit, oh, it's too early. And that's when you

see some negative. So about 70% of baby boomers felt this year that the spots started way too early. I looked at some other survey data from another source. And one of the places where holiday ads do upset people. And I think in general, these are the type of ads that really annoy people. They're called retargeting ads. Those are those pesky ads that follow you across the web when you buy something. Well, those ads people get upset about at Christmas because people often share laptops or their PCs at home or at work. And what happens? Somebody in the household, you can get a spoiler. And they find out that there's a surprise gift that your parents or your aunt or uncle has bought for you. So that's when retargeting ads really annoy people. Suzanne Vernica is the journal's advertising editor. Suzanne, thank you. Thank you so much for having me. And that's it for what's news for this Tuesday morning.

Today's show was produced by Hattie Moyer. Our supervising producer was Daniel Bach. And I'm Luke Vargas for the Wall Street Journal. We will be back tonight with a new show. And until then, thanks for listening. Thank you.