WSJ What’s News - U.S. Unemployment Rises to Highest Level Since 2021

Episode Date: December 16, 2025

P.M. Edition for Dec. 16. A long-awaited government report on jobs adds to questions about the economy’s strength. Watch the WSJ Q&A for more takeaways on the labor market. Plus, Heard on the Street columnist Jonathan Weil discusses how efforts to make it easier for small companies to go public in the U.S. have helped fuel a wave of scams. And in Europe, officials are reversing course on a ban on new sales of gasoline-powered cars. WSJ reporter Kim Mackrael tells us why the EU is watering down its rules as the transition to electric vehicles proves more difficult than policymakers anticipated. Sabrina Siddiqui hosts. Sign up for the WSJ's free What's News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Canada's Wonderland is bringing the holiday magic this season with Winterfest on select nights now through January 3rd. Step into a winter wonderland filled with millions of dazzling lights, festive shows, rides, and holiday treats. Plus, Coca-Cola is back with Canada's kindness community, celebrating acts of kindness nationwide with a chance at 100,000 donation for the winning community and a 2026 holiday caravan stop. Learn more at canadaswunderland.com. The U.S. unemployment rate rose to 4.6% in November its highest level in more than four years. Plus, how a push for more IPOs has helped cause a wave of stock scams. And the European Union is reversing course on banning new gas-powered cars. Globally, we're seeing less uptake from consumers on EVs than some policymakers had expected.

It's Tuesday, December 16th. 16th, I'm Sabrina Siddiqui for the Wall Street Journal, sitting in for Alex Oscella. This is the PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today. In a breaking news update, we're exclusively reporting that Warner Brothers Discovery will tell shareholders to reject Paramount's latest bid for the company. That's according to people familiar with the matter. Warner plans to recommend that shareholders support the existing deal with Netflix instead, and that recommendation could come as soon as tomorrow. For more on this story, go to WSJ.com.

The U.S. unemployment rate rose to 4.6% in November its highest level in more than four years, and the Labor Department says employers added 64,000 jobs last month after they cut 105,000 jobs. jobs in October. Economists have been waiting for these latest numbers, which are some of the most important to be disrupted by the government shutdown. Today's report includes November jobs data and a patchier readout from October. Ashby Jones, the Wall Street Journal's Deputy Economics editor, tells WSJ correspondent Shelby Holiday during a live Q&A this morning that this report still doesn't add a ton of clarity to what's going on now in the labor market. The 64,000 number is a little bit better than expected. 4.6 is maybe a little bit worse than expected.

So, take it together, it's not an awful report, but it's certainly not a great report either. It's somewhere right in this mushy middle, which frankly, Shelby, is like where we've been with jobs for the past six months. But there are some reassurances. For example, hiring in the private sector showed signs of stabilizing. This is a pretty solid number. It's not great. It's not awful. But it kind of hits the mark.

And I think tells us that the job situation hasn't fallen off a cliff. And that was the big fear from a lot of people. The report isn't seen as signaling big changes to the Federal Reserve's thinking on whether to continue cutting interest rates. Expectations for a January rate cut didn't change much after the report, staying at about 25% according to CME group data. To hear more from Ashby Jones and lead markets reporter Gunjan Banerjee on the jobs report, go to Wshay.com slash video.

Stock markets were mixed after the jobs report, which pointed to one of the weakest American labor market. markets in years. The Dow fell 0.6%, and the S&P lost 0.2%. The NASDAQ rose 0.2%. U.S. regulators have sought to reverse the decline in stock exchange listings by loosening rules for smaller firms. But that strategy carries an inherent tradeoff. Lighter oversight can make markets more vulnerable to stock scams. That tension is now playing out at the Securities and Exchange Commission under Chairman Paul Atkins. Jonathan Weil, a Wall Street Journal reporter and heard on the street columnist covering finance,

joins us now with more. Jonathan, you report that this 2012 law, known as the Jobs Act, tried to make it easier for smaller companies to go public as a way to encourage more IPOs. What does the SEC want to do now to make that process even easier? It wants companies to have the designation of emerging growth companies for longer than they can have right now. Under the current rules, a company could be designated as an emerging growth company for as long as five years, but if they hit certain size thresholds, like if they go past $1.235 billion of revenue, then they automatically stop being emerging growth companies.

Paul Atkins, the SEC chairman, has suggested that maybe they should be guaranteed a certain minimum number of years, and that would essentially expand their eligibility to be exempt. from any number of different accounting, auditing, or disclosure requirements. How would you define emerging growth companies? What exactly are they? Emerging growth companies are companies that the SEC wants to give special treatment to. Proponents of these exemptions want to create the impression that these are small entrepreneurial companies worthy of support from the public. And some of them may fit that bill. At the same time, just because they're called emerging growth companies, doesn't necessarily mean that they hold great promise.

And what risks have emerged in the aftermath of the Jobs Act? If you have fewer auditing and accounting and disclosure requirements, you may have more bad actors. And in fact, Atkins pushed to expand eligibility for the Jobs Act exemptions has coincided with a crackdown on certain types of stock frauds targeting individual investors. Since late September, the SEC has suspended trading in 12 companies' stocks, which is actually a lot for the SEC. That's more than in the previous four years combined. They were citing potential stock manipulation. All 12 companies were emerging growth companies under the Jobs Act, which highlighted how much easier it was for them to go public than the otherwise would have been able to. And even though the Jobs Act, that acronym stands for Jump Starter of Business Startups.

these aren't American companies. They're all from Asia, and in five of the cases, they're either from Hong Kong or China. How did the SEC respond to your story? Well, they responded to my questions by saying that it's unreasonable to conclude the emerging growth companies in general are at a higher risk of violating securities laws. That was the Wall Street Journal's Jonathan Wild. Jonathan, thank you. Thank you for having me. Republican leaders in Congress are signaling that they are closing the door, on a deal to renew expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies before the end of the year. House Speaker Mike Johnson said there would be no vote tomorrow on a bipartisan proposal to extend

the subsidies for two years. Centress Republicans have pushed to vote on extending the subsidies to try to prevent sharp increases in insurance premiums. Many of those lawmakers are up for re-election in competitive districts, and they're warning that a big increase in healthcare costs carries political risks. The Republican bill that is scheduled for a House vote tomorrow, would expand Association Health Plans for small employers and try to lower out-of-pocket costs for low-income Americans on ACA plans. Coming up, did Pepsi try to help Walmart beat rival stores on price? That's after the break.

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the sale of new combustion engine cars starting in 2035. It's the latest sign of the electric vehicle pullback and comes after heavy pressure from the auto industry. Kim McRale, a Wall Street Journal reporter in Brussels, says this latest backtrack shows how much more difficult the transition away from gas cars has been than policymakers thought it would be. Globally, we're seeing less uptake from consumers on EVs than some policymakers had expected. Auto companies in Europe have been saying for some time now that they think this transition is

too fast for them. One example of the challenging transition is what happened yesterday with Ford, which said that it was expecting to take about $19.5 billion in charges, mainly tied to its electric vehicle business. But then the other thing that's happening that's more unique to Europe is that there's a broader discussion about the regulatory environment that companies face in the European Union, a pretty heavy flow of regulation over recent years. Some of them to address climate change and there is some pullback happening right now. The proposal still needs approval from the EU's member states and the European Parliament before it becomes law. European officials say the plan keeps a strong market

signal in favor of zero emission vehicles while also giving carmakers more flexibility. So what was in the original rules was that starting in 2035, sales of new cars had to have an overall reduction of 100% of their CES. CO2 emissions. What the commission has proposed now, instead of a 100% reduction from a baseline level, they're now saying that can be a 90% reduction, and that remaining 10% difference, they want companies to make up through using low-carbon steel or e-fuels and biofuels. So essentially it opens up the ability for companies to continue selling a range of different technologies, including plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, range extenders, which can allow

an electric vehicle to go further than it otherwise but on the charge alone and internal combustion engines in addition to electric vehicles. That was the journal's Kim McCrail. Pepsi worked to raise prices of soda and other goods at retailers so it could help protect Walmart's lower prices. That's according to a recently unsealed antitrust lawsuit. The Federal Trade Commission sued Pepsi during the Biden administration, but dropped the suit after Trump took office. It was unsealed last week after a push from an anti-monopoly advocacy group. Complaint alleges that Pepsi tracked how much other retailers were charging, offered promotions to Walmart,

and in some cases tried to raise prices at other stores. The allegations shed light on a common industry practice where large consumer goods and food companies carefully manage their business with their largest retail customers because of the big sales volumes that are at stake. A Pepsi spokeswoman says the complaint includes, quote, inaccuracies and unsubstantiated allegations and that Pepsi complies with the law. A Walmart spokeswoman said the company is committed to negotiating for value and low prices for customers. And in global news, the White House told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

that President Trump was frustrated by an Israeli operation that killed a Hamas commander. That's according to U.S. officials and a person familiar with the matter. The people said Trump feared the weekend killing could disrupt a fragile ceasefire in Gaza that the president considers one of his major achievements. The U.S. wasn't given prior notice of the airstrike. Trump denied he was frustrated with Nityahu while speaking to reporters yesterday. And an Israeli official says there was no disagreement

between the two leaders on Gaza. And that's what's news for this Tuesday afternoon. Today's show was produced by Anthony Bansy with supervising producer Tali Arbell. I'm Sabrina Siddiqui for the Wall Street Journal. We'll be back with a new show tomorrow morning. Thanks for listening. Okay.