Economy & Business

Unemployment is at a 40-year low and wages are starting to tick up, but the number of people working multiple jobs hasn’t changed in more than a decade. Why? Then: Mattress Firm has filed for bankruptcy, citing poor sales. The sleep business has changed a lot in recent years, in part because starting your own online bed-in-a-box company is really, really easy. Plus, as always, we'll review the economic news of the seven days gone by on the Weekly Wrap.

The Department of Transportation said in its new autonomous vehicle guidelines Thursday that a human driver doesn’t necessarily have to be in the driver's seat of a commercial motor vehicle. That means an artificial intelligence system could potentially drive a truck. What could this mean for the trucking industry?

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(Markets Edition) The Labor Department’s household survey from Friday morning shows rising payroll tallies in September, along with July and August’s totals revised upward. Also, the unemployment rate improved even further. Also, the Department of Transportation has released new guidelines for self-driving vehicles. One key adjustment: A human is no longer required to be in the driver’s seat for autonomous commercial vehicles.

Manufacturers have been adding 20,000 to 30,000 jobs per month since the summer of 2017. But that upward trend took a pause in August, with a 3,000 jobs decline in manufacturing. It could be a one-month blip, but there are other signs that manufacturing could be poised for a slowdown. The strong dollar is making U.S. exports more expensive abroad. Escalating trade tensions and retaliatory tariffs imposed by U.S. trading partners could further hurt overseas demand for goods made in the USA.

(U.S. Edition) The September jobs report is gaining most of the attention on Friday morning, with forecasters expecting signs of steady jobs growth. But one thing that appears to be leveling off is the manufacturing sector. We look into why. We also look at Walmart’s efforts into offering better job training to workers after the company joined about a dozen others in a pledge to train millions of workers in the next five years.

(Global Edition) From the BBC World Service … After intense pressure from shareholders against the move, Unilever does a U-turn on plans to scrap it’s dual-share structure and shift its headquarters away from the U.K. to the Netherlands. Then, Russian president Vladimir Putin is in India Friday meeting with the country's prime minister Narendra Modi. The two countries signed a new defense-weapons deal, but it could provoke the U.S. into imposing fresh sanctions on India. Afterwards, anger with the status-quo political environment is an issue for countries all over the world.

Facebook announced this week that it had suffered its biggest hack ever, compromising the accounts of at least 50 million users. Part of the reason a Facebook hack is so scary is that the social network connects to so many other apps and services. You might use it to log in to Spotify or Tinder or OpenTable — a whole string of apps might have your information connected to your profile. So far, Facebook has said hackers did not access any third-party apps. But it's still investigating the scope of the hack.

Facebook announced this week that it had suffered its biggest hack ever compromising the accounts of at least 50 million users. Part of the reason a Facebook hack is so scary is that the social network connects to so many other apps and services. You might use it to log in to Spotify or Tinder or OpenTable — a whole string of apps might have your information connected to your profile. So far, Facebook has said hackers did not access any third-party apps. But it's still investigating the scope of the hack.