Friday, November 13, 2026
West Texas crude averaged $102.07 a barrel in October 2026, up from $64.51 in February, but employment at U.S. oil and gas extraction companies fell to 113,900 from 116,200, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Oilfield support jobs rose by about 1,400. The October job figures are preliminary.
The Producer Price Index for final demand rose 0.3 per cent in October, seasonally adjusted, and 6.5 per cent from a year earlier, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said on 13 November 2026. Prices of unprocessed goods bought by businesses fell 3.1 per cent. The figures are preliminary and subject to revision for four months.
China's producer price index rose 5.7 per cent in October from a year earlier, up from 5.0 per cent in September, the National Bureau of Statistics said on 9 November 2026. Prices of consumer goods leaving Chinese factories fell 0.1 per cent. U.S. import prices for goods from China were up 3.1 per cent in the year to September, the most since June 2022.
U.S. consumer prices rose 0.4 per cent in October and core prices 0.3 per cent, seasonally adjusted, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said on 10 November. It published no 12-month rate because it never collected October 2025 prices. Using the bureau's own approximation method, we estimate the annual rate at about 4.0 per cent.
U.S. employers added 165,000 jobs in October and the unemployment rate fell to 4.1 per cent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said on Friday. August and September were revised up by a combined 84,000. More than a quarter of the unemployed have now been looking for at least 27 weeks.
U.S. consumer prices rose 3.7 per cent in the year to September, against 8.2 per cent in the last reading before the November 2022 midterm elections, Bureau of Labor Statistics data show. Gasoline averaged $4.27 a gallon in the latest weekly survey, 47 cents more than on the eve of that vote. The October jobs and price reports come out after Tuesday's election.
Wages and salaries for U.S. civilian workers rose 3.1 per cent in the 12 months to September, down from 3.5 per cent a year earlier, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said on Friday 30 October. After inflation, they fell 0.6 per cent. Private employers' health benefit costs rose 6.4 per cent.
In the year to September, US employers added 496,000 jobs. Health care and social assistance added 520,000, so the rest of the economy together lost jobs. Measured over 12 months, that has been true every month since June 2025. In payroll data back to 1990, the only comparable stretches came around recessions.
The September jobs report added 29,000 jobs and cut 60,000 from the two months before. Inside it, insurance carriers and the businesses around them lost jobs for the 11th month running. They now employ about 90,000 fewer people than in May 2025, a faster fall than in any comparable stretch in data going back to 1990. In the industry's own hiring survey, carriers keep saying the opposite.