US Jobs Report to Show Resilience in the Wake of Iran War

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Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem and Senior Deputy Governor Carolyn Rogers will face questions from lawmakers in two committee appearances in Ottawa.

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Elsewhere, inflation numbers from South Korea to Switzerland, central-bank decisions including a possible hike in Australia and likely steady outcomes in the Nordics are among the week’s highlights. 

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Click here for what happened in the past week, and below is our wrap of what’s coming up in the global economy.

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Asia

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Asia’s data calendar begins with a broad sweep of factory gauges across the region, including manufacturing PMIs. 

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Consumer price reports due from a number of countries, including South Korea, Indonesia and Malaysia, will offer an early gauge of whether higher fuel and transport costs are feeding into broader price pressures.

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The Reserve Bank of Australia’s rate decision on Tuesday is the marquee event. Markets will be watching to see whether Governor Michele Bullock delivers a third straight increase in the cash rate, taking it to 4.35%, while updated forecasts reveal how seriously the bank is treating the latest oil shock. Household spending data earlier on Tuesday, along with Melbourne Institute inflation and job ads figures on Monday, should help frame that debate.

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Also on Tuesday, Indonesia reports gross domestic product, showing the economy likely contracted in the first quarter. Hong Kong releases advance GDP estimates the same day while Singapore has retail sales.

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On Wednesday, New Zealand and the Philippines release employment data, and South Korea reports CPI the same morning. PMIs for Singapore, China and India will offer another read on whether businesses are absorbing the energy shock or beginning to pass it on.

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Thursday brings Australia’s trade figures and the Philippines’ first-quarter GDP, before attention turns to Bank Negara Malaysia, which is expected to leave its overnight policy rate unchanged.

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Friday rounds out the picture with Japan’s labor cash earnings, final PMIs and a batch of foreign reserves data. South Korea and Taiwan release trade numbers, which will be parsed for signs of whether global demand is softening.

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Europe, Middle East, Africa

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Following decisions in the euro zone and the UK to keep rates unchanged, attention turns to comments by monetary officials, along with surveys and data showing how fallout from the war is affecting inflation and growth. 

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One highlight will be a Bank of England conference starting Thursday that features multiple UK policymakers, including Governor Andrew Bailey, as well as European Central Bank chief economist Philip Lane. 

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President Christine Lagarde, Vice President Luis de Guindos and Executive Board member Isabel Schnabel are among other ECB officials set to speak during the week. 

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In terms of euro-zone-wide numbers, the latest reading of the central bank’s wage tracker will be released on Wednesday. Meanwhile, national manufacturing data will point to how companies fared in March as the war in Iran gathered pace. 

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The first of those will be French industrial production on Wednesday, followed by factory orders in Germany on Thursday, and then industrial production numbers there and in Spain on Friday. 

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Meanwhile, Switzerland’s April inflation will come on Tuesday, with economists anticipating an outcome of 0.6%, the highest since 2024. Such a result may lessen pressure on the Swiss National Bank to intervene to curb inflows into the franc. 

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And in Turkey on Monday, data may show inflation accelerated to 31.3% in April from 30.9% due to higher energy prices driven by the Middle East conflict.