This Week: Job openings, consumer borrowing, Fed meeting

The Associated Press

A look at some of the key business events and economic indicators upcoming this week:

IN A HIRING MOOD

U.S. employers are eager to add more workers, with job openings eclipsing the number of unemployed in recent months.

Job openings climbed to 7.1 million in August, the highest in records dating back to December 2000. It's also far more than the 6.2 million people who were unemployed that month. Did the trend continue in September? Find out Tuesday, when the Labor Department issues its latest Job Openings and Labor Turnover survey.

JOLTS job openings, in millions, by month:

April 6.8

May 6.7

June 6.8

July 7.1

Aug. 7.1

Sept. (est.) 7.0

Source: FactSet

BUY NOW, PAY LATER

The Federal Reserve serves up its latest monthly snapshot of U.S. consumer borrowing Wednesday.

The tally, which excludes mortgages and other loans secured by real estate, is expected to show consumer borrowing increased by a seasonally adjusted $17.2 billion last month. That would be down from a gain of $20.1 billion in August, which drove total consumer credit to a record of $3.94 trillion.

Consumer credit, monthly change, seasonally adjusted, billions of dollars:

April 8.6

May 22.2

June 5.5

July 16.6

Aug. 20.1

Sept (est.) 17.2

Source: FactSet

EYE ON THE FED

Economists expect that the Federal Reserve will wait until next month to raise interest rates again.

Even so, investors and other Fed watchers will tune in Thursday for an interest rate policy update following central bank policymakers' latest two-day meeting. The Fed is trying to keep inflation in check. It has raised short-term rates three times this year and signaled another hike before the end of the year and three in 2019.