South Korea's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate inched up to 2.8% in July from 2.7% in June, according to data from the Ministry of Data and Statistics released on Wednesday.
The reading was also up from 2.7% a year earlier.
The labor force participation rate edged down to 65% from 65.2% in June.
The total number of employed persons fell to 29.14 million in July from 29.15 million the previous month, while the number of unemployed shrank to 776,000 from 834,000.
Retail sales in the UK rose 1% year over year on a like-for-like basis in July, following a 1.7% increase in June, according to data from the British Retail Consortium published Tuesday.The reading, which missed the expected 1.6% gain for the month, corresponds to the slowest retail sales growth since February.BRC said consumers spent on summer clothes, home entertainment, and garden-related items during the warm weather, while keeping budgeting in mind. The FIFA World Cup also drove sales during the month.
Singapore's Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) upgraded the region's full-year 2026 GDP growth forecast to a range of 4.5% to 5.5%, significantly higher than the previous projection of 2% to 4%.The higher forecast reflects expectations that strong global AI-related demand will help cushion the economic impact of the US-Israel-Iran conflict, the MTI said Tuesday.Singapore's economy grew 5.9% year over year in the second quarter, slowing from the 6.3% growth in the first quarter. On a seasonally adjusted quarter-over-quarter basis, the economy expanded 1.4% in Q2, accelerating from the 1.2% growth in Q1, according to preliminary data.The second-quarter expansion was driven by strong performances in the manufacturing, wholesale trade, and finance and insurance sectors.For the first half of the year, Singapore's GDP grew 6.1% from a year earlier.
Australian consumer confidence rose 0.3 points in the week of Aug. 3 to 9 to 75 points, reaching a relatively steady state, according to a Tuesday note from ANZ.The four-week moving average eased 0.1 points to 74.1 points.Weekly inflation expectations fell 0.2 percentage points to 5.7%, while the four-week moving average was unchanged at 5.7%.Current financial conditions over the last year increased 0.2 points to 65.4, while financial conditions over the next 12 months declined 1.5 points to 82.4.The decline in households' confidence in the 12-month outlook for their finances and the rise in inflation expectations may have been due to a pick-up in petrol prices, ANZ economist Madeline Dunk said.Short-term economic confidence over the next 12 months was up 2.7 points to 69.5, while medium-term economic confidence over the next five years rose 2.1 points to 82.3.The "time to buy a major household item" sub-index fell 1.9 points to 75.7, per the report.