US jobless claims edged up last week, but remain low. The 11,000 increase in new applications for unemployment benefits for the week through Feb. 1 reflects a middling range relative to recent history and near a multi-decade low. The latest report suggests the labor market will continue to expand at a solid pace.

US employers cut more jobs in January vs. the previous month, but the reduction was the lowest recorded for the month in three years. “January was relatively quiet in terms of job cut announcements,” says Andrew Challenger, senior vice president of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, the firm that publishes the job cuts data.

US productivity slowed in the fourth quarter while unit-labor costs, a key measure of wages, rose 3%. For the year, U.S. productivity increased at a 2.3% rate, up from a 1.6% in 2023.

A US judge has temporarily halted President Trump’s worker buyout plan for federal employees. The White House says more than 40,000 employees have accepted the offer to resign in exchange for pay until the end of September.

Amazon says it will spend $100 billion on AI investments this year. The announcement is in line with other big tech companies that are also planning to raise AI-related spending.

An indicator that estimates the potential for a spike in the VIX Index currently shows roughly 50/50 odds that this “fear gauge” of the stock market will jump sharply higher. The analysis is based on the VIX Risk Indicator, a proprietary measure developed by TMC Research, a unit of The Milwaukee Company, a wealth manager. “A decline toward a -1.0 reading would lift confidence for expecting relatively calm waters to prevail for the S&P 500 in the near term,” the research note explains.