(Bloomberg) -- Welcome to Friday, Europe. Here’s the latest news and analysis from Bloomberg Economics to help take you through to the weekend:
- U.S. job growth probably suffered a sharp slowdown in December, with further weakness expected until Covid-19 vaccines reach a larger swath of Americans and restore broader economic activity
- The Federal Reserve may begin paring back its bond-buying program as soon as the end of this year, Philadelphia Fed chief Patrick Harker said
- The Swiss National Bank foresees a profit of 21 billion francs ($24 billion) for 2020, due to investment in gold and foreign currencies
- The U.S. will suspend a plan to hit $1.3 billion of French goods with tariffs in retaliation for the European country’s tax on the revenue of global tech companies -- many of them American -- de-escalating the transatlantic trade dispute. Meantime, the U.S. trade deficit widened to the second-largest on record in November
- A week on from Brexit, many truckers are still warning of chaos as they struggle to adjust to the new paperwork required by Britain’s departure from the European Union
- Global demand for Chinese goods has been so strong recently it’s creating a shortage of containers and driving up shipping costs, potentially impeding the nation’s exports in coming months
- Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s bet that a less-stringent state of emergency will limit the economic damage of virus containment runs the risk of compounding the pain if it proves insufficient