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SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2020
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Business
DETROIT (AP) — Hyundai is recalling nearly
430,000 small cars because water can get
into the antilock brake computer, cause an
electrical short and possibly an engine ire.
The recall is another in a series of prob-
lems that the South Korean automaker and
its related company Kia have had with engine
ires during the past few years.
Past problems have triggered an investiga-
tion by the United States (US) National High-
way Traf ic Safety Administration (NHTSA)
The latest recall covers certain 2006
through 2011 Elantra and 2007 through 2011
Elantra Touring vehicles.
The company said the electrical short can
cause a ire even when the cars are turned off.
But Hyundai said the rate of ires is so low that
it is not necessary to park the cars outside.
Hyundai said in documents iled with the
US government that it has three reports of
ires and no related injuries.
Dealers will install a relay in the cars’ main
electrical junction box to prevent short cir-
cuits while the car is turned off. The recall is
to start on April 3.
Last April, NHTSA opened two new in-
vestigations into ires involving Hyundai and
Kia vehicles after getting complaints of more
than 3,100 ires and 103 injuries.
The agency granted a petition seeking
the investigations by the nonpro it Center
for Auto Safety, a consumer advocacy group.
The investigations, one for Hyundai and the
other for Kia, cover non-crash ires in almost
three million vehicles from the af iliated au-
tomakers. The probes cover the 2011 through
2014 Hyundai Sonata and Santa Fe, the 2011
through 2014 Kia Optima and Sorento, and
the 2010 through 2015 Kia Soul. The com-
plaints came from consumers and from data
provided by both automakers.
NHTSA had previously said it would incor-
porate the noncrash ires into a 2017 investi-
gation that examined recalls of Hyundai and
Kia vehicles for engine failures. It opened the
new probes “based on the agency’s analy-
sis of information received from multiple
manufacturers, consumer complaints and
other sources”.
Engine failure and ire problems with
Hyundais and Kias have affected more than
six million vehicles since 2015, according
to NHTSA documents. So far, Hyundai and
Kia have recalled about 2.4 million vehicles
to ix problems that can cause ires and
engine failures.
In addition, the automakers are doing a
“product improvement campaign” covering
another 3.7 million vehicles to install software
that will alert drivers of possible engine fail-
ures and send the cars into a reduced-speed
“limp” mode if problems are detected.
The latest recall “is not related to the
previous Hyundai recalls for engine issues,”
Hyundai spokesman Michael Stewart said in
an email on Friday.
Hyundai recalls cars for problem that can
cause engine fires
The logo of Hyundai Motor Co. is seen on a car displayed at its showroom in Seoul, South
Korea. PHOTO: AP
WASHINGTON (AP) — United States (US) hir-
ing jumped last month, and many more peo-
ple were encouraged to look for work, show-
ing that the economy remains robust despite
threats from China’s viral outbreak, an ongo-
ing trade war and struggles at Boeing.
The strong job growth gives President
Donald Trump more evidence for his asser-
tion that the economy is lourishing under
his watch. It may also complicate the argu-
ment his Democratic presidential rivals are
making that the economy is not bene itting
everyday Americans.
The Labor Department said on Friday
that employers added a robust 225,000 jobs
in January. At the same time, a half-million
Americans, feeling better about their job
prospects, streamed into the job market.
Most found jobs. But those that didn’t were
newly counted as unemployed, and their
numbers raised the jobless rate to 3.6 per
cent from December’s half-century low of
3.5 per cent.
Seven Democratic presidential candi-
dates had a debate later on Friday in New
Hampshire. Leading contenders, notably
Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth War-
ren, have built campaigns around the argu-
ment that the middle class has been mostly
left out of an economic expansion that has
disproportionately served the wealthy.
The outcome of the presidential race
could hinge in part on whether enough vot-
ers agree that inequality and rising costs for
services such as healthcare, housing and col-
lege education outweigh the bene its from
nearly 11 years of economic growth.
“Democratic primary voters are very
open to messages about the economy doing
badly,” said a top economic adviser to former
President Barack Obama Jason Furman.
Furman added, though, “I don’t know that
that would be consistent for the electorate as
a whole.”
As the election intensi ies, views of the
economy remain broadly polarised. According
Healthy US job market: How big a political edge for Trump?
to a Pew Research Center survey released on
Friday, 81 per cent of Republicans and Repub-
lican-leaning independents say the economy is
excellent or good. Only 39 per cent of Demo-
crats and those leaning Democratic say so.
The public overall, Pew noted, holds a
more positive view of the economy than at
any point in the past 20 years. Fifty-seven per
cent say they think it is excellent or good, up
from 32 per cent in 2016.
Trump and his team can point to several
positive trends in Friday’s jobs report, though
his Democratic opponents can cite some evi-
dence for their contrasting views, too.
Robust hiring has picked up from ear-
lier this year, when the trade war with China
raged, and is helping remedy one of the
economy’s key weaknesses: Even as the un-
employment rate fell from a peak of 10 per
cent in 2009, millions of Americans were dis-
couraged about inding a job and stopped
looking for one. Some returned to school or
stayed home to care for relatives.
Yet that trend has nearly reversed itself
since 2016. The proportion of Americans in
their prime working years — ages 25 through
54 — who either have a job or are looking
for one has reached its highest point since
September 2008, just before the recession
intensi ied. Economists typically focus on
the prime-age population because it ilters
out the effects of retirement among the vast
baby boomer generation.
Trump of icials are also stressing that the
job market is now bene itting a wider range
of demographic groups.
“We have seen Hispanics, African Ameri-
cans, Asians, young people, women — all...
are either at their all-time employment lows
or very nearly so,” the White House’s top eco-
nomic adviser Larry Kudlow said on Friday.
Trump has also been touting a “blue collar
boom”, though the evidence for that is mixed.
Manufacturers lost jobs in January for the
third time in four months. The employment
report shows that if there is such a boom,
it is among construction and transportation
and warehouse workers, who accounted for
nearly one-third of last month’s hiring.
These jobs often pay less than factory
jobs of the past. Wages are also a mixed bag.
Hourly pay rose 3.1 per cent in January from a
year earlier, a decent pace but below a peak
of 3.5 per cent reached last summer. The last
time the unemployment rate fell below four
per cent, in the late 1990s, wages were rising
much faster — about 4.5 per cent annually.
Still, pay is picking up for many low-in-
come workers, a trend that Trump has repeat-
edly pointed to. For the poorest one-quarter
of workers, wages rose 4.6 per cent year-over-
year last December, the most recent month for
which data is available, compared with three
per cent for the richest quarter, according to
the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
Those outsize gains began in 2015 and
have been fuelled in part by higher minimum
wages in many states.
Yet there are many soft spots in the econ-
omy that Democrats can work with, Furman
said. For example, a Congressional Budget
Of ice report in December concluded that
Trump’s 2017 tax cuts disproportionately ben-
e itted wealthy Americans. The CBO, a non-
partisan institution, forecasts that the richest
one per cent of Americans will enjoy roughly
triple the gains in after-tax income compared
with the bottom ifth.
Nor has the economy’s growth reversed
long-running wealth disparities. Federal Re-
serve data shows the top one per cent owned
more than 32 per cent of the nation’s housing
and inancial wealth, up slightly from when
Trump was inaugurated.
Despite the economic strength evident in
Friday’s job report, analysts warned that hiring
could slow in the coming months. January’s
jobs report was compiled before the spread
of the coronavirus, which has sickened thou-
sands in China, closed stores and factories
there and led many international businesses
to suspend operations involving China.
And Boeing’s decision to halt production
of its troubled 737 MAX appear to has yet to
affect overall job growth. But some Boeing
suppliers have announced layoffs that could
be felt in next month’s jobs report.
An applicant is interviewed during a job fair at Dolphin Mall in Miami. PHOTO: AP