The FT News Briefing is supported by Equinole, the UK's energy partner.

Learn more at equinole.co.uk

Good morning from the Financial Times.

Today's Friday, October 7th, and this is your FT News Briefing.

Ukrainian forces are continuing their counter-offensive in the southern part of the country.

China is continuing to try to peel off Taiwan's remaining allies.

And today we'll get an important update on the health of the U.S. economy.

I'm Sonia Hudson from ArcFilippino, and here's the news you need to start your day.

The Federal Reserve's interest rate increases may be sinking in.

Today, the U.S. government releases its latest jobs numbers,

and they're expected to show the world's largest economy is cooling a bit.

Forecast show there were just 260,000 jobs added last month.

Here's the FT's Colby Smith.

That's a step down from what we saw in August and well below July's increase,

but historically that's still a robust pace.

So ultimately, I think what this number is really going to drive home is that

the Fed's efforts to cool down the economy are starting to have an impact,

but there's still quite a long way for the Fed to go in order to see

sufficient cooling for inflation to be coming closer back down to target.

So Colby, how would you describe the state of the U.S. economy right now?

So it's really a mixed bag.

I mean, on the one hand, on these key aggregate measures,

...