this is "nightly business report" with tyler mathisen and sue herera. good evening, everyone. welcome to a special edition of "nightly business report." the u.s. markets may have been closed today, but there is still, sue, plenty to talk about. >> there sure is, ty. the first two weeks of the year have been tumultuous to say the least, with oil prices continuing to plunge down double digits to start the year and fears that china's economy might drag down any global growth out there. our markets have been consumed with negativity. >> but there is one bright spot for the u.s. economy, and that would be the labor market. that is where we begin tonight. the job market ended 2015 on a high note. most are confident of continued

strength this year. in fact an improving labor market was the linchpin for the federal reserve's plan to raise interest rates for the first time in a decade. as hampton pearson tells us, while that optimism abounds, some obstacles do remain. >> the 2016 job market is starting the year with a lot of momentum. a blockbuster december saw 292,000 new hires, and upward revisions boosted the fourth quarter average to 294,000 per month. in his final state of the union address, president barack obama says predict sector growth has the foundation of the recoveries. >> the united states of america right now has the strongest, most durable economy in the world. [ applause ] we're in the middle of the

longest streak of private job growth in history. >> well above 200,000 per month and the economy is moving closer to full employment, but wage growth, especially for those between 25 and 54, the prime earning years, remain a challenge. >> we want to be the ratio to return to pre-recession levels, and we want to see stronger wage growth. dramatically declining oil prices may force bigger job cuts in 2016. an instant replay of what happened last year, when roughly 20% of the 600,000 announced layoffs were tied to falling oil prices. public sector downsizing, including nearly 60,000 military personnel returning to the civilian workforce presents another challenge. veterans hiring fares like this one in d.c. are tackling that challenge. more than 100 employers at this

event offering hope to job seekers like juan lopez, a milled offaged vet who believes his search for a better-paying job is just around the corner. >> now that the holidays are over, i'm getting telephone calls, folks are scheduling interviews. i have some next week week and i'm feeling optimistic. martin luther king had an economy dream, wanted to see an end to poverty and a guaranteed government middle-class income. nearly 50 years after his death, the debate over how to achieve that part of the dream continues. for "nightly business report", i'm hampton pearson in washington. with the strong gains last year and expected growth this year, who exactly is hiring? we know the energy sector has been and is an issue while restaurants and bars ratcheted up their hiring, but what about the under the radar sectors?

mary thompson takes a closer look at three areas where the jobs are. >> georgia is building a name for itself in movies, thanks to a generous tax incentive, the state is now third in tv and film production behind california and new york. the state welcoming the industry as rapid growth and estimated $6 billion in economic impact it's bringing this year, though not everything is peachy. we've had a bit of a growing pain in that we've had such a run-up so quickly. >> sometimes it's hard to find in-state electrician, artists and others to start a movie or show, something that chris bagwell says could cause the industry to look for locations outside of georgia. >> it's a lot cheaper for production to hire local talent that is to bring folks from l.a. or new york city and have to pay their housing or per diem. >> lee thomas heads the state film and tv office, along with keeping the tax incentive in

place, she is says georgia needs to train workers to keep the shows coming. so georgia is launching an academy to train, and retrain others to polish their skills for film. >> it's something that you can quickly put people through for very specific types of jobs, and if they want to go further with it these certificates will be applicable to longer degrees. >> about 30,000 georgians work for the tv and film industry, which the motion picture association of america says pays an average salary of $84,000 a year. it's one reason why rachel crump has gone back to scoop to be a script supervisor. >> it seemed to be where all of the focus was going in georgia. >> while for rick harris, it jump-started the air conditioning business he launched in 2007, cooling the seth of the movie "the blind side." >> since we started in 2007, we basically doubled in size in

equipment and staff, everything for the past several years. >> he's gone from two units to 130, two employees to 14, and a million in revenue to several million, proving you can make money in movies as a support are player, a cast georgia is looking to grow. another year of headline-grabbing cyberattacks on big-name companies lice sony, another year of double-digit growth for cyber-insurance. >> cyber-insurance would be cuff biggest opportunities in recent memory for the insurance market. >> a recently released survey by the insurance broker marsh shows among its u.s. clines clients first-time buyers of cyberinsurance, building on a 21% increase in 2013. among.industry seeing the most growth in first-time buyers, hospitality and gaming, education, and power and utilities. in this data-driven world,

information is increasingly valuable, client or proprietary information, a cyber-they've could use or to harm the company in their crosshairs. >> a roughly $2 billion industry, cyberinsurance is still in its infancy, the insurers offering these policies all continue to tweak their underwriting, changes analysts randy bitter says requires policy owners to make adjustments of their own. >> eif they get an insurance company, it's going to require them to have processes, technology, reporting structure in place that help mitigate an event. >> among other things at the mitigate the cost of disruption of business and helping customers impacted by an atan. marsh she is these wrote 3% this year, and some firms may choose to self-insure.

they promise their clients they'll filled a zillion things for their home. meanwhile, the online retailers alonging for a couple hundred new employees wayfair isn't alone. forest erbil research says with e-commerce growing 10% a year, there's strong demand no a new breed. we care about folks who are hard-working or bright and have the ability to use analytical insights or quantitative data. >> the ceo is looking for programmers, designers and customer service reps, all at ease with the technology online retailers use to create and enhance their customers' experience, which at wayfair includes phone calls with design consultant sara noneberg. i want them to feel like they're calling their own interior designer.

>> shaw says it's hard to find the ideal candidates, so they hire a lot of recent college graduates and teaches them retailing on the job. but there are places that teach all the needed skills. north texas university launched a degree in digital retailing a few years ago. >> it's not just the future, but pretty much the present. >> ana karen peter and students like her take courses super analytics and collaboration are emphasized. >> in the digital world you're working side by side with marketing, merchandising, i.t., e-commerce, and everything has in such real time you have to be able to work in a team environment. >> program director richard latt says 82% of his students graduate with jobs, jobs with good salaries, according to analyst rita mulperu. >> when you look across the board at digit at they're

generally well paying. >> the government estimates they pay close to double extra 'tis sdal retails jobs, ranging from $40,000 for creative like designer up for $820,000 for programmers. a new era in retail with a good payoff with the skills for those who can sell online. i'm mary thompson for "nightly business report." we have brooklyn dwyer, a senior analyst with bnp paribas. we may range a bit into the broader economy, but the most recent jobs report for december was some 290,000 jobs. that's an incredibly hot pace, do you expect that to keep up? >> we don't. most of the market was expecting, including ourselves, something closer to 200,000, so 50% more not a bass up side. >> what are you looking for this year?

>> expecting things show slow down on average. it looks something like close to 100, 120,000. 175,000 is still pretty darn good. >> does what's recently been going on in the market the precipitous drop, the volatility, the fact that the market is down better than, so far this year does that means -- layoffs in the energy sector. >> certainly does. we've seen a lot of that layoff in the energy sector, mining that secretary services area of mining, people pulling back on their rigs, so we're seeing that impact right now, but see moment tough in some other areas, retail, leisure and hospitality, we do expect that momentum to be peared back a bit next year, but overall the momentum is till pretty decent. >> health care has been a jobs adder over the past half decade

or so. do you see that continuing? i think that's right. there's a big ramping up, trying to figure out how many people they really need. you tend to over-hire, and figure out how many can actually run with. >> so you cut it back and keep the people you like, that sort of trend is happening. >> we've seen improvement, but the participation rate has been a persistent problem in this record. it seems to be getting better. is that still troubling to you, or have we changed the trajectory of that? >> there's a lot of focus on the participation rate, a lot of debate among the colleagues about how much of that is structural over cyclical. from what i can tell, about half of it is due to aging population, worth about three tenths of the participation rate per year. surprisingly, we've only averaged about 0.37, so really

not that farther off the trend of the decline, but we do have room for a bit of a rebound. >> for a broader economy, you have the federal reserve indicating they hope to raise interest race three, four times this year, but in the most recent trading sessions, bond yields have gone down, approaching 2% again. what is the bond market telling you about the health of the u.s. economy? >> first, they don't believe the fed, they don't think, you know, what they say is going to happen. that was certainly true right up until the last minute in december when the fed actually delivered a rate hike. there was just an unbelievableability factor. we're in that camp right now, where we have this turbulence from abroad. so we have a lot of factors like oil that are kind of plaguing the minds of people who are doing hiring and things like that. that means a bit of uncertainty for stocks. we're seeing that impact right now, and that feeds into fed policy. from the fed's perspective, they're secting a trajectory.

as long as they get that, they'll be -- >> they've move ahead? >> yeah. >> thank you very much. >> thanks. a cooling of the world's second largest economy sends a chill around the globe. the ramifications, next.

china has been abarea of concern, fears that the world's second largest economy is slowing rapidly has been sending shockwaves through global markets. that slowdown is being played out in two important sectors, march and energy, eunice yun has more. >> chances are it was made from eric lee, from his factory in china, the taiwanese businessman has been making colored glass for light fixture for 15 years, but he's not sure he can do it much longer. our factor has been facing big challenges this year, he says the china's economic rise was powered by businesses like lee's, but the government says hundreds of factories have been deserted. businesses fear the plant closures are in the thousands,

with so many in the country's industrial south now for lease. >> we're in the manufacturing town of d dongong. business people would come from all over the world to place orders here, but now this area is entirely abandoned. shops like these that used to cater for tact torrie workers are completely shut down. >> lee had to idle his plant for how days over the summer, because the inventory got too high. he's also been battling rising costs, higher minimum wage and rising living standards have fortsed him to offer wage races for 10%, to the 1,000 a month for many of his workers. the main difficulty we are facing now is rising costs, especially for labor. this costs a hue shadow over our operation. the recent devaluation of the chinese currency has-lower

losses. >> i'm afraid what we have seen of the slowdown is just the beginning, and it's far from the bottom, he says. his survival strategy? >> we pray every day. >> praying for a miracle in china's rapidly cooling economy. china's black gold. coal has been the lifeblood of the country's growth. now the industry faces an uncertain future, and this trucker is feeling the pain. here in the province, they used to earn $630 a month transporting coal. today only half that. trucks are idled, partly because of china's economic slowdown and for another reason. a lot of coal mines have shuffle down because of the environmental protection regulation. he says some other coal-related businesses have also closed,

because they failed to immediate the government's emissions standards. at the climate change meeting in paris, president xi jinping reiterated his vow to rein in emissions. as part of that, beijing is trying to wean itself off of coal. currently china is the biggest consumer and producer of the fossil fuel. it's also the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases. china still relies very heavily on coal to power its economy, so the government has pledged to upgrade the coal-fired plants nationwide to reduce pollution by 60% by 2020. it also is embracing clean energy. it's investing big in wind, solar and nuclear technology. still, critics point to beijing's daze of hazardous smog this week, as evidence that china's addiction to coal will you heart to quit. it's a cheap and plentiful sort of energy, difficult to resist,

they say, for a government attempting to keep the economy from falling further, even though, trucker lee is concerned about his own prospects in the instrument. living expenses are rising, and i have a whole family to take care of, he says. i'm thinking of going abroad to find a job as a day laborer. away from china's coal country and its clouded future. for "nightly business report", i'm e. nice yun. paul christopher joins us head of global market strategist at wells tag fargo investment institute. well cull, palm, a pleasure to have you here. >> thank you, see. is there more down side to come? if so, how much more significant? >> right, more down side to come in the sectors that your reporter mentioned, so manufacturing, construction and minimal extraction.

part of it is the realization that demand isn't there anymore, but it also suits china in a very nice way, because they really want to develop more service sector growth and consumption. you heard the part about the higher wages, so at the same time some sectors are correcting, others are growing, in fact services represent the fastest growth in the economy and largest source of employment growth. what about china's internal debt issues? they have a lot of loans to state-owned enterprises, a lot of real estate loans out there. is their debt their real achilles' heel. >> that is a large overhang, but fort lay it's mainly internal, not external. so the government is in the process of trying to redenominate a lot of that. the land debt, for example, that can be converted into local government bonds backed by the

central government. there's a lot of other means they can use to keep that debt from going bad all of a sudden which would be the real risk to the u.s. and the economy. yes, it's a big risk going forward, but there are ways to deal with it. more importantly the economy is growing in the sectors the government is trying to promote. that should help keep stability, employment growth, wage growth and spepding going, and that also helps keep the debt stainable. >> there is predictions that cha will once den devalue their currency. >> at this point the markets aren't so much worried about depreciation, as they are sudden changes in policy by the people's bank of china. when the people's bank is unpredictable, that tends to make markets think something is being hidden. so as long as the rate of depreciation continues steadily, after all, the currency is overvalued and needs to catch up

with other occurrence sisz in the world against the dollar, i think that steady rate will be largely benign, but it's going to be the occasional flare-ups or hick upthat will be the real issue. >> very quickly for china, hard landing, soft landing or continued flight? >> i would say 80% chance of a soft land been with some hiccups along the way due to policy missteps. >> paul, thank you for joining us. >> thank you. paul christopher with wells fargo investment institute. and coming up, some towns reap the rewards of strong oil demand. now with prices in a free fall, a look at the fallout in with texas town and how it might weather the downturn.

here's what to watch for on tuesday. earnings season starts to shift into high gear with a pair of dow xon ntsds. more financials are out with morgan stanley and bank of america, and is the best s&p performer in 2015 netflix? that's what to watch for tomorrow. another blow to the markets as we start 2016. it's a carryover from 2015, collapse been oil prices, both the domestic and global benchmarks are hovering an $30 a barrel. let's put it in perspective. june 2014, $114 for brent crude prices. that fall has had a positive impact at the pump for u.s. drivers. the energy information agency

sees gas averaging just above $2 a year. that would be up from where i would buy it, but the fallout from cratering oil has been unmistakable. the instrument has undergone tens of thousands of layoffs, the most recent being bp's 4,000 announce the last weeks cunning like saudi arabia say they will have a budget deficit, and even russia says it might have to revise its budget if prices continue to fall down. finally, the oil boom of the recent past was a boon for several states' economies, but now many of those boom towns are feeling the pressure. brian heads to the lone star state and takes a look at one city and how it's coping. >> for years texas has been a shining star of the american economy. nearly 2 million people have moved to the state in the past five years. houston's oil-fueled job boom is one reason why, as the new

reality sinks in, that growth, at least in houston may be at risk. >> this will make like 5 1/2 couplings. >> max runs a company, and he's had to lay off half of his workers over the past year. >> we've had to go over 1100 employees to less than 530 now? >> houston, though, is much more than just the old oil town it used to be. the city is diversified with medical, technology and manufacturing all helping to power the economy, with more than 3 million workers last year. but make no mistake, oil is still the blood that flows thus houston's economic veins, and it's felt through many parts of the economy especially housing. >> we sold 25 homes in 2015, down about 8% from 2014, which was a record year for us. >> if housing slows, many other construction jobs that come with it could also be impacted, which is also hurt consumer spending

as jobs are lotion. nobody is predicting the lights going out on the lone star state anytime soon, but if oil prices do not recover, texas and in particular houston, could be in for a rough couple years. for "nightly business report", i'm brian sullivan. thank you for watching this special holiday edition of "nightly business report." >> thanks from me as well. have a great evening, everybody, and we'll see you back here tomorrow.

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