emplyoment

For years, U.S. college students have been told that some majors are one-way tickets to "Would you like fries with that?" But in China, educational officials aren't just warning students away from those majors -- they plan to trim or cut them altogether.

With the latest weekly initial jobless claims declining 6,000 to 472,000, the U.S. labor market has eked out some modest improvement. Still, jobless claims need to drop below 400,000 during the next two quarters to show broad economic gains.

Massive liquidity injections in the form of monetary and fiscal stimulus seem to be the cure-all these days for any economic malady. But staggering unemployment, especially among the most vulnerable, calls for a very different response.

Modest progress this week on the employment front: Initial jobless claims fell 33,000 to 521,000 for the week ending Oct. 3, the U.S. Labor Department announced Thursday. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg News had expected initial jobless claims to total to 540,000 this week. A year ago, initial...