By PAUL WISEMAN, AP Economics Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — Employers posted 7.4 million job vacancies last month, a sign that the American job market continues to cool.

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The Labor Department reported Tuesday that job openings in June were down from 7.7 million in May and were about what forecasters had expected.

The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) showed that layoffs were little changed in June. But the number of people quitting their jobs — a sign of confidence in their prospects elsewhere — dropped last month to the lowest level since December. Hiring also fell from May.

Posting on Bluesky, Glassdoor economist Daniel Zhao wrote that the report “shows softer figures with hires and quits rates still sluggish. Not dire, not amazing, more meh.”

The U.S. job market has lost momentum this year, partly because of the lingering effects of 11 interest rate hikes by the inflation fighters at the Federal Reserve in 2022 and 2023 and partly because President Donald Trump’s trade wars have created uncertainty that is paralyzing managers making hiring decisions.

On Friday, the Labor Department will put out unemployment and hiring numbers for July. They are expected to show that the unemployment rate ticked up to a still-low 4.2% in July from 4.1% in June. Businesses, government agencies and nonprofits are expected to have added 115,000 jobs in July, down from 147,000 in June, according to a survey of economists by the data firm FactSet.

The seemingly decent June hiring numbers were weaker than they appeared. Private payrolls rose just 74,000 in June, fewest since last October when hurricanes disrupted job sites. And state and local governments added nearly 64,000 education jobs in June – a total that economists suspect was inflated by seasonal quirks around the end of the school year.

So far this year, the economy has been generating 130,000 jobs a month, down from 168,000 last year and an average 400,000 a month from 2021 through 2023 during the recovery from COVID-19 lockdowns.

Employers are less likely to hire, but they’re also not letting workers go either. Layoffs remain below pre-pandemic levels.

Xcel Energy reported more than 2,500 power outages in and around the Twin Cities on Tuesday morning, impacting more than 71,000 residents, following powerful Monday night thunderstorms that downed branches across the state.

About 2,600 power outages were reported statewide and into western Wisconsin, including 220 outages in St. Paul alone, cutting power to more than 5,200 people in the capital city.

It may take days for some homes to regain electricity, according to the utility.

South of Rochester, Minn., the MiEnergy Cooperative reported another 2,500 customers without power in the region that spans Fillmore, Mower and Houston counties and extends into northern Iowa.

The National Weather Service in Chanhassen reported hail, heavy rain and high winds in storms that moved across Minnesota and western Wisconsin from about 5 p.m. Monday to 2 a.m. Tuesday.

Xcel Energy maintains an online map of power outages at tinyurl.com/XcelOutage.

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By ANNE D’INNOCENZIO, Associated Press Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Consumer products giant Procter & Gamble offered an annual earnings outlook that was below analysts’ projections and said it would raise prices on about a quarter of its products in the U.S. in part due to higher costs from President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

The assessment delivered Tuesday comes a day after the Cincinnati-based maker of such products as Crest toothpaste, Tide detergent and Charmin toilet paper, named Shailesh Jejurikar, currently chief operating officer, to succeed Jon Moeller as the company president and CEO, effective Jan. 1, 2026. Moeller, who has been at the company’s helm since November 2021, will become P&G’s executive chairman.

FILE – This is a display of Procter and Gamble Crest toothpaste in a Costco Warehouse in Pittsburgh on Thursday, Jan. 26, 2023. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)

The price increases, which will be implemented starting next month, will be in the mid-single digit percentages and will also be combined with improved features in the products, P&G’s Chief Financial Officer Andre Schulten told reporters on a call on Tuesday after the release of its fiscal fourth-quarter results.

In April P&G said it was doing whatever it could to reduce higher costs from Trump’s expansive tariffs, from shifting sourcing to changing formulation to avoid duties. Back then, Schulten told reporters on a call that the consumer products giant still would likely have to pass on higher prices to shoppers as early as July.

P&G on Tuesday estimated that tariffs will increase its costs by about $1 billion before tax for fiscal 2026.

The price increases come as P&G said its consumers have become more cautious, digging deeper into their pantry inventory before going on a shopping trip, focusing on larger pack sizes at clubs and focusing on deals.

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“The consumer clearly is more selective in terms of shopping behavior in our categories, and we see a desire to find value,” Schulten told reporters Tuesday.

But Schulten believes that when price increases are combined with improved features on products they resonate with customers. He declined to give specifics but noted that with its baby care brand Luvs, the company boosted prices while making some improvements a few months ago, and it was able to increase market share.

P&G reported net income of $3.62 billion, or $1.48 per share, for the quarter ended June 30. That compares with $3.14 billion, or $1.27 per share, in the year-ago period. Analysts were expecting $1.42 per share, according to FactSet analysts.

Sales rose to $20.89 billion, in line with what analysts predicted. That was up from $20.53 billion in the year-ago quarter.

For the current year, P&G expects earnings per share in the range of $6.83 to $7.09. That was below the $7.23 per share that analysts predicted. The company expects annual sales to be up anywhere from 1% to 5% for the year.

By WILL WEISSERT and DARLENE SUPERVILLE, Associated Press

BALMEDIE, Scotland (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump opened a new golf course bearing his name in Scotland on Tuesday, capping a five-day foreign trip designed to promote his family’s luxury properties and play golf.

“Let’s go. 1-2-3,” Trump said before he used a golden pair of scissors to cut a red ribbon and fireworks popped to mark the ceremonial opening of the new Trump course in the village of Balmedie on Scotland’s northern coast.

“This has been an unbelievable development,” Trump said beforehand. He thanked his son Eric for his work on the project, saying it was “truly a labor of love for him.” Son Don Jr. also was present.

Eric Trump said the course was a “passion project” for his father.

Immediately after the opening, Trump, Eric Trump and two professional golfers teed off on the first hole. Trump rarely allows the news media to watch his golf game, though video journalists and photographers often find him along the course wherever he plays. Trump planned to play 18 holes before he arrives back in Washington on Tuesday night.

The overseas jaunt let Trump escape Washington’s sweaty summer heat and humidity while questions about the case of Jeffrey Epstein followed him across the Atlantic Ocean. But it added to a lengthy list of ways the Republican president has used the White House to promote his brand.

Billing itself as the “Greatest 36 Holes in Golf,” the Trump International Golf Links, Scotland, was designed by Eric Trump. The course is hosting a PGA Seniors Championship event later this week before it begins offering rounds to the public on Aug. 13. Signs promoting the event were seen all around the course on Tuesday, while temporary signage on the highway guided drivers onto the correct road.

Golfers hitting the course at dawn as part of that event had to put their clubs through metal detectors as part of the security procedures for Trump’s arrival.

The day combined two things close to Trump’s heart: golf and Scotland. His mother, Mary Anne MacLeod, was born on the Isle of Lewis and eventually went to New York. She died in 2000 at age 88.

“My mother loved Scotland,” Trump said Monday during a meeting with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer at another of his golf courses, Turnberry, on Scotland’s southern coast. “It’s different when your mother was born here.”

He appeared to be in such a good mood that he even praised the throng of journalist who had assembled to cover the event, saying there was no “fake news” on the course.

“I didn’t use the word ‘fake news’ one time, not one time,” Trump said.

Trump worked some official business into the trip by holding talks with Starmer and reaching a trade framework for tariffs between the U.S. and the European Union’s 27 member countries — though scores of key details remain to be settled. But the trip has featured a lot of golf, and the presidential visit is sure to raise the new course’s profile.

Trump’s assets are in a trust, and his sons are running the family business while he’s in the White House. Any business generated at the course will ultimately enrich the president when he leaves office, though.

Visible from around the new course are towering wind turbines lining the coast, part of a nearby windfarm Trump sued to try to block construction of in 2013.

He lost the case and was eventually ordered to pay legal costs for bringing it — and the issue still enrages him. During the meeting with Starmer, Trump called windmills “ugly monsters” and suggested they were part of “the most expensive form of energy.”

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“I restricted windmills in the United States because they also kill all your birds,” Trump said. “If you shoot a bald eagle in the United States, they put you in jail for five years. And windmills knock out hundreds of them. They don’t do anything. Explain that.”

Starmer said in the U.K, “we believe in a mix” of energy, including oil, gas and renewables.

The new golf course will be the third owned by the Trump Organization in Scotland. Trump bought Turnberry in 2014 and owns another course near Aberdeen that opened in 2012.

Trump golfed at Turnberry on Saturday, as protesters took to the streets, and on Sunday. He invited Starmer, who famously doesn’t golf, aboard Air Force One so the prime minister could get a private tour of his Aberdeen properties before Tuesday’s ceremonial opening.

“Even if you play badly, it’s still good,” Trump said of golfing on his course over the weekend. “If you had a bad day on the golf course, it’s OK. It’s better than other days.”

Superville reported from Washington.