Australia July part-time employment +32,200, prior +47,000.

Itochu Corp plans to enter data-center development, investing several hundred billion yen through 2030 to build about 10 facilities in Japan and lease capacity to U.S. tech giants and other corporate clients. Sites targeted include the Tokyo and Osaka metropolitan areas and Kyushu. Each centre is expected to have roughly 50 MW of power capacity; Itochu aims to bring one to two projects online per year. The scheme will sit within Itochu’s real-estate business—Itochu will acquire land and construct the centres, then sell completed assets to third parties to boost asset efficiency.

South Korea's KOSPI closed up nearly 6% on Thursday, rebounding from the prior session's selloff as semiconductor stocks led gains. SK Hynix jumped 12.73% after announcing a buyback and retirement of treasury shares and a plan to allocate more than 50% of free cash flow in 2025–27 to shareholder returns. Samsung Electronics rose 9.49% amid media reports it may announce a shareholder-return plan by month-end. U.S. Treasury proposals to support long-term Treasuries temporarily eased a recent spike in long-term U.S. Treasury yields and steadied investor sentiment, Future Asset Securities' Seo Sang-young said.