Australia’s unemployment rate fell slightly in May, in line with a seasonal shift in the job market that saw more people starting work, the Wall Street Journal reported. Employment rose by 39,700 in the month, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said Thursday, beating the expected rise of around 30,000. Economists consider the job market a point of resilience in the Australian economy, which otherwise continues to slow quickly due to the weight of elevated interest rates and rising costs. The unemployment rate fell by 0.1 percentage point to 4.0% in May from April, the ABS said.

A federal judge moved to untangle the complex bankruptcy case of a Byju’s unit by offering to rule out the arrest of a Florida hedge fund manager if he helps locate $533 million that the Indian tech company allegedly tried to hide, Bloomberg News reported. Bankruptcy Judge John Dorsey, during a court hearing yesterday in Wilmington, Del., agreed to drop an arrest order for William C. Morton, the founder of Camshaft Fund. Byju’s invested $533 million of loan proceeds with the fund last year, according to court records. The money was later moved to a U.K.

The bankruptcy regulator has proposed to reduce the compliance burden on insolvency professionals, who oversee the resolution of stressed assets, without compromising on the accuracy and the comprehensiveness of the information required for decision-making, the Economic Times of India reported. It seeks to reduce the amount of information and data that insolvency professionals are currently required to submit, according to a discussion paper floated by the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI).

China's central bank on Wednesday held a meeting to promote its financial support for affordable housing in a bid to accelerate sales of unsold housing stock, as a property crisis threatens growth in the world's second-largest economy, Reuters reported. The central bank last month set up a 300 billion yuan ($41.4 billion) relending loan facility for affordable housing, and Wednesday's virtual meeting hosted from the city of Jinan in eastern Shandong province is the latest effort to promote the facility among local governments and banks.

The European Union will apply additional duties of up to 38% on imported Chinese electric vehicles from July in a latest effort to protect home-grown manufacturers, Reuters reported. It has also launched several probes into whether Chinese clean tech producers are dumping subsidised goods on EU markets and whether Chinese-owned companies unfairly benefit from subsidies while operating inside the European Union. The European Commission, which is carrying out the investigations, says its aim is to prevent unfair competition and market distortion.

China Evergrande New Energy Vehicle’s shares fell sharply after Chinese authorities ordered the company to repay government subsidies due to its failure to meet contractual obligations, adding to its woes, the Wall Street Journal reported. Shares of the electric-vehicle unit of property developer China Evergrande Group slid 21% to 34 Hong Kong cents (4 U.S. cents) on Wednesday morning, on track for their largest one-day loss in almost a year.

Life insurers in Taiwan are issuing an unprecedented amount of bonds that pose more risks to investors, as they rush to improve their finances before a deadline to shore up capital, Bloomberg News reported. Already in 2024, Taiwan’s seven major insurance firms have sold $2.4 billion of subordinated notes that put investors behind other debt holders for claims on assets in the event of any bankruptcy. That’s a record for the first half of a year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

The number of corporate bankruptcies in Japan surged 42.9% from a year earlier to 1,009 in May, credit research firm Tokyo Shoko Research said on Monday, the Japan Times reported. The monthly number exceeded 1,000 for the first time since July 2013, when it reflected the impact of the end of funding support measures for small businesses introduced after the 2008 global financial crisis. The latest result came as many companies struggle with rising prices, as well as labor shortages mainly in the service sector.

The list of Chinese developers facing court-ordered liquidation in Hong Kong is getting longer, after a builder of homes in an affluent eastern coastal region was ordered to wind up. Dexin China Holdings Co. received the order Tuesday, three months after a petition was filed by China Construction Bank (Asia), and a year and half after it defaulted, Bloomberg News reported. A new restructuring plan was approved last year, though the developer, which builds residential as well as commercial buildings, wasn’t able to keep up with that either.

China Evergrande New Energy Vehicle Group faces the risk of losing assets such as land and equipment, the company said on Tuesday, as local administrative bodies demand repayment of 1.9 billion yuan ($261.91 million) in subsidies by its units, Reuters reported. The local bodies last month sent a letter of demand asking unit Evergrande Automotive Holdings to terminate a series of investment cooperation agreements made between the parties since April 29, 2019.