This Week: Auto sales, PepsiCo earnings, nonfarm payrolls

A look at some of the key business events and economic indicators upcoming this week:

MORE HURRICANE FALLOUT?

Automakers release their September U.S. sales figures on Tuesday.

Sales of new cars and trucks fell 2 percent in August, reflecting weaker demand after Hurricane Harvey slammed into parts of Texas and Louisiana. The deadly storm hurt demand in the Houston area, the ninth-largest vehicle market in the nation. Hurricane Irma swept through Florida in early September. Did that storm continue to weigh on auto sales in September?

SERVING UP GAINS

Pricier snacks and drinks have helped lift sales in North America for PepsiCo this year.

The packaged food and beverage company has also cut costs and taken steps to transform its product lineup to better reflect shifting tastes. Its rollout of pricier bottled water has also done well. That's one reason Wall Street expects that PepsiCo's latest quarterly results improved from a year ago. The company releases its fiscal third-quarter earnings on Wednesday.

ALL ABOUT JOBS

Economists predict hiring in the U.S. slowed in September for the third consecutive month.

They expect the Labor Department will report Friday that nonfarm employers added 110,000 jobs in September. That would represent a drop from August, when the economy added 156,000 jobs. While the economy is still steadily generating jobs, it's doing so more slowly than it did earlier in its recovery from the Great Recession. With unemployment at a near 16-year low, fewer people are looking for work and fewer jobs are being filled.

Nonfarm payrolls, monthly change, seasonally adjusted:

April 207,000

May 145,000

June 210,000

July 189,000

Aug. 156,000

Sept. (est.) 110,000

Source: FactSet