Wall Street opens higher Friday fueled by a strong jobs report

New York, NY, United States (AHN) – Stocks opened sharply higher Friday after the Labor Department reported the U.S. economy created jobs at the fastest pace in nine months.

Shortly after the opening bell on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average soared 113 points, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rose 12 points and the NASDAQ jumped 28 points.

Oil was up 64 cents to $97.13, and gold was lower by $7, last trading at $1,752.50 a troy ounce.

The Labor Department reported that nonfarm payrolls jumped by 243,000 in January, the most since April, and far exceeding economists’ expectations of a gain of just 150,000.

The strong jobs reports put the unemployment rate to a near three-year low of 8.3 percent and buoyed investor sentiment.

Market watchers will also be watching the big game Sunday. For the past 36 of 45 Super Bowls, the stock market has gone up after a win by an original National Football League team, one that traces its roots to before the merger with the American Football League, and gone down when the AFL (or newer team) is victorious.

So, Wall Street wants the Giants to win the Super Bowl.

The measure has an 80 percent accuracy rate based on the Dow Jones Industrial Averages’ annual performance.

There is not any science to it, but it is still as reliable as it gets for stock forecasting.

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More Gurkha soldiers to lose jobs in British Army

Kathmandu, Nepal (AHN) – Hundreds of Nepalese Gurkha soldiers are expected to lose their jobs in the British army in the defense ministry’s latest round of reduction in military strength.

“As part of further work on defense restructuring the British Army has announced today (17 January 2012) the arrangements for a second phase of Army redundancies,” a statement released by the British Embassy in Kathmandu said.

Around 400 Gurkhas are expected to be made redundant out of the 2,900 positions to be cut.

The Brigade of Gurkhas in the British Army has 3,740 soldiers. They have been the part of the British army for almost 200 years.

The defense review, which was published in 2010, demanded 7,000 job losses, but that figure more than doubled last year as the Ministry of Defense struggled to contain its ballooning budget. The ministry argues that the Gurkha brigade has grown too big in recent years, and is bound to face further cuts.

Opponents of the reduction say the soldiers, who are recruited from Nepal, are an easy target. A “Save the Gurkha” petition has been launched by the same group that fought successfully for the Gurkhas to have the same rights as other soldiers.

The Brigade of Gurkhas has been growing in size since modernization in 2007, which also allowed them to serve for 22 years instead of 15.

According to the British media, around 140 Gurkhas lost their jobs in the first wave of defense cuts last year.

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VP Biden promotes American Jobs Act with Alexandria police chief

Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – There was laughter and goodwill as Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday addressed a select audience of law enforcement officials in Alexandria in Virginia saying, “We need better roads, we need better bridges, we need safer streets.”

Sending a message to Congress to pass the $450-billion American Jobs Act Biden said, “We’ve got to kick start this economy that’s stalled.”

Speaking at the spacious new headquarters of the Alexandria Police Department in Alexandria, Va., Vice President Biden announced that the hosting organization had won funds for the hiring of four new officers with the almost $859,000 it received from the more than $243 million in grant funds.

Keeping the focus on American Jobs Act, Biden said, “We need to be in a position where our kids are in classrooms where there’s enough qualified teachers, where they are in fact in classes where they are safe.”

“Look, we should be doing all of this stuff even if we were growing by 8%, even if there was a 3% unemployment rate in America,” Biden. The recent unemployment rate continue to hover above 9% although it was around 7% when President Barack Obama took office in 2008.

In November 2010 the unemployment rate hit 9.8 percent for the third time since Obama signed the first stimulus bill into law. In August 2011 the unemployment rate was 9.1 percent.

Education and jobs for teachers was another major thrust of Biden speech as he talked about getting hundreds of thousands of teachers back to work.

“If anyone is gonna define what the middle class is — which is what we say this is all about — it’s a school teacher, a firefighter, a law enforcement officer. That is the definition of middle class,” Biden stressed.

Alexandria Police Chief Earl Cook thanked the Vice President for the federal grant of $900,000 but noted that he was still about 30 officers short of where he’d like to be as the department continued under pressure for nearly three years with budget cuts.

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Bombardier may cut over 1,500 jobs over loss of train contract

London, England, United Kingdom (AHN) – Bombardier said on Tuesday that it may shed 1,500 jobs at its Derby train factory in Britain after the firm lost a $4.5-billion Thameslink government contract to Siemens of Germany.

Britain’s Department for Transport awarded the contract to manufacture 1,000 train carriages for London’s Thameslink rail route to the German firm. The decision led Bomardier to place its U.K. operations under review.

In May, Bombardier warned the British government that 1,200 of its 3,000 workforce at its Derby train factory are at risk. The loss of contract would put in peril the jobs of up to 350 more Bombardier employees in engineering jobs.

John Pearson, head of Bombardier’s works committee, said he hopes the threat of job losses would force the department to review its decision to award the contract to Siemens.

A long-time employee of Bombardier pointed out that the company’s Derby plant is the last train maker in Britain. If the firm closes shop, the skills would die with the remaining workers and Britain would have to train future train builders abroad to acquire the skills.

However, a reversal of the decision by the department may no longer be possible because European Union procurement rules specify that EU states must not consider a company’s location or nationality to influence the award of contracts.

The loss of the contract contrasts with the healthier business climate for Bombardier’s jet manufacturing. Last month, Bombardier got an order at the Paris Air Show for 10 CSeries aircraft from an unnamed European company. The contract was worth $628 million.

It is Bombardier’s eighth overall order. The firm got in the same air show 10 aircraft orders from Korean Air Lines , on top of 10 options and 10 purchase rights from the Asian air carrier.

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Slow US economy added only 54,000 jobs in May

Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – The latest US employment report revealed a major slowdown in the number of jobs created in May with the economy only adding 54,000 jobs to payrolls, not even enough to keep up with growth in the workforce.

It was a sharp contrast to April when the economy added 232,000 jobs added to payrolls, according to the US Department of Labor report released Friday.

However, even the April figures were not much help in bringing down the high unemployment rates created by the recession that officially ended in June 2009.

That is because economists say the nation needs to create around 200,000 jobs each month just to keep up with new people entering the labor force for the first time. But job creation has not picked up and new graduates are having a trouble getting their first job.

To put the nation’s unemployed back to work would require consistently creating more than 200,000 jobs monthly for a decade or more.

The disappointing creation of only 54,000 non-farm jobs basically left unchanged the unemployment rate of 9.1 percent and the number of people unemployed at around 13.9 million, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report.

It also left the percentage of working-age Americans who have either a part- or full-time job unchanged at 64.2 percent for the fifth consecutive month. Before the recession at least 89 percent, or more, of all working-age Americans had a job.

Long-term unemployment rates, defined as those who were jobless for 27 weeks or more, increased by 361,000 to 6.2 million. In addition, their share of the unemployed increased to 45.1 percent.

Unemployment rates among major worker groups were:

• adult men (8.9 percent)
• adult women (8.0 percent)
• teenagers (24.2 percent)
• whites (8.0 percent)
• blacks (16.2 percent)
• Hispanics (11.9 percent)

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Graduates in northern Sri Lanka demand government jobs

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka (IRIN) – Peace dividends have yet to reach thousands of unemployed graduates returning to Sri Lanka’s northernmost, conflict-affected Jaffna District.

In Jaffna, the impact of graduate unemployment is significant and more pronounced compared with other areas of Sri Lanka’s Northern Province, with limited state employment opportunities and few alternatives, local graduates and professors say.

According to Muthukrishna Sarvananda, principal researcher at the Jaffna-based Point Pedro Institute of Development, a private social science research institution, the dearth of opportunities in an area once ravaged by war is taking its toll.

“It is an important aspect of developmental planning and the [unemployment] numbers are presumed to be large,” Sarvananda said.

Addressing this problem is important to prevent the disenfranchisement of youth, a contributing factor to the country’s 26-year civil war in the north that ended in May 2009, experts say, and will prove key to the country’s future peace and stability.

Some say the Sinhalese majority, mostly in central and south Sri Lanka, had long enjoyed better access to education and jobs than the Tamil minority, in the north.

Despite the war coming to an end and a consequent increase in the country’s economy and decrease in overall unemployment, graduates claim the divide continues, with rising unemployment and poverty in the Northern Province.

In Jaffna alone, 6,000 graduates are finding that state jobs are not available.

Post-war economic boom

According to the Department of Census and Statistics, the national unemployment rate was 4.5 percent in 2010. The government attributed this decrease, from 5.8 percent in 2009, to the post-war economic drive attracting foreign direct investment.

Yet, there is little reflection of this emerging prosperity in Jaffna, said the president of the Unemployed Graduates Committee, Thyagaraja Dhanam. “Nobody pays attention to our plight,” he said.

Unemployment statistics do not include Northern and Eastern provinces and a district breakdown is not available for the entire Northern Province. “The rate [in Jaffna] is expected to be more than double the national rate of unemployment,” Sarvananda said.

Sunil Navaratna, the Higher Education Ministry Secretary, told IRIN more than 400,000 students sit for university entrance each year, with only about 20,000 succeeding.

He said every year at least 6,000 graduate and more than half join the unemployed, with 42,500 jobless graduates nationwide.

“This is despite schemes to absorb them. Of course the Northeast is worst affected as job creation is still low despite many initiatives,” he said.

Private sector doors closed

Jaffna’s graduates say they see a number of industries – private companies and banks – moving to their province, creating jobs that elude them.

“There aren’t many opportunities in the private sector. The practice is to bring employees from the south, excluding locals,” Muhunthan Sivayohanathan, an unemployed graduate, said.

However, according to one private business operator in Jaffna interviewed by IRIN, such graduates are “unemployable”, because they have no information technology skills and lack English proficiency.

Sarvananda agreed, saying universities needed to increase the calibre of both their staff and graduates. But he said perhaps a boom in private sector opportunities was imagined.

“There are small private companies coming in, but there are no strong corporate sector investments. The centralized system does not encourage it. The ongoing projects generating employment are all government-driven,” he said.

Government jobs, please

The young graduates feel it is the government’s role to absorb the unemployed into the public sector, but high expectations of government jobs will likely not be the answer.

Jaffna Government Agent Imelda Sukumar said young graduates fixated on public sector employment had to seek alternatives. “They demand government jobs. They should be open-minded about the private and non-governmental sectors that generate significant employment,” she said.

Be it public or private sector, graduate or not, there is a need to consider the whole picture, insists Saroja Sivachandran of the Jaffna-based Centre for Women’s Development.

“The Jaffna youth did not have opportunities to develop skills and pursued higher education despite serious difficulties. The state has a responsibility to devise special programmes post-war, to ensure they have opportunities for growth and suitable employment,” she said. Adding a new, inclusive recruitment policy should require a percentage of jobs go to local youth.

According to the Deputy Minister of Youth Affairs, Duminda Dissanayake, the government was mindful of the unique situation in the north.

“Through different divisions, skills development, vocational training and youth development we try to cater to this need,” he said.

dh/nb/ds/mw

– Provided by Integrated Regional Information Networks.

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Slighly higher unemployment rate despite more jobs in April

Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – The unemployment rate grew 9 percent in April despite the economy adding more jobs than was expected.

The Labor Department said on Friday nonfarm payroll increased 244,000 during the period, boosted by gains in the service, manufacturing and mining industries. In the private sector, 268,000 jobs were added while the federal and state governments lost 24,000 jobs.

There was an increase of 51,000 positions during the month in the professional and businesses services, specifically in technical consulting and coputers systems design.

Jobs related to healthcare rose 37,000, largely due to a 22,000 increase in employment in ambultory healthcare. Hospitals accounted for 10,000 jobs.

In the hospitatility industry, there was continued growth with 46,000 more jobs, mainly from a 30,600 spike in employment in accomodation and food services.

Manufacturing added 29,000 jobs to the economy and mining 11.4 percent.

Despite the gains, the unemployment trate rose to 9 percent in April from 8.8 percent in the previous month.

The number of jobless Americans remained little changed at 13.7 million. Those unemployed for less than five weeks rose by 242,000, but the number of jobless for at least 27 weeks dropped by 283,000 to 5.8 million.

There was virtually the same number of people involutarily working part-time, at 8.6 million.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) used the jobs report to assail the White House for “causing renewed uncertainty for private-sector job creators, crowding out private investment and punishing small businesses and entrepreneurs who are willing to invest.”

“While any improvement is welcome news, job growth in America is still nowhere close to what it should be,” the Republican leader added.

“Over the past month, rather than joining Republicans in focusing on policies that promote long-term economic growth to help balance the federal budget, the Democrats who control Washington have indicated they are planning to increase taxes and allow the government’s spending binge to continue.”

But the White House pointed out that there was an averge of about a quarter of a million private sector jobs created each month for three consecutive months.

“We’re pleased about that. We obviously have a lot more work to do,” presidential spokesman Jay Carney told reporters. “The recession cost the American labor force 8 million jobs and we’re still digging ourselves out of that hole.”

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32 to Lose Jobs in Bank Takeover

At least 18 employees of former Housing Bank and 13 from Rwanda Development Bank (BRD) will lose their jobs after the latter finalised the takeover of the former, according to BRD’s top …

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Bank of America reportedly to cut 1,500 jobs

LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) — Bank of America Corp. plans to slash 1,500 jobs at its mortgage-origination arm, according to a Dow Jones Newswires report Thursday. The bank also intends to shift another 350 position from home-loan origination to handling troubled existing loans, the report said, citing a Bank of America spokesman.

Market Pulse Stories are Rapid-fire, short news bursts on stocks and markets as they move. Visit MarketWatch.com for more information on this news.

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US Korea Free Trade Agreement to boost export and create thousands of jobs

Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – The Free Trade Agreement between the United States and South Korea would not only help boost exports, but would create thousands of jobs in the country, a top Obama Administration trade official told lawmakers on Thursday.

“The US-Korea trade agreement will strengthen our trade and investment ties to Korea’s $1 trillion economy,” the Deputy US Trade Representative, Demetrios Marantis, said at a Congressional hearing on US-Korea FTA.

“It will bind a key ally closer to us, anchor our economy to the dynamic Asia Pacific region and help us keep our edge over international competition. Most importantly, this agreement will create substantial export opportunities, establish strong enforcement provisions and support tens of thousands of new export-oriented jobs,” he said.

Marantis said the Korea agreement is just a first example of how this administration has worked to make the trade agreements better. “The President has underscored his intention to present pending trade agreements to Congress once we have adequately addressed key outstanding concerns. In December, we did so with Korea,” he said.

The USTR official told the House Ways and Means Committee that the Obama Administration negotiated with Koreans for a successful trade agreement.

“We leveled the playing field by addressing key non-tariff barriers in Korea’s auto safety and environmental regulations. We encouraged green technologies by immediately cutting in half Korea’s tariffs on electric cars and eliminating these tariffs within five years,” he said.

“We negotiated a tariff structure that will give American auto companies and their workers a chance to build more business in Korea before U.S. tariffs come down, and we negotiated a new special motor vehicle safeguard,” Marantis said.

Responding to questions from Committee Chairman Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Tx), on his concerns about America’s textile industry, Marantis said 75 percent of US textile and apparel exports to Korea would receive duty-free treatment immediately upon implementation of the agreement. “That’s really important because Korea is becoming a larger destination for U.S. textile and apparel exports,” he said.

“We have a special textile safeguard in the agreement that allows us to address instances when increased imports may cause serious damage to the industry producing like or directly competitive products,” he argued.

Marantis said Korea is a critical strategic ally of the United States. “What we’re doing as part of the free trade agreement is helping to bolster the economic pillar of the US strategic relationship. A strong, prosperous South Korea is very much in the strategic interests of the United States, which is why negotiation, conclusion and ratification and entry into force of this agreement, is a win-win for both of us,” he said.

“It’s good for both the South Korean economy and the US economy, and as a result, it’s a good tool to help bolster a very important ally,” the official said. “As soon as the agreement goes into force, we begin to eliminate the 40 percent tariff on beef,” Marantis said in response to a question.

Marantis argued this agreement provides the highest level of labor and environmental protection that the US has had in the history of trade agreements, as does Colombia and Panama as well. “This agreement requires both parties to adopt and maintain laws that are consistent with the five core ILO labor standards. It requires the parties to effectively enforce those laws as well as laws that relate to acceptable conditions of work, like minimum wage. It requires parties not to waive or derogate from the provisions that achieve a trade or investment advantage. And the standards on the environmental side are equally high,” he said.

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Walvis Logistics Park to Create 11 000 Jobs

THE Namibia Angola Housing Initiative (NAAHI) and the Namibian Port Authority (Namport) have signed a memorandum of understanding to develop a multi-million-dollar international logistics park at …

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US Postal Service announces voluntary buyouts to trim 7,500 administrative jobs

Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – The U.S. postal With the national unemployment rate running at 9.5 percent The U.S. Postal Service announced Thursday it is offering buyouts to eligible employees in an effort to cut 7,500 administrative jobs.

Postal officials hope the $20,000 buyout packages encourage enough workers to retire early to achieve the reduction of 7,500 employees.

The Voluntary Early Retirement plan and financial incentives is being made available only to employees who work as career nonbargaining personnel at “headquarters, headquarters-related field units, area offices and administrative personnel at customer service district offices,” USPS officials said in a statement.

Employees can choose to leave by May 31. But with the nation’s unemployment rate running at 9.5 percent, this buyout might not achieve its target, which was the case in 2009 when a buyout expected to encourage 30,000 workers to voluntarily retire only drew 21,000 takers.

USPS officials also said they wanted to close seven struggling district offices located around the country.

The postal service has seen a decline in mail volume and revenue as it competes with use of the Internet, as well as competition from companies such as UPS and FedEx.

Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe put the situation into perspective.

“It’s critical that we adjust our workforce to match America’s changing communications trends as mail volumes continue to decline,” Donahoe said. “At every step and with every change, our focus remains on our customers and continuing to provide outstanding customer service.”

The district offices are not used for mail delivery or collection. The offices slated for closing are located in Columbus, Ohio; Troy, Mich.; Carol Stream, Ill.; Providence, R.I.; Macon, Ga.; Big Sky, Mont.; and Albuquerque, N.M.

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Eagle County has lost 6,000 jobs in recession

EAGLE COUNTY, Colo. – Since the Economic Council of Eagle County was created in 2003, the group has dealt almost exclusively with how to deal with unchecked growth. Not anymore. After years of reports about housing shortages Copyright 2011 The Aspen Times. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. The Aspen Times Eagle County has lost 6,000 jobs in recession January, 26 2011 4:28 am MST

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British supermarkets to create 32,000 jobs in 2011

London, England, United Kingdom (AHN) – While High Street retailers report disappointing Christmas sales, supermarkets raked it in during the 2010 yearend holiday.

This year appears to be another banner year for the grocery retailing sector as Britain’s largest supermarkets announced Monday the creation of at least 32,000 jobs as the grocers open more outlets.

Largest supermarket chain Tesco will hire more 9,000 workers as it opens 292 stores this year, while second largest chain Asda will add 184 more outlets and employ 7,500 people, partly because of Asda’s buy-in of Netto, Morrisons will open 19 more stores and create 3,000 more jobs, and Waitrose 39 more outlets.

Sainsbury’s said it will create 6,500 jobs in 2011, part of the 20,000 target the third largest British supermarket chain has set in the next three years as it expands operations in the north, Scotland and Wales.

The new jobs will add to the 2.9 million people already employed by the British retail industry, which is equivalent to 11 percent of the country’s labor force.

The opening spree indicates the resilience of the grocery retailing sector, which is growing at a yearly rate of 3.1 percent and expects to be worth $270 billion (GBP 180 billion) by 2015, according to an industry expert.

However, the new jobs could not make up for the 330,000 public sector jobs to be lost this year because of the austerity measures put in place by the coalition government.

Another sector expected to take a blow in offering employment opportunities is the finance sector. According to a Chamber of British Industries and PricewaterhouseCoopers survey released Monday 30,000 jobs were lost from October to December 2010. It is the fastest pace of job losses in the sector in 17 years.

Another 15,000 workers in the finance sector are expected to become jobless this quarter adding to the 970,000 who have lost work since the onset of the global financial crisis. Just prior to the crisis, employment in the finance sector in Britain hit 1.1 million, but went down below the 1 million mark at the start of 2010 and had not recovered since then.

Despite the sector’s recovery mode, businesses were still laying-off staff to maintain profitability.

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Fed Chair tells Senate committee deficit plan will add jobs

Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Friday called on the Senate Budget Committee to come up with a deficit reduction plan, saying he expected moderately more economic recovery in 2011 than in 2010, but not at a rate sufficient to make much of a dent in the unemployment rate.

He told the committee he foresees an unemployment rate of around 8 percent in two years and said it will take an additional four or five years beyond that to get the labor market back to normal. Bernanke also said he was not concerned about consumer inflation, as it has declined each year since the recession; however, wages have also declined.

Bernanke told senators that some sort of deficit reduction plan was necessary to reassure investors in order to boost the financial markets.

In addition, Bernanke told the committee members that a stable job market was the central bank’s first priority. He explained that coming up with a credible plan to do something to stabilize the job market now was essential to moving forward. Bernanke explained that because the economic recovery was still so fragile that it was not enough to say they were not doing anything now because of the recession and that they would do something later.

Bernanke told the committee that right now they needed to take into account the low rate of economic activity.

About two-thirds of the nation’s economy is dependent on consumer spending. However, with so many consumers out of work, fewer people have paychecks to spend. The percentage of Americans who have jobs fell again in December. According to a report released Friday morning by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 64.3 percent of working-age Americans had either a part- or full-time job in December.

Bernanke told the committee that the persistently high rate of unemployment is damping household income and confidence and that it could threaten the recovery’s strength and sustainability.

The Fed chair also defended his controversial $600 billion bond buying plan, saying it would not cost taxpayers in the end. He said the quantitative easing programs would yield excess profits to the Fed of $125 billion that it will remit to the Treasury.

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