Economy in Brief

Chain store sales rose a slight 0.1% to open the new year according to the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)-UBS survey. The up tick followed a 0.8% decline during the closing week of 2005. Solid increases earlier in [...]

Chain store sales rose a slight 0.1% to open the new year according to the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)-UBS survey. The up tick followed a 0.8% decline during the closing week of 2005. Solid increases earlier in [...]

Statistics relating to the Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia and Slovenia were released today. These countries became members of the European Union in May, 2004 and, while it will be some time before they are able and/or willing to join [...]

The 0.6% rise in the November Leading Index of the Major 7 OECD economies was the sixth consecutive monthly increase. The rise lifted the leaders' six month growth rate to 2.7%, the best since July 2004. During the last ten years [...]

The 0.6% rise in the November Leading Index of the Major 7 OECD economies was the sixth consecutive monthly increase. The rise lifted the leaders' six month growth rate to 2.7%, the best since July 2004. During the last ten years [...]

Canada's labor market was fairly firm in 2005, despite a modest reversal in employment for December, data for which were published this morning by Statistics Canada. In December, employment fell by 2,100 from November, but both [...]

Challenger, Grey & Christmas reported that job cut announcements in December rose for the fourth consecutive month. The 8.6% rise versus November to 107,822 pulled the three month average of job cut announcements up to 96,134 (-8.6% [...]

Non-farm payrolls in December grew just 108,000. Nevertheless, when averaged with a November increase revised up to 305,000 from 215,000 reported initially, the gain was a sharp improvement from the prior two months' average of just [...]