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Labor productivity - defined as output per hour – rose in wholesale trade, retail trade, and food services and drinking places, in 2010, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported.

A new survey of consumer goods manufacturers and importers shows that the dual trends of weak inventory sales and rising prices paint a dark picture for the upcoming holiday season.

In August, the Economic Sentiment Indicator (ESI) declined by 5.0 points to 97.3 in the EU and by 4.7 points to 98.3 in the euro area. This decline resulted from a broad-based deterioration in sentiment across the sectors, with losses in confidence being particularly marked in services, retail trade and among consumers. Only the construction sector in the euro area recorded an improvement.

The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index®, which had improved slightly in July, plummeted in August. The Index now stands at 44.5 (1985=100), down from 59.2 in July. The Present Situation Index decreased to 33.3 from 35.7. The Expectations Index decreased to 51.9 from 74.9 last month.

Experian Automotive announced that lenders continued to increase their appetite for risk in Q2 2011, with new vehicle loans for customers with credit outside of prime increasing by 22.4 percent, when compared to the previous year. In Q2 2011, 22.29 percent of all new vehicle loans went to customers in the non-prime, subprime and deep subprime categories, increasing from 18.21 percent in Q2 2010.

Mobile payments, though they have yet to take off substantially in North America, are a hot topic, with major companies like Google joining startups in the space and hoping to grab a slice of billions of dollars in potential transactions. Research firms disagree on the current size of the nascent market, but project strong growth in mobile payments and their users.

Due to the recent financial and economic crisis, global corporate losses have increased significantly. Numbers at stake are vast, with loss carry-forwards as high as 25% of GDP in some countries. Though most of these claims are justified, some corporations find loop-holes and use ‘aggressive tax planning’ to avoid taxes in ways that are not within the spirit of the law.

From January to July, the industrial profits of enterprises above designated size achieved 2,800.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 28.3 percent.

HireRight, a leading provider of employment screening solutions, announced that the often discussed “mismatch” in the employment sector between available jobs and people qualified to fill them is supported by the HireRight 2011 Employment Screening Benchmarking Report. Forty-nine percent of the report’s nearly 1,800 surveyed professionals, from organizations of all sizes, reported that finding and retaining quality talent was one of their top business challenges, virtually matching “cost-cutting” as their top response. Within the field of talent management, attracting and retaining experienced workers was reported as the number one issue.

In a year when major disasters have impacted many areas of the United States, less than a third (31 percent) of business owners in a recent Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index survey said their businesses are extremely or very prepared for such disasters, with another 46 percent indicating they are only somewhat prepared. Over half (54 percent) indicated they are not concerned about a disaster impacting their business.