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Small businesses created 35,000 new jobs in August, but employees worked fewer hours and received less money. These are among the results of this month’s update of the Intuit Inc. (Nasdaq:INTU) Small Business Employment Index, covering the period between July 24 and Aug. 23.

MeriTalk, the government IT network, announced the results of the “Uncle Sam at Your Service: 2011 Federal Customer Experience Study,” which found that despite year-over-year improvement, just 31 percent of Americans are very satisfied with Federal customer service. Underwritten by RightNow, this new report comes out shortly after the White House released Executive Order 13571 in April 2011, calling for agencies to streamline Federal service delivery and improve customer service. The second annual study reveals that 79 percent of Americans believe the Federal government can improve customer service and that making it easier to determine where to go for an answer is the number one area Federal agencies should focus on to improve.

More than 2,000 mortgage jobs have been eliminated this year, according to the Second-Quarter 2011 Mortgage Employment Index from MortgageDaily.com. But falling rates and worsening loan performance could lead to increased hirings in the second half.

The Conference Board Leading Economic Index® (LEI) for the Euro Area increased 0.3 percent in July to 108.8 (2004 = 100), following a 0.1 percent decrease in June and a 0.1 percent decrease in May.

Gallup and Healthways, Inc. released findings from the monthly Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index® (WBI) for July 2011. The WBI composite score remains relatively high at 66.4, just one point lower than the all-time high score of 67.4 from May 2010. The Life Evaluation Index, however, which includes a self-evaluation of whether Americans are “thriving,” “struggling,” or “suffering,” declined to 48.1 in July, a 23-month low and a significant drop from June’s score of 49.9.

The annual growth rate of the broad monetary aggregate M3 stood at 2.0% in July 2011, compared with 1.9% in June 2011. The three-month average of the annual growth rates of M3 in the period from May 2011 to July 2011 stood at 2.1%, compared with 2.0% in the period from April 2011 to June 2011.

The Conference Board Leading Economic Index® (LEI) for Mexico increased 0.1 percent and The Conference Board Coincident Economic Index® (CEI) increased 0.3 percent in June.

With manufacturing rates in Mexico rapidly increasing since last year, Mexico is fast becoming a world leader in the manufacturing business, according to a recent Dow Jones Newswires story. In the first half of 2011, Mexico's production of automobiles has continued at a record pace resulting from significant demand from the Latin American market. Mexican output of cars and light trucks in the January-June period rose 14 percent to 1.23 million vehicles - a record for the first half of any year in history, according to the Mexican Automobile Industry Association (AMIA).

IBM unveiled findings from its "2011 IBM Global Utility Consumer Survey," which revealed that many consumers around the globe do not understand the basic unit of electricity pricing and other energy concepts used by energy providers. The company also identified a list of crucial behavioral patterns that have the potential to impact how providers communicate and drive motivation amongst consumers.

Men and women in the South had higher rates of divorce in 2009 than in other regions of the country, 10.2 per 1,000 for men and 11.1 per 1,000 for women, according to a new report from the U.S. Census Bureau. The national divorce rate was 9.2 for men and 9.7 for women.