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Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – Hiring was strong in February with the economy adding 227,000 nonfarm payroll jobs, according to the monthly report released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday.

Although that number of jobs is enough to absorb new people entering the labor force, it wasn’t enough to make a dent in the millions who lost their job during the economic downturn. Therefore, the official unemployment rate was unchanged at 8.3 percent, with 12.8 million Americans officially classified as unemployed.

However, the employment rate did rise slightly.

The percentage of working age Americans who had a job edged up from 63.7 percent to 63.9 percent. That percentage includes the 8.1 million people who are involuntarily working part-time either because their employer cut their hours or because they cannot find full-time work. Before the recession, 89 percent or more of working age Americans had jobs.

Much of the job creation was in professional and businesses services, health care and social assistance, leisure and hospitality, manufacturing, and mining, the BLS said.

Unemployment among the major worker groups was:

• Adult men (7.7 percent)
• Adult women (7.7 percent)
• Teenagers (23.8 percent)
• Whites (7.3 percent)
• Blacks (14.1 percent)
• Hispanics (10.7 percent)

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Cairo, Egypt David Rosenberg / The Med – It’s not just Facebook and Twitter that have enjoyed surging on-line activity in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in the past year. E-commerce is growing, too, analysts say as more and more people in the Arab world use the Internet and take out credit cards.

A report by Euromonitor International, the market research company, estimates that for three key economies in the Arab world-Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Egypt-Internet retail sites pushed past the $1 billion for the first time last year.

In a forthcoming study, Euromonitor sees in-line retail sales doubling over the next five years to just over $2 billion. Saudi Arabia will account for more than half of all on-line sales, but the proportion will drop as Egypt and the UAE pace the growth, figures showed.

“Euromonitor International forecasts very healthy growth for Internet retailing in the UAE and the region as a whole,” Research Manager Sana Toukan said in e-mailed remarks to The Media Line. “This will be pushed by a rise in the number of credit cards in circulation [and] an improving economy, which will translate into a higher employment rate, meaning that people will have less time on their hands to visit shops.”

The rise in on-line sales came as much of the Middle East contends with slowing growth due to Arab Spring turmoil and more recently a slowing global economy. But Business Monitor International (BMI) says retail sales, whether it’s in all brick-and-mortar malls or over the Internet, are being spurred by rising disposable incomes; population growth especially in cities, the improving status of women, a growing middle class, expatriate wealth and the development of a modern retail infrastructure.

BMI expects retail sales in five MENA markets – Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Kuwait, Bahrain and Egypt – will grow 11 percent this year to $139.8 billion. Between now and 2015, they will climb by nearly 50 percent. Egyptian store sales growing about 60 percent from 2011 through 2015, it estimates.

The 15 percent increase in e-commerce sales charted by Euromonitor over 2010 wasn’t phenomenal by global e-commerce standards, where Christmas sales in the sluggish U.S. economy alone rose by about the same percentage. But last year’s growth in the MENA was paced by Egypt, which saw retail e-commerce sales jump by two thirds even as its economy was paralyzed by political unrest, according to Euromonitor figures.

Euromonitor predicts that Egypt’s on-line sales will jump by 3.5 times over the next five years to $447.3 million in 2016.

Analysts say Egypt’s virtual shopping spree does not come as much as a surprise. While Internet penetration and credit card use remain low, the Arab Spring generated an efflorescence of social media use among the country’s middle class as a way to tune in to events at Tahrir Square and around the country. The Arab Social Media Report by the Dubai School of Government estimates that of 15 million new users to join Facebook across the MENA region in the first 10 months of the year, more than 4 million were Egyptian.

Social media has served as a pathway into other Internet applications, with government and business both taking advantage in Egypt and elsewhere of growing Internet usage, Fadi Salem, director of the Governance and Innovation Program at the Dubai School of Government, told The Media Line.

Euromonitor’s Toukan said the rise of social media even made its impact in places like the UAE, which didn’t experience any of the political gyrations of the Arab Spring and is home to some of the world’s biggest and most lavish shopping malls. Albeit from a low base of $227 million, on-line sales in the Emirates grew 14.5 percent last year, hastening from 9 percent in 2010, Euromonitor said.

“A rise in the number of on-line stores coupled with a rise in the number of credit cards in circulation, higher number of people using social networking sites and thus seeing advertisements for online stores, have all pushed sales in 2011 in the UAE,” Toukan said.

Right now, more than half of all on-line transactions in Egypt are done through the more complicated and less flexible system of pre-paid cards, according to a survey of 1,000 Internet users from around MENA conducted for Onecard, a Saudi company that offers on-line payment accounts. The survey says the next most popular method is credit cards and cash on delivery.

But credit card usage in Egypt is growing, easing the way for on-line shopping. Synovate, a market research firm, found that increasingly number of middle and upper middle class Egyptians are using commercial banks, as against the government postal bank. More importantly they are more likely than before to take out a credit card – 72 percent had one in 2010, compared with 66 percent the year before, according to its latest figures.

Nevertheless, e-commerce has a long way to go in the region before it catches up to the level of web shopping in the West. The chief barriers remain low usage of credit cards, which are the main way people buy on-line, and deep concerns about credit card fraud. Indeed, the Onecard survey found that fears of credit card theft and fraud were by far the highest concerns among Internet users it polled.

A tit-for-tat war between Israeli and allegedly Saudi hackers over the past week may exacerbate those concerns.

Allegedly Saudi hackers, identifying themselves as Group XP, claimed more than a week ago to have gained access to 400,000 Israeli credit card accounts, although the Bank of Israel said the number of compromised accounts was far less than that. The attack prompted a group of Israelis to claim they had obtained the records of thousands of credit cards used in Saudi shopping web sites and threatened they would disclose the material if “the [Saudi] leaks continue.” Talaat Hafez, secretary-general of the media office for the Saudi banking authority, on Tuesday denied any accounts had been compromised.

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New York, NY, United States (AHN) – It’s the economy that keeps Americans up at night, on edge and worried, revealed a new CNN/ORC International poll released Friday.

Some 70 percent said that things are not going well in the United States, with just three out of 10 saying things are okay, putting the state of the economy as the top worry and the most pressing issue heading into the new year.

More than half of those surveyed, or 57 percent, said the economy is the most important issue facing the country at present, and half named unemployment as the most important issue facing the economy. The deficit came in a very distant second with 16 percent.

Even as the payroll tax extension bill looms, only 7 percent of Americans named taxes as the most important economic issue in the United States.

The CNN poll of 1.085 American adults was conducted by ORC International via phone between Dec. 16 and Dec. 18.

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New York, NY, United States (AHN) – Federal policy makers left interest rates unchanged Tuesday and also made no change to its policy of selling short term holdings and reinvesting them into longer term securities.

The Fed also reiterated its pledge to keep rates at low levels through the middle of 2013.

The Fed said the economy is moderately expanding despite some apparent slowing in global growth. They cited the high unemployment rate as being a drag on the economy.

As with its last meeting, the Fed voted 9-1 in favor, with the sole holdout being Chicago Fed President Charles Evans who asked for additional policy accommodations.

Immediately after the announcement, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped from the day’s high. At 2:30 p.m., the Dow held on to a 54-point gain, the Standard and Poor’s 500 Index was struggling to stay in positive territory, and the NASDAQ edged down 2 points.

Oil was up $2.45 to $100.46 a barrel, and gold was down a meager $5 at $1,662.80 a troy ounce.

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New York, NY, United States (AHN) – The chance the Greece will default on its debts within the next five years has soared to 98 percent as Prime Minister George Papandreou failed to reassure the world that his country can survive the euro-region debt crisis.

Fears of a Greek default sent stock markets tumbling all across the globe. Worries have mounted that Greece’s trouble may be contagious and that other European countries are poised for a similar fate. Eyes are carefully focused on Italy and Portugal for any signs of imminent financial dangers.

Greece’s government expects the country’s economy to shrink more than 5 percent in 2011, more than the 3.8 percent previously predicted by the European Commission.

The risk of contagion beyond Greece pushed credit default swaps on Portugal, Italy and France to records. The euro fell to its lowest point against the Japanese yen since 2001. The U.S. dollar strengthened, but American equities fell in sympathy.

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New York, NY, United States (AHN) – The United States stock market moved up mid-day Wednesday, recouping from the 2011 slump of the Dow Jones Industrial Average as investors see a stabilizing economy as indicated by new economic data released by the government.

Standard & Poor’s 500 Index was up 1 percent as of 12:34 p.m. The Dow climbed 0.8 percent to 11,655.01, recovering from a year-to-date loss at a swelling 7.4 percent three weeks ago. Stocks were up as the government reported growth in factory orders that outdid projections.

The S&P 500 peaked on Day 4, sustaining its rally that began Aug. 8 to almost 9 percent. The index rolled 18 percent between April 29 and Aug. 8 over issues that the economy was waning. S&P was about 5.4 percent in August, the index’s highest in more than a year.

Protracted growth has bolstered concerns over the relative safety of government debt, even after Standard & Poor’s downgrade of the U.S. credit rating on Aug. 5.

The Commerce Department reported that orders placed with U.S. factories grew in July by the largest percentage in the last four months, fueled by demand for motor vehicles and aircraft. The 2.4 percent surge was above the median projection of economists. Vehicle orders increased last month by the most in the last eight years.

Analysts expressed confidence in recent economic indicators remaining in positive territory, downplaying speculation that the economy will have another round of recession.

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Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – The Senate is scheduled to give final approval to a new debt ceiling Tuesday to save the U.S. economy from its first default in history within hours of running out of money.

The House approved the measure Monday evening.

Bickering between Republicans and Democrats continued down to the last hours before the vote.

The agreement that allows the U.S. government to borrow another $2.4 trillion also comes with tough new restraints on spending.

Spending levels would drop to the lowest levels since the Eisenhower Administration in the 1950s.

International markets reacted positively to the deal in Congress Monday. U.S. stocks rose by 1 percent when the New York Stock Exchange opened while the U.S. dollar increased in value compared to some foreign currencies.

The stock market gains were lost later in the day after a new report showed the U.S. manufacturing industry is performing poorly.

President Barack Obama admitted before the vote that he did not like the debt deal but felt there was no better option to avoid what he called “a default that would have had a devastating effect on our economy.”

Some of the first to feel the effect of the government running out of money would have been Social Security recipients and military personnel, both of whom would not have received their checks on time.

“Is this the deal I would have preferred? No,” Obama said during a press conference Monday.

“I believe that we could have made the tough choices required on entitlement reform and tax reform right now, rather than through a special congressional committee process,” he said. “This process has been messy. It’s taken far too long.”

The deal would raise the debt limit while reducing spending in two stages.

The first stage would cut $917 billion from the budget over 10 years. The second stage would require a special congressional committee to convene this year to find another $1.5 trillion in cuts by revamping the tax system and reducing social benefits.

The tax changes are most likely to eliminate tax breaks for high income individuals and corporations. Social benefit programs that could shrink under the plan include Medicare.

The higher debt limit would come on top of the nation’s current $14.3 trillion deficit. Much of the money is owed to China.

Obama administration officials said the additional $2.4 trillion in borrowing should give the U.S. government enough money to pay its bills until 2013.

“In the end, compromise won out,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said.

Former presidential candidate Sen. John McCain said the conservative sentiment created by the Tea Party helped sway the deal in favor of reduced spending instead of higher taxes.

“I agree the Tea Party movement has had an effect in that I don’t think without the Tea Party we would have had an agreement,” the Arizona Republican said in a television interview Monday on Fox News.

He said “the president had to back down” and give up “his primary position that we had to have tax hikes.”

Among critics of the debt ceiling deal is Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney.

He says the deal will result in higher taxes and a smaller military. Hundreds of billions of dollars in reduced government spending would come from the Defense Department budget.

“As president, my plan would have produced a budget that was cut, capped and balanced – not one that opens the door to higher taxes and puts defense cuts on the table,” Romney said in a statement. “President Obama’s leadership failure has pushed the economy to the brink at the eleventh hour and 59th minute.”

Other concerns are being raised by economists about the last-minute deal.

It might not be enough to prevent the U.S. economy’s credit rating from being downgraded from its current AAA level, which is the highest rating, economists say.

A downgrade would be likely to result in higher local taxes and more job cuts, according to economists.

“It definitely would have a dampening effect on the economy,” said Ellen Zentner, senior U.S. economist at Nomura Securities in New York.

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Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – Initial jobless claims declined by 29,000 to 409,000 for the week ending May 14 compared to the previous week’s tally of 438,000 claims.

That is still above the 400,000 mark. Analysts say first time unemployment compensation insurcance claims must drop below 400,000 and stay below that mark to signal the economy has turned around.

However, the less volatile four-week moving average was up by 1,250 from the previous figure, increasing to 439,000 claims.

The number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending April 30, the most recent week such data is available fell below the 8 million mark to 7,936,548, a decrease of 47,124 from the previous week.

Here is a look at which states had the largest increase in new claims for the week ending May 7.

• Alabama (+5,767)
• California (+4,015)
• Michigan (+3,122)
• Mississippi (+1,666)

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Three in four Americans name some type of economic issue as the “most important problem” facing the country today — the highest net mentions of the economy in two years. The economy in general (35%) and unemployment (22%) are Americans’ top two concerns, with the federal budget deficit in third (12%).

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CEOs at America’s largest companies were paid better last year than they were in 2007, when the economy was booming, the stock market set a record high and unemployment was roughly half what it is today.

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