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Chnages to Mexico's labor laws passed in Congress and to be signed by president Calderon include companies having to pay only one year of back wages to laidoff workers for lawsuits on unfair dismissals. The law also formalized part-time work and temproary training contracts. The effort is likely to foster greater formalization of the workforce and push fewer workers into the underground economy. About 29% of Mexican workers are in the underground economy, where worker protections and legal benefits are lacking. Also made part of the law an yearly audit of union finances and election by secret ballot for unions. Mexico's large public sectors form a core base for support of the newly elected PRI government.

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The unemployment rate drops to 6.3% in April 2014, as a significant number of Americans stop looking for jobs they cannot find. 288,000 new jobs were created in April 2014, according to the Labor Department. Yet the participation rate has declined to 62.8%, the lowest in three decades, and wages are up only about 1.9% from the prior year month. The unemployment rate which counts involuntary part-time workers and workers discouraged and not looking for a job was 12.3% for April 2014.

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A win-win for Toyota with more room for hybrid sales and the Biden administration showing it is listening to Americans worrying about the cost of living, by making change to EV's more realistic. New Biden EPA rules that allow for slower acceptance of EV's in the early years till 2030 and accelerate in 2031 and 2032 to reach climate goals  create more room for hybrids . This vindicates Toyota Motor's strategy to put emphasis on hybrids in the transition to all EV's. Toyota has a significant presence in the hybrid market which has picked up in 2024 as the lack of charging station infrastrucure and cost of EV's limit growth till cost comes down and EV charging infrastructure is put in place. Ironically Akio Toyoda planned the transition to a new CEO in the belief that he had not changed Toyota's strategy fast enough to match competitors in development of new EV's when sales of EV's boomed in prior years before this years slowdown. The Biden administration coming around to the view that climate goals could be reached by accelerating in the latter part of the years to 2032 when new technologies cut cost and investments in charging infrastructure made it realistic. Its a win-win for all as it also meets Biden base support labor and auto union concerns about jobs with a too quick transition, and shows the Nation that Democrats are listening to voter concerns about cost of living. ...

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Mortgage and other loans taken out at lower interest rates, before the US central bank the Fed started raising rates  in March 2022, is a big part of US household debt. This fact is helping to soften the impact of the Fed's increase of rates by 5% over 16 months. The increase in rates helps savers and retirees earn more on savings kept in CD's. The cut in inflation from 9% in 2022 to 3% in July 2022 helps increase the purchasing power of money. It also helps keep the US economy stronger than other world economies, with the Biden economic plan of increased business investment underpinning strong economic growth of 2.4% in the second quarter of 2023. Wars are not a distraction or cost burden for the economy, with Biden shutting down 2 wars in the Middle East and South Asia. Lessons were learned and Biden has been resolute about this, also giving a singular focus to his plan for rebuilding and renewing America on multiple fronts, infrastructure, fighting climate change, inflation, business investment, and fair taxation so that the fruits of labor are shared equally by all of America's people. Doing this required a clear vision, resolute purpose, and a path to action for each step. Biden has done that in ways that only a few presidents have done in the past. In doing this he has shown that America stands for hope and a better future, a land as he never fails to repeat, a land of possibilities. ...

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A transcript of remarks by Ben Benrnake as Fed Governor on Dec. 9, 2003, at meeting of the Federal Open Market Comittee which makes monetary policy in the USA. Bernanke is teling his colleagues here that it would be amistake to choke off growth unnecessarily by raising rates, that critics who say inflation is a threat are not well informed, and that the Open Market Comittee should remain patient. Here he points out that the large decline in the share of the population that is working -with one survey showing household employment at 2.9 million jobs below normal at that time- suggesting that employment could rise significantly before seeing pressure on wages and unit labor costs. With the underutilization of labor, the withdrawal of people from the full time labor force, and increase in parttime employment, there are todfay anumber of changes ocurring in the labor markets that build additional slack into the system from what the unemployment rate of 9% today would suggest. A similiar case could be made today with factory capacity utilization at 68% and dropping, and manufacturing hard hit and seeing a permanent downsizing in industries like automobiles. What about raw materials prices? Bernanke shows agraph of historical data, that suggest convincingly he says, even very large movements of raw materials prices appear to have muted effects on intermediate goods prices and no discernible effects on final goods inflation. The reason for this is that raw materials prices are only asmall portion oftotal costs, and unit labor costs are a far larger factor in inflation determination that raw materials prices. And at that time as is happening today wage growth is slow or negative. What about the dollar falling in value making imports more expensive, which we face today? Here Bernanke says that asimilar anlysis applies to the dollar. Large movements of the dollar he says, translate into smaller movements against the U.S. trade-weighted basket of currencies, and into smaller effects on import prices because of imperfect pass-throughs. And he goes on to say that the nonoil import prices, in turn, are are a relatively modest part of the overall price index, making the ultimate effects quite small. This analysis by Bernanke of the impact of rising raw materials prices and falling dollar having a muted effect, and the important role slack and underutilization of labor in the labor markets play in inflation, helps respond to critics like Laffer and others who say inflation is a threat and call for changes in the policy course the Fed has set....

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Companies added 159,000 jobs in October 2010, the US Labor Department reported. Most of the jobs were in retail and temporary help services and in health services. Retail added 28,000, temporary help services added 34,900 jobs, education and health services added 53,000 jobs. The unemployment rate for the US still remains at 9.6%. And the broad measure of unemployment, including people who are working part-time because no full time work is available, plus people who have given up looking for work, remains high at 17%.

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Germany is struggling to deal with the 2.4 million asylum seekers entering the country since 2015. It is getting overwhelmed by the scale of migrants even though immigrants are needed in parts of the economy. In Austria and Poland new restrictions are being placed to stop migrant flow. Denmark has a socialist government that is restricting migrants from entering the country. Britain under Starmer and Labour has made cutting migrant flow a major priority, the Tories failure to cut migrants flow led to its defeat in 2024.

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On Canada's Justin Trudeau- looking back at his 10 years 2015-2025 mostly inherited the work of his father. He tackled Covid, improved childcare, tackled the renegotiation of trade with Republicans in the US, but lacked the major achievement of the 1970's of Pierre Trudeau setting up Canada as an independent state. The Washington Post looks at the political career of Justin Trudeau. He is the son of former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, a politician from Quebec, who was prime minister from 1968 to 1984 except for one year in 1979-1980. During that period Pierre Trudeau a lawyer practicing labour law in Montreal and educated at the University of Montreal had three significant accomplishments. Canada Act of 1982 passed into law by Queen Elizabeth and the British Parliament, set up Canada as a sovereign state. Prior to this only the British Parliament could amend the Canadian Constitution under the Dominion Act of 1867 under Queen Victoria. As a Quebeker Pierre Trudeau succeeded highly respected Lester Pearson as head of the Liberal Party, and held off the Party Quebecois's effort for separatism in the early 1980's. By 1981 the Canadian Supreme Court 9-0 rejected the Party Quebecois bills that conflicted with the Charter of Rights set up under the Canada Act which protected minorities in Quebec having education in English.   ...

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The US added 103,000 jobs on net in December 2010, acccording to the Labor Department. The jobs were mainly added in leisure and hospitality (especially the food services and drinking places subsector ) and in health care. Payrolls for other industries show no growth. A different government survey, which is based on how many people are without jobs but are actively looking for work, fell to 9.4% in December 2010 from 9.8% in November. But part of the reason for this is that many people stopped looking for jobs.

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June's employment numbers in the U.S. from the Labor Department show only 80,000 jobs were added. Job creation dropped in the second quarter to about 75,000 a month from the average of 226,000 in the first quarter 2012. Part of the reason for the higher figures in the first quarter was unseasonably warm weather during that period. Manufacturing added fewer jobs in June, down to 11,000. Healthcare added 13,000 jobs. Of 12.7 million people unemployed, the number of people unemployed for more than 6 months is 42% of the total or 5.4 million.

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The Labor Department reports 321,000 seasonally adjusted nonfarm employment jobs were added in November 2014. The unemployment rate in the U.S. now is at 5.8%. Average hourly earnings showed an increase of 0.4% over the prior month, and up 2.1% from the prior year. At the same time not much improvement is seen in parttime workers looking for full time work with 6.9 million in part time work. About 2.8 million people were out of work for more than 6 months, 30.7% of the unemployed workers, in Nov. 2014.

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China's jobs situation is holding up better than expected with lower levels of economic growth. In 2014 there were 115 job openings for every 100 applicants, according to an official labor survey. Part of the reason is that the services sector is playing a larger role in growth. The services sector contributed 3.8% to growth in 2014, compared to the slower growing manufacturing sector, which contributed 3.0 percentage points. With problems in heavy industry and real estate this is reducing the need for larger stimulus spending. Official figures for GDP growth in 2014 are 7.4%.

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The Indian federal elections started on April 19 and will take place in phases for 960 million voters the largest of any country in the world in mountains in Ladakh to desert around Jaisalmer to the seas around Vizag and Kotchikode. It will take about 6 weeks to complete by June 1 and final results to be announced June 4. The voting is done using portable electronic boxes. It is still one of the great wonders of the world that its crazy no one talks about it and is a demonstration that India has taken the best of its own democratic traditions dating back to the time of the Buddha 563-483 BC. "It may come as a surprise to many to know that in the assemblies of Buddhists in India two thousand and more years ago are to be found the rudiments of our own parliamentary practice of today." This is Rab Butler, who was born in Attock, India and the leading parliamentarian of Britain who set up the post war education system of the United Kingdom, the longest serving minister in Britain from 1941, Home Secretary under Churchill to Foreign Secretary during Suez Crisiz in 1956, under Macmillan as Home Secretary in 1964, the best parliamentarian Britain had to offer in the 20th century. Butler served under Viceroy of India in 1910, and worked hard as India Secretary to pass the India Act of 1935 that gave India its first parliamentary style assemblies and elections. His idea even in the 1920's was for India to gain Dominion dominion status similar to Canada and Australia with a democracy, and was opposed by Churchill. Churchill knew his own weakness and supported Rab Butler as the younger Conservative who would revive the Conservative Party- his 1977 book The Conservatives. Cooperation with Hugh Hugh Gaitskill of Labour Party right into the 1970's made Britain a stronger country, which is how the Education Act 1944 was passed to make free education to all children to age 16.  Much of it broken since 1980 in 50 years of failed Conservative policy leading to the chaos of the Conservatives today, and an effort to spread that chaos to the US. ...

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Dell is mired in two touch manufacturing for PC's which is costly especially for the more labor intensive manufacture of notebook computers. It is now planning the sale of all production asssembly factories to contract manufacturers. For Dell a contract manufacturer in Asia puts together the parts for a PC and the its assembled at a Dell plant hence the term two-touch. HP has more than half of its manufacturing done by contract manufacturers and its more cost effective so Dell is caught in a more costly production process which it could do with deskops for bsiness but not viable for notebooks.

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All sectors of the U.S. economy see an increase in hiring, including retail, transportation, healthcare and manufacturing, as the economy adds 288,000 jobs in June, according to the Labor Department. Manufacturing added 16,000 jobs, transportation 17,000 and the public sector increased jobs by 26,000. Hiring also picked up for high school graduates compared to the poor record in 2013. In 2013 one Barclays economist says the jobs for high school graduates at this point were declining by 16,000 a month on yearly basis. He says employers are now adding 29,000 jobs for high school graduates a month in 2014. The unemployment for high school graduates declined to 5.8% in June 2014, for persons with some college education or an associate degree 5.0%, for college graduates 3.3%. Barclay's estimate is that the U.S. added an average of 231,000 jobs a month for the first half of 2014. The inflation rate remains at about 2%, giving the U.S. Fed more flexibility in setting rates to support jobs growth. The lower unemployment rate of 6.1% understates the underemployment, as a more accurate measure of employment which includes people working part time because they cannot find jobs is at 12.1%. The proportion of Americans in the labor force is also at a 36 year low of 62.8%. These two indicators for unemployment, unemployment including people working parttime, and the proportion of Americans in the labor force, combined with inflation, are the main indicators Fed chairmam Yellen is looking at....

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American Airlines share price ended at $1.98, down 33%, on Oct. 3, 2011. AMR averted bankruptcy protection in 2003. This is the lowest level for the share price since 2003. AMR suffers from higher labor costs than other large airlines that went through bankruptcy and realigned costs. AMR says its labor costs are $800 millon higher than its competitors. AMR says it has $4.2 billion in unrestricted cash as of Sept 30, 2011, a decline from the $5.1 billion on June 30, 2011. Debt obligations due for AMR are $2.5 billion for 2011, $1.8 for 2012 and $1 billion in 2013. AMR raised $726 million in aircraft- backed bonds to refinance part of $1.3 billion in debt obligations due in second half of 2011. AMR has ordered 460 new fuel efficient aircraft in a lease financing deal offered by Boeing that does not stress AMR's balance sheet. Fears that AMR is burning cash with its expected operating loss caused Moddy's to change its outlook for AMR to negative from stable. AMR had $17.1 billion in total debt on June 30, 2011....

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ECB president, Mario Draghi, is interviewed at his office in Frankfurt by the Wall Street Journal's Blackstone, Karnitschnig, and Thomson. Draghi quotes economist Rudi Dornbusch, who told him in the old days that the Europeans were rich enough to afford paying for it if everybody didn't work. Draghi, was head of the Bank of Italy, before becoming president of the ECB. He is acutely aware of the problems faced by Italy and other countries like Spain which have let labor markets become rigid, with extensive job protections and generous benefits for the unemployed. The result is that employers are reluctant to hire and young people face high unemployment rates- as high as 50% in Spain. For this reason Draghi sees the old social model in Europe as obsolete and already out. Draghi's sees austerity measures and spending cuts with the structural changes underway in Spain, Italy and other countries as the only way to generate economic renewal. On the Long Term Financing Operation launched by the ECB in Dec. 2011, Draghi says there was agreement within the ECB and the decision was unanimous. He makes it one of his objectives to achieve as much consensus as he can, to do what is right for Europe and to do it together with his colleagues in the ECB and the EU. That financing operation, and the binding deficit controls achieved at a recent summit of European leaders, he sees as all part of the pathway to fiscal union. ...