Business and Finance

SATURDAY

Email marketing — SCORE St. Louis is holding a workshop on using email and search engines effectively to reach your customers.

— 9 a.m. at the St. Charles Economic Development Center, 5988 Mid Rivers Mall Drive, St. Peters.

— $30. Register: www.stlscore.org or 314-539-6600

MONDAY

Workplace wellness — Regional and national experts will discuss wellness trends and practical ideas for area employers in a “workplace wellness” summit.

— 7:30 a.m. at the Spencer Road Branch Library, 427 Spencer Road, St. Peters.

— Free. Register: 636-441-6880

TUESDAY

Corporate networking — The Jewish Federation of St. Louis will host a “meet and greet” corporate and professional networking session paperless payday loans.

— 9 a.m. at the Hard Rock Café, St. Louis Union Station.

— Free. Register: 314-442-3731 or kweintraub@jfedstl.org

THURSDAY

Business leadership — The Walker Speaker Series presents a panel discussion on “Leadership Lessons from the Corner Office.”

— 5:30 p.m. at the East Academic Building, Webster University, 545 Garden Avenue, Webster Groves.

— Free. Register: www.webster.edu/speakers or 314-246-5973

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Sean Chua expected the hunt for his first job after college to be tough. After all, he watched his brother struggle to find a position when he graduated back in 2008. But his fears were unwarranted. The 21-year-old justice major at American University sent out only seven resumes before getting an offer earlier this month from IBM for an IT consulting job, making him a beneficiary of a turnaround in the labor market for U.S. graduates. “My mom’s first position was with IBM so she is particularly proud,” says Chua. Hiring is back in a big way on many college campuses, one of several signs a recovery in the U.S. jobs market is gaining traction. After four years during which many students graduated to find no job and had only their loans to show for their studies, most college campuses are teeming with companies eager to hire. A survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) found 2012 hiring is expected to climb 10.2 percent, above a previous estimate of 9.5 percent.

Companies such as General Electric, Amazon, Apple and Barclays Global are looking for new staff, even if some firms remain below the pre-recession levels of new hiring. In another sign of the recovery, some first-time job seekers are receiving multiple offers.

At University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, the career service office has seen up to now a 7.4 percent increase in the number of interviews of students by potential employers from last year and the number of companies seeking to recruit for full-time jobs is up 9.2 percent. Undergraduate business majors reporting full-time job offers is up about 10 percent.

Career experts at a dozen of U.S. schools said they have seen an increase of 15 to 30 percent in the number of companies attending campus career fairs. At University of Florida, the fall career fair garnered 15 percent more companies in attendance than in 2010. And 150 companies asked to conduct interviews versus about 100 in recent years, said Ja’Net Glover, associate director of employer relations at the school. The increase in demand was so significant that it was the first time in years the school had to use both the first and second floors of the school’s basketball facility for interviews.

“It’s kind of like a no-brainer,” says Kathy Sims. Director of Career Services at UCLA. “The economy is better and the college recruitment market is improving.”

While the U.S. jobless rate fell to 8.3 percent in February, unemployment among college graduates over the age of 25 stood at 4.2 percent. Historically, their jobless rate is half that of Americans with only a high school education. Over the recession, unemployment among graduates climbed as high as 5 percent, sparking protests over the rising tuition cost of some U.S. colleges. U.S. unemployment data for March, due for release on April 6, is expected to show a total of just over 200,000 jobs were created in the month, keeping the overall unemployment rate at 8.3 percent.

BACKLOG FROM PAST YEARS, INTERNS SOAR

College graduates’ earnings are also on the rebound payday loans with no fax. NACE says the median wage for first-time job seekers after college for 2012 is up 4.5 percent higher than a year ago to $42,569.

That initial pay level can resonate over the span of a career. Several studies show that the life-time earnings for workers who enter the labor force at time of economic recession are lower than lifetime earnings of those who are hired amid an economic recovery. Given the tepid recovery of the economy, some caution is required. In 2008, many college graduates who had already accepted job offers were later away. After the run of lean years, many graduates are stuck in low-paying jobs and professions that never intended to follow, meaning there could be a backlog of well-educated workers who need to get their careers on track as well as new graduates. However, with a wide range of employers — from automakers to investment banks — back on campus offering internships and full-time jobs, and not just to engineering, computer science and math majors, the outlook for the Class of 2012 looks rosy.

General Electric wants to hire 5,000 interns this year, up from its usual 3,000 to 4,000. Since 70 percent of its full-time hires come from the interns pool, Steve Canale, head of global recruiting, said that uptick will also translate into more full-time jobs after graduation. “(Companies) are saying, ‘we have an aging workforce, and we have to replenish the pipeline.’ GE has always done it, but this year a lot of other companies are also reloading their talent pool,” Canale said.

Chrysler said it plans to hire 400 interns this year compared to 256 in 2011. The automaker has also hired almost 4,000 salaried employees since June 2009, about a quarter of which are new college graduates. The pick-up in hiring extends to industries that were among the hardest hit during the financial crisis. Schools report that banking and financial services companies have returned to campus for the Class of 2012.

It’s a stark contrast from just a few years ago when smaller firms appeared on campuses to replace the corporations no longer showing up.

“Even students with lower grades are finding opportunities,” says Notre Dame’s Svete, who believes job placement at the school is up about 7 percent. In 2009, only 75 percent of students had jobs or plans for graduate school at graduation. This year, the school expects that to climb to 85 to 88 percent, closer to the 90 percent level of 2007.

Nathan Pace, a senior at American University, hasn’t yet found a job, but is confident for his future job. He started the college four years ago and he has since seen each class of graduating seniors have better luck finding jobs.

Many of his friends recently secured job offers. “The vibe on campus is that people are excited,” says Pace.

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The U.S. Treasury Department said on Friday that it is selling the remaining 2,770,117 common shares it holds in Central Pacific Financial Corp (CPF.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) at $13.15 a share for expected proceeds of $36 million.

Treasury put $135 million into the company as part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program during the financial crisis and, after the latest sale, will have received proceeds back of $71 payday loan lenders.9 million.

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The British government’s intention to tax the humble Cornish pasty, a cheap pastry savory snack much beloved by workers and students, has opened a new front in the country’s never-ending class war.

In his U.K. budget last week, Finance Minister George Osborne announced he would close a loophole which allowed some fresh-baked takeaway items _ including pies, sausage rolls and pasties (PASS-tees) _ to escape a 20 percent sales tax.

The move, however, has caused a media storm, with tabloid headlines portraying the new tax as an attack by the Conservative-led government on working class life.

This Tuesday, Osborne faced questions from a parliamentary committee on aspects of his budget _ which included such macroeconomic measures as a cut in the top rate of income tax, a lowering in the personal tax allowance for retired people and reduction in corporation tax. But is was the levy on the lowly pasty _ a mixture of meat and vegetables encased in pastry that was first baked for tin miners of 17th century southwest England _ that generated all the headlines.

“I can’t remember the last time I bought a pasty in Greggs,” Osborne told a parliamentary committee on Tuesday, referring to a low-price snack shop chain.

“That kind of sums it up,” responded Labour Party lawmaker John Mann, a former union official.

The storm rolled into Wednesday when, at a press conference to discuss London’s readiness for the Olympics with International Olympic Committee chairman Jacques Rogge, Prime Minister David Cameron was compelled to pledge allegiance to the pasty.

“I am a pasty eater myself,” he declared to reporters.

Cameron said he last ate one in Leeds, though not at a Greggs. “I have a feeling I opted for the large one, and very good it was, too,” the Oxford-educated prime minister said.

Greggs bakeries, a purveyor of fast-food, including 140 million sausage rolls per year, saw its shares slump 5.5 percent last week on news of the new tax.

Greggs chief executive Ken McMeikan met Treasury officials on Tuesday to plead his case and afterward said the government had “lost touch” on the issue.

“For ordinary, hardworking families, putting 20 percent on to a product that is freshly baked actually is going to make a severe dent in their pockets,” he said in a BBC interview.

The opposition Labour Party has often charged Cameron’s government with being “out of touch” with the average Briton, a message party leader Ed Miliband repeated while standing outside a Greggs shop.

Even a Conservative legislator, Nadine Dorries, has said Cameron and Osborne “don’t know what it’s like to go to the supermarket and have to put things back on the shelves because they can’t afford it for their children’s lunchboxes. What’s worse, they don’t care either.”

The National Federation of Fish Fryers jumped into the debate, calling the present tax provision “an utter mess” and wondering why their hot food taxed when the bakery next door was exempt.

The government expects the levy on sausage rolls and pasties, effective Oct. 1, to raise 105 million pounds ($167 million) in the first full year. A Treasury consultation paper drily noted that the change would only hit “individuals and households that purchase products that are affected by this change.”

Under current law, shops like Greggs’ have to charge sales tax _ called Value Added Tax _ on hot takeaways including soup and hot sandwiches. Pasties and sausage rolls are exempt because after baking they are left to cool in unheated cases.

Extending the tax to rolls and pasties is no simple change. According to the finance ministry, the tax now applies to food “heated for the purposes of enabling it to be consumed at a temperature above the ambient air temperature and which is above that temperature” when purchased.

The proposed change would tax any food hotter than the ambient temperature, but could pose difficult issues: do you check the temperature of the inside of the sausage roll or pasty, or the cooler crust? Might the buyer ask to have it cooled to get it tax-free?

Osborne denied that the government would be poking a thermometer into every pie and roll. Tax officials and bakers would simply agree on the portion of total sales which would be affected, he said.

“There are perfectly sensible ways of working this out,” Osborne said.

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U.S. stocks were poised to open higher Monday as Fed chairman Ben Bernanke’s comments on the job market gave investors reason to believe interest rates will stay low.

The Dow Jones industrial average (), S&P 500 () and Nasdaq () futures were higher. Stock futures indicate the possible direction of the markets when they open at 9:30 a.m. ET.

In an address Monday to the National Association for Business Economics, the Federal Reserve chairman said that while recent jobs data have been positive, "the better jobs numbers seem somewhat out of sync with the overall pace of economic expansion."

Futures edged higher during Bernanke’s speech, as his comments suggest the central bank is prepared to keep interest rates low for an extended period of time.

A report on pending home sales is due later Monday, following a number of reports on the housing market last week, which provided a mixed picture of the sector. The housing market remains a source of worry despite other indicators suggesting the broader economy is improving.

U.S. stocks closed slightly higher Friday after moving unevenly throughout the day, but the Dow and S&P 500 both closed the week down. Only the Nasdaq was able to claw out a weekly gain.

Investors’ enthusiasm was dampened by a series of dour economic reports out of China that underscored concerns about slower growth in the world’s second largest economy.

Despite the off week, the S&P 500 is up 11% for the year while the Dow is 7% higher. The Nasdaq is up nearly 18% in 2012.

World markets: European stocks were mixed in afternoon trading. Britain’s FTSE 100 () shed 0.2%, the DAX () in Germany gained 0.6% and France’s CAC 40 () was flat.

Asian markets ended little changed. The Shanghai Composite () and Japan’s Nikkei () added 0.1%, while the Hang Seng () in Hong Kong was flat.

Economy: Pending home sales for February are expected to have increased by 0.5%, after ticking up by 2% in January, according to a survey of analysts by Briefing.com.

Companies: Shares of Lions Gate Entertainment () were up more than 9% in premarket trading after a gangbusters opening weekend for the studio’s post-apocalyptic teen death match film "The Hunger Games."

BATS Global Markets, an equities and options exchange operator, started trading Friday at $15.25, after pricing its initial public offering at $16, the low end of its estimated range.

BATS: Well, this is awkward

Trading was halted in late morning, however, as the exchange said it was investigating system issues, and by day’s end, BATS announced it had withdrawn its IPO.

A BATS spokeswoman said Friday that the company had no further plans to go public at present.

Currencies and commodities: The dollar strengthened against the euro, the British pound and the Japanese yen.

Oil for May delivery slipped 11 cents to $106.76 a barrel.

Gold futures for April delivery fell $2.30 to $1,660.10 an ounce.

Bonds: The price on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury dropped, pushing the yield up to 2.28% from 2.24% late Friday.  

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Less than two years after tightening some financial regulations in the Dodd-Frank Act, Congress appears ready to loosen others in the name of job creation.

The Jumpstart Our Business Startups bill – known as JOBS, of course – would reduce the red tape involved in making an initial public stock offering, and make it legal for businesses to solicit investors over social media, a process known as crowdfunding.

The bill also would roll back some longstanding investor protections. The Securities and Exchange Commission, AARP, the AFL-CIO and the Consumer Federation of America have all expressed concerns that the bill will lead to a surge in investment fraud.

The North American Securities Administrators Association, a group of state regulators, calls the bill “an investor protection disaster waiting to happen.” The group’s president, Nebraska official Jack Herstein, said in a statement that the JOBS bill creates “new jobs for promoters of Internet investment scams.”

“Investors won’t return to the IPO market if they don’t believe they can trust it,” SEC Commissioner Luis Aguilar says in a statement on the agency’s website. He also calls the legislation “a boon to boiler room operators, Ponzi schemers, bucket shops, and garden variety fraudsters.”

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Stock futures are declining as strong earnings from U.S. companies are being overshadowed by a week’s worth of disquieting economic reports from China and Europe.

The Dow Jones industrial average futures are down 27 points to 12,974 and Standard & Poor’s 500 futures are off 1.6 points to 1,387.3. Nasdaq 100 futures are down less than a point at 2,730.50.

The Commerce Department is expected to report Friday that for the fifth time in six months, more Americans bought new homes cash advance in one hour. On three days so far this week, housing reports have suggested that the worst is over in a sector that has dragged heavily on the U.S. economy.

But investors can’t seem to shake the thought of a hard landing for China, or of an slow recovery in Europe.

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Deep in Republican oil country, President Barack Obama is fending off criticism of his energy policies, pointing to plans to fast-track an oil pipeline that emerged after he delayed the larger Keystone XL project earlier this year.

Obama was directing federal agencies Thursday to expedite a 485-mile line from Oklahoma to refineries on Texas’ Gulf Coast that would remove a critical bottleneck in the country’s oil transportation system. The directive would also apply to other pipelines that alleviate choke points.

“We’re drilling all over the place,” Obama said in Maljamar, N.M., on Wednesday, standing alongside oil rigs on federal land. The president was announcing his plans for the expedited pipeline, a southern portion of the original Keystone XL, in Cushing, Okla., where construction is expected to begin this spring.

In oil fields and amid acres of solar panels, Obama is trying to rebut charges that he has stifled domestic energy production and been too eager to spend government money on renewable energy projects as gas prices have climbed to $3.86 a gallon. His emphasis on oil drilling is aimed at countering criticism of his rejection of the 1,700-mile Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry tar sands oil from western Canada to refineries along the Texas Gulf Coast.

For Obama’s advisers, rising gas prices pose a threat to his re-election bid because they could undermine the benefits of a payroll tax cut that he made the centerpiece of his jobs agenda last fall _ Congress approved the tax cut extension in February _ and throttle the economic recovery.

Republicans view rising gas prices as emblematic of Obama’s energy record and hope to tag him with the blame even though no president has much control over prices at the pump. Gas prices have risen more than 50 cents a gallon since January in response to a standoff over Iran’s nuclear program that has threatened to disrupt Middle East oil supplies.

GOP presidential hopeful Rick Santorum, campaigning at a Harvey, La., company that services oil rigs, said Obama’s administration should open more federal lands for leases to boost U.S. oil production and revenue for the federal government.

“Here’s an opportunity for us in this country to do something about it: increasing jobs, lowering energy prices, decreasing the deficit, all of the things you would think the president of the United States would be for,” Santorum said.

Mitt Romney, Santorum’s chief rival for the Republican nomination, has labeled Obama’s top energy advisers as the “gas hike trio,” urging the president to fire three Cabinet secretaries because of the high prices.

The status of the Keystone XL pipeline has been a focal point in the heated political fight over energy development.

Calgary-based TransCanada said it hopes to complete the $2.3 billion Oklahoma-to-Texas section next year after receiving the last approvals it needs to start construction. Many of the permits and environmental reviews already have been completed as part of the larger Keystone project, company officials said.

Republicans questioned whether the executive actions by Obama would speed up the pipeline’s construction and said it reiterated the need for the larger Keystone XL pipeline.

“The American people can’t afford more half-measures on energy from the president. No matter what he says, the reality is he killed the Keystone pipeline and the energy production and 20,000 jobs that went with it,” said Kirsten Kukowski, a Republican National Committee spokeswoman.

Obama’s energy tour was also aimed at defending his administration’s support of renewable energy projects, an agenda tarnished by his administration’s decision to pump millions into California solar company Solyndra before it collapsed.

In an interview with American Public Media’s “Marketplace” on Wednesday, Obama noted that the funding came from a loan guarantee program approved by Congress to help renewable energy companies, some of which would not succeed.

“Do I wish that Solyndra had gone bankrupt? Absolutely not. And obviously it’s heartbreaking what happened to the workers who were there,” Obama said. “When you look at the overall portfolio, is it right for us to make sure that we’re not just cashing in our chips and letting the Chinese or the Germans develop the technologies that we know are going to be critical in the future? I’m proud to say that we’re going to continue to support it.”

Electoral politics remain close to the surface. Nevada and New Mexico remain top targets on Obama’s 2012 election map, and while Republican stronghold Oklahoma will get scant attention from his political team, taking his message to the site of a future oil pipeline allows him to strike back at his chief critics on energy.

Obama was ending the day with a stop in battleground Ohio, talking about automobile research and development at Ohio State University in Columbus. The president has cited his decision to raise fuel efficiency standards to 55 miles per gallon for new vehicles by 2025 as an important step in conserving oil and saving consumers at the gas pump.

Obama has repeatedly invoked his decision to rescue General Motors and Chrysler from collapse with billions in federal aid, a move that saved hundreds of thousands of auto assembly and supplier jobs in Ohio, Michigan and elsewhere. Romney opposed the bailout, and Obama’s team intends to make it a stark contrast between the two candidates if the former Massachusetts governor wins the GOP nomination.

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The Federal Reserve paid $75.4 billion to the U.S. Treasury as an expanded bond portfolio generated $83.6 billion in interest income from its open-market operations last year.

The Fed

World stock markets were mixed Monday as doubts about Greece’s ability to follow through with tough economic reforms required under an international bailout overtook good news about the U.S. economy.

Benchmark oil rose fell below $107 per barrel while the dollar was higher against the euro but lower against the yen.

Britain’s FTSE 100 fell 0.4 percent to 5,941.15. Germany’s DAX dropped 0.6 percent to 7,114.64 and France’s CAC-40 lost 0.7 percent to 3,568.63.

Wall Street was poised to fall, with Dow Jones industrial futures down 0.3 percent to 13,130 and S&P 500 futures slipping 0.3 percent to 1,294.30.

Debt-loaded Greece recently qualified for a second multibillion dollar bailout after its private creditors took significant losses on their bond holdings to avoid losing even more money in a Greek bankruptcy. Now, new doubts are emerging about whether Greece will be able to deliver on austerity promises that were part of the bailout deal.

“Officials remain concerned about the ability of Athens to politically deliver on the tough economic-overhaul policies, especially considering that the forthcoming elections in Athens may mean new leaders aren’t as committed to reforms,” Stan Shamu, market analyst with IG Markets in Melbourne, Australia said in an email.

In Asia, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index fell 1 percent to 21,115.29 as falling home prices in China and its weak trade in the first two months of 2012 kept investors’ verve in check.

New home prices dropped in 45 Chinese cities in February, the official Xinhua News agency said, the result of government policies intended to cool property speculation.

Evergrande Real Estate Group lost 3.7 percent, and Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, the world’s biggest bank by market value, lost 1.5 percent.

Further evidence from the U.S. last week that its economic recovery is gaining strength buoyed stocks elsewhere in Asia. The U.S. is a crucial market for the region’s exporters.

The Dow Jones industrial average is up 8.3 percent this year, and the Nasdaq on Friday broke through 3,000 for the first time since the dot-com days more than a decade ago.

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 finished higher for the fifth session in a row and recorded its highest close since a disastrous earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011. The index gained 0.1 percent to 10,141.99.

South Korea’s Kospi index added 0.6 percent to 2,047 and Australia’s S&P ASX/200 rose 0.3 percent to close at 4,290.80. Benchmarks in Singapore, Taiwan and Indonesia fell.

In mainland China, the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index gained 0.2 percent to 2,410.18. The Shenzhen Composite Index rose 1.1 percent to 993.75.

Benchmark oil for May delivery was down 32 cents to $106.74 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose $1.95 to finish at $107.06 per barrel.

The euro fell to $1.3153 from $1.3171 late Friday in New York. The dollar fell to 83.08 yen from 83.36 yen.

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Follow Pamela Sampson on Twitter at http://twitter.com/pamelasampson

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