Business and Finance

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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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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UPDATED at 9:40 a.m. with St. Louis activity.

Apple’s latest iPad drew die-hard fans to stores in the U.S. and nine other countries Friday, many of whom lined up for hours to be among the first to buy one.

The third version of the iPad went on sale at 8 a.m. local time, with 25 other countries getting it a week later. The new model, at prices starting at $499 in the U.S., comes with a faster processor, a much sharper screen and an improved camera, though the changes aren’t as big as the upgrade to the iPad 2.

“I don’t think it’s worth the price but I guess I’m a victim of society,” Athena May said in Paris.

About 450 people lined up outside Apple’s Ginza store in downtown Tokyo. Some had spent the night sleeping outside the store. In Madison, Wis., people brought reclining lawn chairs for naps, while a few played games on older iPads.

Customers also gathered outside the two St. Louis-area Apple stores before they opened Friday. At the Galleria store, about 100 people were waiting when the store opened at 8 a.m., a sales specialist said.

“It was a party atmosphere,” said the specialist, who requested her name not be revealed because company policy does not allowed her to be quoted in the media.

The Galleria store opened two hours early to accommodate the anticipated rush of customers to buy the new iPad. An early opening also was scheduled for Saturday.

Apple customers also showed up early at the store at West County Center, a store representative said.

In London, Dipak Varsani, 21, got in line at 1 a.m. Thursday and said he was drawn by the new device’s better screen.

“You’ve got clearer movies and clearer games,” he said. “I use it as a multimedia device.”

In Hong Kong, a steady stream of buyers picked up their new devices at preset times at the city’s sole Apple store after entering an online lottery.

The system, which required buyers to have local ID cards, also helped thwart visitors from mainland China - Apple’s fastest growing market - who have a reputation for scooping up Apple gadgets to get them earlier and avoid sales tax at home. A release date in China has not yet been announced.

Kelvin Tsui, a 26-year-old hospital worker in Hong Kong, was allowed to buy two and planned to sell the second to make money.

Two years after the debut of the first iPad, the device’s launch has become the second-biggest “gadget event” of the year, after the annual iPhone release. Customers could have ordered iPads ahead of time to arrive at home Friday, but many came out in person for the atmosphere.

“People always stop to talk to us,” Harry Barrington-Mountford, 22, said in London. “I am exhausted though, I have only had about 45 minutes of sleep.”

Christos Pavlides got to a downtown Philadelphia store at 10 p.m. Thursday and was the first in line. He already owns the two previous iPad models and several iPhones and figures the new iPad was next.

Despite competition from cheaper tablet computers such as Amazon.com Inc.’s Kindle Fire, the iPad remains the most popular tablet computer. Apple Inc. has sold more than 55 million iPads since its debut in 2010.

For some customers, standing in line was the only chance to get a new iPad on Friday. Apple quickly ran out of supplies it set aside for advance orders. The company was telling customers Thursday to expect a two- to three-week wait for orders placed through its online stores. Some buyers feared even longer waits.

Tim Bryant of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.

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Chinese state television has accused McDonald’s and French retrailer Carrefour of selling expired chicken products in separate incidents amid public anxiety in China over food safety.

McDonald’s Corp. and Carrefour Inc. issued public apologies Friday and said they were investigating the report by China Central Television.

The report Thursday said a McDonald’s restaurant in Beijing sold chicken wings 90 minutes after they were cooked while the company’s rules set a 30-minute limit. It said employees at a Carrefour store in the central city of Zhengzhou changed expiration dates on some chicken and sold regular chickens as more expensive free-range birds.

Food safety is a sensitive issue in China, which has been rocked by scandals ranging from deadly infant formula to chemical-laced pork and recycled restaurant oil.

“McDonald’s China attaches great importance to this. We will immediately investigate this isolated incident, resolutely deal with it earnestly and take concrete actions to apologize to consumers,” said a statement by the U low fee payday advance.S.-based restaurant chain on its website.

Employees who answered the phone at McDonald’s China headquarters in Shanghai said a spokeswoman was not available and declined to give any other details.

Carrefour, based in Paris, said it was setting up a team to investigate and would cooperate with Chinese authorities.

“We will further enhance the training and take measures to ensure to earnestly implement the relevant provisions to safeguard the interests of consumers,” said a statement on the website of Carrefour’s China unit.

Last year, U.S. retailer Walmart Stores Inc. was fined by authorities in the southwestern city and 13 stores were ordered to close for two weeks on charges of passing off regular pork as higher-priced organic meat.

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Daniel Macias is the face of Silicon Valley seldom seen by those who don’t live there.

When he was 19, he wasn’t starting what would become one of the world’s most successful tech companies, like Mark Zuckerberg did at that age when he founded Facebook. Macias spent his 19th birthday behind bars, where he’d been sentenced for assault.

Now 20, Macias spent a recent day learning to build houses as part of a construction job training program near Facebook’s headquarters. He hopes to join the carpenters union when he finishes the program.

“If I wasn’t going to school, I would have been in the streets,” Macias said.

Money and jobs abound in Silicon Valley for people with the right high-tech or business skills. For those who don’t, the Great Recession has meant the same challenge as anywhere else in the country.

Facebook moved into its new offices on the former campus of Sun Microsystems along San Francisco Bay not long before announcing plans for an initial public offering. Inside, employees wrestle with the enviable problem of what to do with their money once the IPO makes them overnight millionaires.

A short drive down the road, East Palo Alto saw the number of murders double from four to eight, a significant spike for a city of just 28,000 people. Average income hovers just under $18,000 annually, compared to more than $66,000 for Silicon Valley as a whole. The unemployment rate in December was 17 percent, compared to 8.3 percent region-wide.

Those disparities stem in part from the complicated histories of the small cities that span the Highway 101 corridor threading through the heart of Silicon Valley, and in part from national economic trends that have spared few struggling communities. They also reflect some changes unique to the most recent tech boom, fueled by social media, cloud computing and mobile apps.

As per capita income rises in region, the median income has fallen, suggesting that as some people are getting richer, more are making less. The percentage of students in Silicon Valley public schools receiving free or reduced-price lunches has increased steadily over the past several years, an indication of hard times for more families.

Data on these economic trends are collected every year in the Silicon Valley Index, compiled by local nonprofit analysts. This year’s report highlighted the recovery of the region’s high-tech economy as wildly successful companies like Facebook go on hiring sprees.

But that recovery has not had the same ripple effect on the region as a whole compared to previous tech booms, said Russell Hancock, head of Joint Venture, one of the groups behind the index.

In the past, companies like Hewlett-Packard Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. brought mid-level jobs to Silicon Valley along with the expected science, engineering and management positions, Hancock said. But globalization has sent the manufacturing jobs overseas online pay day loans. Meanwhile, information technology has made once-plentiful clerical and office positions obsolete.

“The technologies that we invented here have actually eliminated entire classes of jobs,” Hancock said. Without those jobs, the prospects for workers without high-end tech skills have become even more challenging:

“If you took away tech, our region would look like any other region, maybe even worse,” he said.

The contrast between the haves at Facebook and the have-nots in East Palo Alto nearby has stirred some tension. City Councilman Carlos Romero is pushing for the company to do more to address traffic and the resulting air quality issues created by the influx of new workers. He also worries that especially after Facebook’s IPO, newly flush employees will start buying up the city’s relatively affordable real estate close to their offices and send housing prices spiraling higher than low-income residents can afford.

“This is not about making sure that Facebook doesn’t come into the community,” Romero said. “This is about making sure East Palo Alto is not left out.”

Nearly half of Facebook’s employees take some form of alternative transportation, and the company is placing a hard cap on the number of vehicles allowed on and off campus to keep traffic down, said Facebook spokesman Tucker Bounds. Facebook has also been working with local developers on efforts to build housing for employees on vacant land near the campus to lessen the impact on the existing housing market, Bounds said.

Facebook has initiated some outreach into the surrounding community, including support for the program where Macias is learning to be a carpenter, known as JobTrain.

Kail Lubarsky, director of marketing at JobTrain, said no graduates have gotten jobs with Facebook yet, but she said she’s working with the company in hopes of establishing an internship program. JobTrain has culinary arts training that could lead to jobs for students in Facebook’s cafeterias. But the real goal is to place students in entry-level jobs that could let them advance to join the ranks of the in-demand coders, designers and executives who thrive most in Silicon Valley.

At JobTrain, some students said they were gunning for Facebook jobs. But many said they were simply grateful for the chance to start over, to get a foothold in an economy that has challenged many of them, even in a place where on paper the recovery is in full swing.

Macias said he sees parallels between his effort to get ahead and the Facebook employees up the road, whom he sees as average people who worked hard and succeeded.

“They took advantage of opportunities,” he said.

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Markets were optimistic Monday that Greece will finally secure a massive but long-delayed international bailout, allowing the debt-crippled country to avoid defaulting on its debts next month.

A surprise easing in monetary policy in China over the weekend also added to the buoyant mood in markets _ many stock indexes are trading at multi-month highs, while the euro has recovered its poise.

The main focus of attention _ on a day when Wall Street will be shut for a public holiday _ will be Brussels, where the finance ministers from the 17 eurozone countries are gathering to discuss the elusive Greek bailout deal.

After some eurozone countries suggested last week that they might prefer Greece to default, the latest comments indicate the ministers will approve th euro130 billion ($171 billion) bailout. Greece has struggled to convince its partners in the eurozone, particularly Germany, that it will enact the austerity and reform measures in return for the cash.

France’s finance minister Francois Baroin told Europe 1 radio Monday that while details will have to be worked out, “the political commitments have been made.” Both parties in the Greek coalition government have agreed to push forward the measures in the event they are in government after expected elections in April.

“Officials have confirmed that momentum is building for approval of the deal and that while there are some gaps to be filled, the gaps are not so large that they risk derailing the whole process,” said Sue Trinh, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets.

Alongside the bailout, Greece is expected to conclude debt-reduction discussions with its private creditors. That should slice off around euro100 billion from Greece’s debt mountain. Even after that, Greece will have the highest debt burden of all the euro countries.

One of the last-minute hurdles to overcome is how to get Greece’s debt burden down to around 120 percent of GDP by 2020. One way that target could be met is if European central banks forgo profits due on their holdings of Greek debt.

Even though there are issues that need to be ironed out, investors are confident of a successful conclusion.

In Europe, the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was up 0.8 percent at 5,952 while Germany’s DAX rose 1.4 percent to 6,944. The CAC-40 in France was 0.8 percent higher at 3,468.

The euro was 0.1 percent higher at $1.3223.

Sentiment has also been boosted by the surprise decision over the weekend by China’s central bank to lower the ratio of funds that banks must hold as reserves to 20.5 percent from 21 percent, effective Friday. That will free up tens of billions of dollars for loans at a time when the growth rate is expected to drop from last quarter’s 8.9 percent to closer to 8 percent. The cut is the second in two months.

Earlier in Asia, Japan’s Nikkei 225 index added 1.1 percent to close at 9,485.09, its highest closing level of the year. South Korea’s Kospi rose slightly to 2,024.90. Mainland China’s benchmark Shanghai Composite Index climbed 0.3 percent to 2,363.60 after gaining more than 1 percent earlier in the day, while the Shenzhen Composite Index gained 0.3 percent to 923.32.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dipped 0.3 percent to 21,424.79.

In the oil markets, Iran was battling with Greece to be the main focus of attention. Oil prices have jumped to a nine-month high near $105 a barrel Monday after Iran said it halted crude exports to Britain and France in an escalation of a dispute over the Middle Eastern country’s nuclear program.

Benchmark crude was up $1.50 to $104.74 per barrel at late afternoon Singapore time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Earlier in the day, it rose to $105.21, the highest since May.

____

Pamela Sampson in Bangkok contributed to this report.

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I did a double take when I recently saw a pile of blank VHS tapes for sale at a local Blockbuster store that was closing.

Granted those videotapes were only a tiny sliver of the store’s inventory being liquidated. But it seemed to me an irresistible metaphor for the anachronism that bricks-and-mortar video rental stores have become in the age of Redbox and Netflix.

Now movie rental chain stores are becoming an even rarer breed in St. Louis.

I made a round of calls to local Blockbuster stores this week and found that 10 out of 26 locations — including stores in Collinsville, St. Ann, and O’Fallon, Mo. — are in the process of closing.

Dish Network, which bought Blockbuster at a bankruptcy auction last year, has been fairly quiet about this current wave of store closings. When it first took over, Dish said it would keep open about 1,500 stores — or about 90 percent of the outlets.

But last month, the company told Reuters that it would shutter more stores than originally planned with some of those locations becoming customer-service points for Dish’s satellite TV services.

The company would not provide a list or a number of the stores that are closing.

“We remain committed to maintaining only those stores that we believe we will be able to operate profitably,” Danielle Johnson, a Dish spokeswoman, wrote in an email. She added that the company continues to focus on its mail rental service and a streaming service package available to satellite customers.

Of course, it should come as no surprise that physical movie rentals are on the decline as video on demand and streaming subscription services such as Netflix continue to gain traction.

According to the Digital Entertainment Group, movie rental sales in bricks and mortar stores plummeted 29 percent last year.

“My guess is at some point you’ll just have a kiosk model and the digital model and they will have a peaceful coexistence,” said Russ Crupnick, an analyst with the research firm The NPD Group.

But in the meantime, he expects there to continue to be a market — albeit a shrinking one — for DVD rentals. Redbox will pick up a lot of that demand. But Blockbuster can still be a player with its more extensive in-store selection compared to Redbox’s limited titles, he said.

“I think we’ve all stared at a kiosk and said, ‘Gee, there’s nothing here I want to watch,’” he said. “But at Blockbuster, you can always go in and say, ‘OK, I’ll watch ‘The Bodyguard’ again.’”

Among those perusing the store closing sale at the Blockbuster location on Lindell Boulevard earlier this week were St. Louis University seniors Tim Hoffman and Arthur Hermann.

Hermann used to regularly rent movies at Blockbuster until he and his friends started using Netflix’s streaming service about a year ago.

“That’s the only way I watch movies now,” he said.

Hoffman said he would miss Blockbuster’s movie sales, but he didn’t seem too heartbroken about the store’s demise. After all, he added, there are two Redbox locations just around the corner.

END IS NEAR FOR CRESTWOOD SEARS

The red and yellow “inventory blowout” signs are up around the Sears store in Crestwood Court.

This store is one of 80 nationwide that Sears said in December that it would shutter amid struggling sales. Still to come is the announcement of another 20 to 40 stores that the company will close.

Sears recently filed a notice with the state that the Crestwood store’s 102 employees could be laid off as soon as April 15. But Kim Freely, a Sears spokeswoman, said that a store closing date has not yet been set and that it could be later than that.

“When the store closes will be based on the needs of the liquidator and the needs of the store,” she said.

Earlier this week, sale prices around the store ranged from 15 percent off most appliances to 30 percent off clothing. But you can bet the discounts will get sweeter as the closing date nears.

Meanwhile, the fate of the rest of Crestwood Court remains unknown. The mall, of course, is mostly vacant. Many of the artists who have filled some of the empty storefronts in the last couple of years have to leave by the end of the month.

And now the mall’s website notes that it will be limiting hours and access to several areas starting March 1 because of the “pending redevelopment.”

But it’s unclear where those redevelopment efforts stand. The mall’s owner — Centrum Properties — had indicated it would present redevelopment plans to the city at the end of 2011 or early 2012, said Petree Eastman, Crestwood’s city administrator. But she said this week that she hasn’t heard a peep of late about when those plans might be presented to the city.

“I believe the Sears’ closure has changed the game a little bit and has probably affected how their numbers are working out,” she said.

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International demand for U.S. financial assets cooled in December as optimism Europe would resolve its debt crisis reduced the appeal of Treasuries as a safe haven.

Net buying of long-term equities, notes and bonds totaled $17.9 billion during the month, compared with net purchases of $61.3 billion the previous month, the Treasury Department said today in Washington. Including short-term securities such as stock swaps, foreigners bought a net $87.1 billion in December, compared with net buying of $42.9 billion the previous month.

Italian officials say rough seas have increased movements of the crippled Costa Concordia and are thwarting the start of fuel removal a month after the cruise ship capsized off a Tuscan island.

The national office overseeing search and anti-pollution operations said Friday that instruments registered increased and faster movements of the ship, which is resting on its side just outside Giglio island’s port. But they said the movements have since slowed down. If the ship keeps shifting, it could drop down onto deeper seabed, complicating plans to remove fuel quick payday loan.

At least 17 people died in the incident and 15 are missing. Italian TG5 broadcast video showing confusion among the captain and crew on the ship’s bridge in the hour after Concordia rammed a reef.

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The number of Americans signing contracts to buy previously owned homes in December held near a 19-month high, showing the stabilization in the market that began in late 2011 will extend into the new year.

The index of pending home sales decreased 3.5 percent last month after jumping a combined 18 percent in October and November, figures from the National Association of Realtors showed today in Washington. It was the best back-to-back reading since a buyer tax credit boosted demand in early 2010.