Banking Jobs Holding Up Better than Most in Recession

Staffers in the industry at the heart of the nation’s economic woes have been hurt less in the downturn than the rest of the country has. Jobs in the banking and insurance industries have fallen just 5% since the start of the recession. That’s half a percentage point less than the 5.4% overall drop in nongovernment employment over the same time period, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics

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Singapore sees India, China role growing

The current global economic downturn will change the worldwide power structure, giving China and India a stronger role to play in the future, Singapore’s foreign minister said Tuesday. “China and India will continue to grow and by the time this is all over, the global landscape will look quite different,” George Yeo told a group of visiting foreign journalists

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Asian economic outlook ‘bleak’ for 2009

Asia’s economic growth will tumble to the slowest pace since the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said in a report released Tuesday. “The short term outlook for the region is bleak as the full impact of the severe recession in industrialized economies is transmitted to emerging markets,” said Jong-Wha Lee, acting chief economist for the ADB. The Asian Development Outlook 2009 forecasts that economic growth in developing Asia will slip to 3.4 percent in 2009, down from 6.3 percent last year and 9.5 percent in 2007.

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Amid Crisis, Cars Start to Drive Europe Apart

When carmakers outsource most of their components, assemble their products in different countries around the globe, are majority-owned by foreign shareholders and sell mainly overseas, does it still make sense to promote them as national champions? Nicolas Sarkozy thinks so, albeit with some controversial conditions. Just before unveiling an $8 billion loan for French carmakers Renault and PSA Peugeot Citroen last week, the French President suggested the aid should be conditional on them packing up their plants elsewhere in the E.U.

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In Hard Times, Olympic Plans Go On a Budget

Work on London’s main Olympic site is progressing well. The 600-acre former industrial zone in east London that will become the focal point of the 2012 event has been transformed into Europe’s biggest construction site. Steel for shoring up the massive new stadium’s seating terraces is being installed

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