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comScore, a leader in measuring the digital world, reported holiday season retail e-commerce spending for the first 34 days of the November – December 2009 holiday season. For the holiday season-to-date, $15.3 billion has been spent online, marking a 4-percent increase versus the corresponding days last year. The most recent week saw three individual days eclipse $800 million in spending, led by Cyber Monday, with $887 million in spending, matching the heaviest online spending day on record. The following Tuesday nearly matched the Cyber Monday total with $886 million in spending, while Thursday, Dec. 3 reached $808 million in spending.

The Conference Board Employment Trends Index (ETI)™ increased for the fourth consecutive month. The index now stands at 90.8, up 1.8 percent from the revised October figure. The index is down 9.4 percent from a year ago.

India needs to strengthen and liberalise its regulatory framework and invest more in infrastructure in order to attract increased foreign direct investment (FDI), according to a new OECD report.

The unemployment rate edged down to 10.0 percent in November, and nonfarm payroll employment was essentially unchanged (-11,000), the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. In the prior 3 months, payroll job losses had averaged 135,000 a month. In November, employment fell in construction, manufacturing, and information, while temporary help services and health care added jobs.

Applied foreign exchange management practices have shown remarkable resilience through the recent turbulence in global financial markets, and most firms have left their related processes unchanged, according to a report released by The Conference Board, the global, independent business membership and research association working in the public interest.

In October 2009 the majority of the average MFI interest rates on new deposits and new loans decreased further. All the average MFI interest rates on outstanding amounts of deposits and loans decreased in October and almost all of them have now reached their lowest level since the start of these series in January 2003.

Online advertised vacancies rose by 106,500 to 3,386,000 in November, according to The Conference Board Help-Wanted OnLine Data Series (HWOL)™.

The total number of passengers transported by air in the EU27 rose by 0.6% in 2008, compared with 2007, to 798 million. This was the lowest annual growth rate in the EU since 2002. Quarterly data for 2008 help to evaluate the impact of the economic crisis on air transport, and show a declining trend through the year. Passenger numbers rose by 6.1% in the first quarter of 2008, compared with the same quarter of 2007, and by 3.0% in the second quarter, then they fell by 0.4% in the third quarter and by 5.6% in the fourth quarter.

comScore, a leader in measuring the digital world, reported holiday season retail e-commerce spending for the first 30 days of the November – December 2009 holiday season. For the holiday season-to-date, $12.26 billion has been spent online, marking a 3-percent increase versus the corresponding days last year. Cyber Monday reached $887 million in online spending, up 5 percent versus year ago, and matching the heaviest online spending day on record, December 9, 2008.

The global financial crisis is having a devastating impact on families in emerging Europe and Central Asia, with the risk of the region giving back a fifth of the poverty reduction gains of the past decade, according to a new World Bank report. By 2010, there could be over 10 million more poor people in the region, and close to an additional 25 million more who were almost middle class but now just above the poverty line (relative to pre-crisis projections) with the potential of losing their homes, jobs, and basic services.