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Nearly 75 percent of HR professionals across the country expect deep job cuts to continue throughout the first quarter of 2009, with 73 percent pessimistic about overall job growth in the United States, according to the first Labor Market Outlook survey by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM).

Current and continued economic turmoil have companies around the world grappling with ways to reduce costs and remain stable enough to ride out the downturn. According to new research by Hewitt Associates, a global human resources consulting and outsourcing company, the majority of organizations in every region of the world are responding by making across-the-board cuts to their 2009 salary increase budgets. Many of these companies also plan to take additional steps to reduce compensation costs - including layoffs, pay freezes, hiring freezes and reducing bonus budgets - yet these strategies vary drastically by region.

Late payments on U.S. credit cards topped record levels and defaults rose sharply to just below all time highs last month as consumers struggled further amid the deteriorating economic environment, according to the latest Credit Card Index results from Fitch Ratings.

Unemployment rates were higher in December than a year earlier in 363 of the 369 metropolitan areas, lower in 5 areas, and unchanged in 1 area, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported. Forty areas recorded jobless rates of at least 10.0 percent, while two areas registered rates below 3.0 percent. The national unemployment rate in December was 7.1 percent, not seasonally adjusted, up from 4.8 percent a year earlier.

MEPs voted a package of amendments to the directive against the employment of illegal immigrants, but postponed formalising its position until the next plenary session in Brussels. The sanctions directive sets out that employers of illegal immigrants would be penalised while the immigrants themselves would be granted legal conditions of employment. MEPs are calling for criminal law sanctions in the most serious cases and want to make companies responsible for the actions of their subcontractors.

The European Commission adopted a Green Paper setting out the future challenges of its policy for a trans-European transport network (TEN-T). TEN-T policy needs to be realigned to contribute more effectively to objectives aimed at combating climate change and to support Europe's increasing international role through better infrastructure connections with its neighbours and the wider world.

The European Commission welcomes the report adopted by the European Parliament setting out recommendations for future EU policy on climate change. The approval of the final report from the Temporary Committee on Climate Change shows the Parliament's strong support for ambitious EU action to address the climate challenge. Its recommendations are in line with the Commission's thinking set out in last week's Communication on a new global climate agreement.

Consumer prices in the OECD area rose by 1.5% in the year to December 2008, compared with 2.2% in the year to November. Month-on-month, prices fell 0.5% in December, after declining 0.9% in November.

The rapid rollout of transport infrastructure in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has been at the heart of its economic success but it now needs to place more emphasis on environmentally sustainable transport systems that can help cut the country’s heavy reliance on oil, says a new publication from the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

The VocaLink take home pay index shows that wage growth in the manufacturing sector has plummeted to its lowest level since September 2004. As a result, overall take home pay has fallen to 2.7% in January, its weakest growth since November 2006. This decline continues the clear downward trend in take home pay since the recent peak of 4.5% in July 2008.