Jobs & Work

If there's one thing I've learned from writing about whether the minimum wage should be raised, it's that writing about whether the minimum wage should be raised is a tricky business.

I'm quite good at balancing things. Plates on my head, scoops of ice cream on a cone, a child in one arm and several bags of groceries in the other while trying to open a door.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. farmland prices in the central Corn Belt states eased slightly in the July-September quarter, but stayed steady on year-ago levels as values held up despite the downturn in grain prices that accelerated with this year's record harvest, the Federal Reserve Bank of...

BAMAKO/MONROVIA (Reuters) - Mali announced tougher health checks at border crossings after registering its second Ebola outbreak, while Liberia on Thursday signaled progress in neutralizing the virus by saying it would not renew a state of emergency.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In a paradoxically good development for the U.S. economy, Americans quit their jobs in September at the fastest rate in over six years.

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Professional forecasters have cut their outlook for euro zone inflation and growth, underlining a trend that could prompt the European Central Bank to take more action to kick-start the region's flagging economy.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The dollar on Thursday traded near a seven-year high against the yen on stepped-up speculation that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will call a snap election in December.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Farmland values in the central U.S. Plains held mostly steady in the July-September quarter compared to a year ago, with land prices and loan demand generally tracking commodity price trends, the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City said on Thursday.

WASHINGTON -- In a paradoxically good development for the U.S. economy, Americans quit their jobs in September at the fastest rate in over six years.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The International Monetary Fund on Wednesday warned of downside risks to its growth projections for the euro zone, and urged the European Central Bank to act if prices in the currency bloc continue to drift lower.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Rising U.S. interest rates and hurdles to smooth implementation of economic reforms pose risks to Mexican growth, the International Monetary Fund said on Wednesday.

LONDON (Reuters) - Turbulent October may prove a microcosm of the investment year ahead - a gut-wrenching rollercoaster ride for world markets that ultimately ended up back where it started, except for one or two notable casualties along the way.

(Reuters) - Toll Brothers Inc , the largest U.S. luxury homebuilder, reported a 29 percent jump in quarterly revenue after it sold more homes at higher prices as housing demand strengthened.

Understanding what the unemployment rate means

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - As China's economy slows toward its weakest growth in a quarter of a century, policymakers have comforted themselves that unemployment remains low, and with it the risk of social unrest.

MUMBAI (Reuters) - The rally in Indian bonds is providing central bank governor Raghuram Rajan an unexpected gift: Falling borrowing costs are starting to provide the benefits of lower interest rates without him actually having to ease monetary policy.

By Erinn Hutkin

LONDON (Reuters) - After European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi got his colleagues to sign up to a target for pumping money into the ailing euro zone economy, a raft of GDP reports are likely to show just why more help may be needed.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street's biggest banks remain convinced the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates by June 2015, a Reuters poll found, and economists also said the market was underestimating how aggressively the U.S. central bank will tighten policy.

(Reuters) - Speculators' net bearish bets on U.S. 10-year Treasury note futures rose in the latest week, while net short bets on Eurodollar futures increased for a second week, according to Commodity Futures Trading Commission data released on Friday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - For the American worker, sluggish pay increases have been a hallmark of the recovery from recession, and October was no exception.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. job growth increased at a steady clip in October and the unemployment rate fell to a fresh six-year low, underscoring the economy's resilience in the face of slowing global demand.

(Reuters) - U.S. job growth increased at a fairly brisk clip in October and the unemployment rate fell to a fresh six-year low of 5.8 percent, underscoring the economy's resilience in the face of slowing global demand

U.S. job growth increased at a fairly brisk clip in October and the unemployment rate fell to a fresh six-year low of 5.8 percent, underscoring the economy's resilience in the face of slowing global demand.

Fresh from the world of high-stakes trading, David Vitale arrived at Chicago Public Schools a decade ago with a plan to transform the way it borrowed money.

When Chicago Public Schools officials embraced auction-rate borrowing over traditional fixed-rate bonds, their goal was to save money for the financially strapped district.

(Reuters) - Bank of America Corp tripled its third-quarter loss to $232 million, in a revision that added legal costs related to global investigations into foreign exchange trading at major banks.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Foreign central banks replenished their stockpile of U.S. Treasuries at the Federal Reserve for the first time in seven weeks, Fed data released on Thursday showed.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell more than expected last week and compensation accelerated in the third quarter, in the latest signs of tightening labor market conditions.

• U.S. jobless claims rise, but underlying labor market trends firming

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - European Central Bank members all stand ready to take more policy action if needed to revive a struggling euro economy and the bank's staff will prepare the groundwork, President Mario Draghi said on Thursday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Productivity at U.S. nonfarm businesses increased more than expected in the third quarter, keeping a lid on wage inflation.

PARIS (Reuters) - The global economy is only gradually picking up momentum as stagnation in the euro zone and growing weakness in some big emerging economies weighs on the U.S.-led recovery, the OECD said on Thursday.

BANGALORE (Reuters) - Falling crude oil prices will probably take the Canadian dollar to a five-year low over the coming year, according to strategists in a Reuters poll, who also expect a tighter policy from the U.S. Federal Reserve to heavily weigh on the currency.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The pace of growth in the U.S. services sector slowed more than expected in October, sliding for a second straight month to its lowest level since June, but employment hit a fresh nine-year high, according to an industry report released on Wednesday.

LONDON (Reuters) - The outlook for Britain's pound versus the dollar has dimmed in the past month as expectations for the first interest rate rise by the Bank of England have been pushed back to later next year, a Reuters poll found.

U.S. private employers added 230,000 jobs in October, the most since June and exceeding economists' expectations as mid-sized businesses added the most workers in more than seven years, a report by a payrolls processor showed on Wednesday.

DEAR JOYCE: After graduating in May with a bachelor's degree, I still don't have a job because every place I've applied wants someone with related experience. How can I get experience if no one will trust me with a job? -- S.M.

Steve Burke is not an executive prone to exaggeration. If anything, the NBCUniversal CEO is known for his understated style in public settings.

Warner Bros. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Kevin Tsujihara announced in a company-wide memo that layoffs at the film and television studio will begin Tuesday.

What financial planning would you do if you could spare 60 minutes in your day? That was the question Fidelity Investments recently posed to women (as well as men) in a survey in October.

Sprint Corp announced on Monday it will fire 2,000 employees and it cut its 2014 adjusted earnings forecast as the company attempts to reduce costs and turn around several quarters of losses.

Layoffs at Warner Bros. will begin Tuesday, according to individuals with knowledge of the cutbacks.

KUWAIT (Reuters) - When Kuwait's government said last month that it planned to raise domestic prices of diesel fuel and kerosene, some angry Kuwaitis took to Twitter to denounce the move as unfair.

By Erinn Hutkin

LONDON (Reuters) - Major U.S. and European investment banks this month boosted to as much as $6.5 billion their collective war chest for settling with global regulators who are investigating allegations of collusion and manipulation in the foreign exchange market.

LONDON/PARIS (Reuters) - Global money managers are turning to complex hedge-fund equity strategies as volatility surges, putting faith in their ability to profit from the kind of stock-price swings that have wrong-footed many investors in recent weeks.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - During Morgan Stanley's public earnings call earlier this month, Chief Executive James Gorman made a remark that hit his commodities staff like a bombshell: the bank plans to further "optimise" its business of owning and trading stuff like oil, natural gas, electricity...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - During Morgan Stanley's public earnings call earlier this month, Chief Executive James Gorman made a remark that hit his commodities staff like a bombshell: the bank plans to further "optimize" its business of owning and trading stuff like oil, natural gas, electricity...

LONDON (Reuters) - Equity holdings in global portfolios dipped to the lowest in more than a year in October as lingering caution about world growth and central bank policies prompted European, U.S. and British funds to trim allocations.

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Weak price pressure in Germany and Spain compounded the European Central Bank's policy headache on Thursday but it is still expected to hold off action next week, waiting to assess the impact of its new round of stimulus.

Average fixed mortgage rates moved higher this week, rebounding from the lowest rates of the year.

Xbox Entertainment Studios is officially no more.

Another 3,000 employees have been handed pinkslips at Microsoft, the company said Wednesday, as it wraps up eliminating 14% of its workforce, or around 18,000 positions.Around 638 of the layoffs were made in the Seattle area, where Microsoft is based, according to a report by Reuters.

A bachelor's degree is often thought to be the key to financial success. After all, while the median salary of high school graduates 25 years and older is $29,766 a year, the typical college grad with a BA makes $50,281. Unfortunately, many young people have to dig themselves deep into debt for...