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5/5/11

US Economy: Jobless Claims Surge - while major US Corporations made huge profits

Jeff Bater and  Luca Dileo reporting for the Wall Street Journal say new claims for jobless benefits unexpectedly surged last week to their highest level since last summer, according to data giving another sign of the economy's struggle in creating jobs.

Separately, U.S. productivity slowed in the first quarter as the economic recovery stumbled and labor costs started to rise again.

Initial unemployment claims increased by 43,000 to a seasonally adjusted 474,000 in the week ended April 30, the Labor Department said Thursday in its weekly report.
  
The going might be tough for America's labor force, but more and more evidence, most recently the newest Fortune 500 rankings, suggests the corporations are doing just fine. 

Today, Fortune released their list of the 500 U.S. companies with the highest gross revenue in 2010. According to the results, the top revenue-earning U.S. companies recorded the third-highest increase in combined profits since the list's invention. Big companies, many of which profited from a belt tightening in the form of job cuts and productivity increases, the AP notes, also continued to leave the U.S. behind, expanding more overseas than at home.

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