According to the latest research in US, the country is expected to open up new opportunities for employement in 2010.

Showing signs of recovery from the worst economic slump since the World War II, the various US employers are expect to hire more new workers in 2010 than they did in 2009.

According to a survey conducted for more than 2,700 hiring managers and HR professionals, about one-fifth of the employers are planning to add full-time, permanent employees next year, up from 14 per cent in 2009.

Only a nine per cent disagreed, saying that they plan to cut headcount in 2010, down from 16 per cent in 2009.

The administrators of the European operations of the Lehman Brothers have announced that the company shall return assets worth more than USD 11 billion to the investors.
More than 90 per cent of the affected investors at Lehman Brothers International Europe have voted in favor of the plan to return the assets.

PricewaterhouseCoopers, announced on Wednesday that it has received the support of more than 90 per cent clients for the claim resolution agreement (CRA). CRA is a multilateral contract between Lehman Brothers Europe and its clients. This governs the basis on which the clients’ assets can be returned.

In a statement released, PwC said, “Under these arrangements, the administrators expect to return over $11 billion of the client assets.”
On September 15, 2008, when the American parent company filed for bankruptcy, Lehman Brothers Europe had about USD 32 billion of client assets. Since then, only USD 13.3 billion has been returned.

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway has reported 21,000 lesser employees than its figures at the end of 2008 amid the global slowdown and a major slump at the firms manufacturing and retail units.

The company, along with its subsidiaries, has about 225,000 workers. This is reportedly, 8.6 per cent lower than the 246,083 disclosed in the company’s annual report released at the end of 2008.

This information from Berkshire revealed the jobs information in a document tied to its planned USD 26 billion takeover of railroad Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp.

Buffett, 79, remarked, “When times are good, you’re going to have more people employed than when times are bad.”

Intellicus announced today it has been selected as a finalist for Red Herring’s Global 100 award, a prestigious list honoring the year’s most promising private technology ventures from around the world.

The Red Herring editorial team selected the most innovative companies from a pool of 1,200. The nominees are evaluated on both quantitative and qualitative criteria, such as financial performance, technology innovation, quality of management, execution of strategy, and integration into their respective industries.

This unique assessment of potential is complemented by a review of the actual track record and standing of a company, which allows Red Herring to see past the “buzz” and make the list an invaluable instrument for discovering and advocating the greatest business opportunities in the industry.

Speaking on the achievement, Mr. Pankaj Mittal, CTO, Intellicus Technologies said, “This is an exciting phase for Intellicus, and we feel privileged to be recognized at this level. We have been doing some interesting and innovative things in the Business Insights domain, and our clients have been appreciative of the value we bring to them. Such global recognition enthuses us even more and we are sure that this will give us even greater impetus to make a positive technology difference to our current and future customers.”

“This year was especially difficult,” said Alex Vieux, publisher and CEO of Red Herring. “Despite the global economic situation, there were many great companies producing really innovative and amazing products that we had a difficult time narrowing the pool and selecting the finalists. Now we’re faced with the arduous task of selecting the final 100 winners of the award. We know that this year’s crop will grow into some amazing companies that are sure to go far.”

Finalists for the 2009 edition of the Red Herring Global 100 award are selected from the regional recipients or finalists of the Red Herring 100 awards in 2007, 2008, or 2009 ranging from Asia, Europe, and North America. For the past three years, the award has been given to the top 100 global technology companies based upon their technological innovation, management strength, market size, investor record, customer acquisition, and financial health. During the several months leading up to the announcement, hundreds of companies in the telecommunications, security, Web 2.0, software, hardware, biotech, and clean tech industries sent in their submissions to qualify for the award.

The CEOs of the 200 finalists are invited to present their winning strategies at the Red Herring Global Conference in Laguna Niguel, California, January 12-14, 2010. The Top 100 winners will be announced at a special awards ceremony at the event.

Japan unveiled a record USD 1 trillion (92.29 trillion yen) budget on Friday for the next financial year, clearly shedding light on the prime minister’s pledge to boost spending for child support.

The record budget for the financial year starting April 2010 for the world’s second largest economy, came in the wake of country’s struggle to emerge out of the worst recession since World War II.

In a news conference after the approval of the budget, the Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama said, “This budget is to protect lives. I made all my efforts to secure budgets to support child-rearing, employment, the environment and welfare.”

The government’s forecast of a 1.4 per cent expansion in the next financial year is te country’s first in the last three years.

On Wednesday, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved a USD 1.2 billion aid payment to Pakistan after a review of the country’s economic performance.

The IMF bailed out Pakistan in 2008 to avert a balance of payments crisis.

Earlier in November, the Fund said that Pakistan’s economy was showing signs of recovery. It however did not deny any risk.

The IMf’s concerns, according to the Pakistan officials, centered on the country’s security situation, coupled with poor tax collection.

In addition to the IMF aid, Pakistan was promised USD 5.7 billion in aid over two years at a donors conference in April.

Ford Motor co. announced on Wednesday that the company is close to selling its in-loss Volvo unit to China’s Geely. The company also announced that it is expecting the final deal in the first quarter of the New Year.

In a statement released by the company, Ford said, “all substantive commercial terms relating to the potential sale of Volvo Car Corporation have been settled.”

The company chose Geely as the preferred bidder for Volvo in October 2009.

Since the work on financing and government approvals remains to be completed, Ford is expecting the deal to close “in the second quarter 2010, subject to appropriate regulatory approvals.”

This announcement, however, did not reveal the amount offered by Geely.

Although less than the expectations, the US economy grew at a much slower pace in the third quarter, restrained by a relatively weaker business investments and a slightly more aggressive liquidation of inventories.

The country’s Commerce Department’s final estimate revealed that the gross domestic product (GDP) of the country grew at 2.2 per cent annual rate instead of the expected 2.8 per cent as reported last month.

This, however, was still the fastest pace since the third quarter of 2007 and ended four consecutive quarters of decline in output.

Think about how lucky we are. We buy that macho mean machine four wheel vehicle and thanks to auto insurance can almost forget about any worries. If there is an accident the insurance takes care. If there is a theft they take care. If we bang our car somewhere it is also taken care of. Sounds good.

Now here is a company that takes auto insurance to even deeper levels. At no extra cost the customer besides other insurance benefits also gets 24 hours roadside emergency, identity theft restoration service, emergency travel and medical service besides more. Sounds good right.

Now that’s the magic of insurance. While almost all companies give that basic insurance service, here is a company that really understands its customers and take insurance to levels which just delights the customer.

The Indian government has imposed a penalty of a little over Rs 42 crore on the mobile operators for SIM cards bought on fake identity. This further refers to defaulting on subscriber verification norms.

A Department of Telecom official said on Monday that the total amount of penalty imposed for SIM cards brought on fake identities on various operators from June 2008-November 2009 is Rs 42.77 crore so far.

In the year 2008-09 alone, DoT slapped a penalty of Rs 32 crore on the operators for failing to adhere to the subscriber verification norms. DoT has imposed a penalty of Rs 7.38 crore on the service providers operating in the troubled states of J&K and a penalty is Rs 1.76 crore in Assam for the April-July period.

Reportedly, the major defaulting operators have been named to be the state run BSNL and MTNL, Bharti Airtel, RCommunications, Vodafone, Tatas, Dishnet group, Spice Communications, Reliance Telecom, BPL, HFCL Infotel, Sistema-Shyam.