With a majority of firms planning to expand hiring this season, the employment scene in the US is likely to improve and get much better as the recession seems to be finally fading out.

According to a latest survey of 118 large employers in the US and other 459 global firms, by Towers Watson, the percentage of firms planning to reduce workforce has gone down considerably since the beginning of the financial crisis and things are finally picking up on the hiring front in US.

The survey revealed that as much as 92 per cent of the participating employers are planning to hire in 2010. In addition, the percentage of firms planning workforce reduction has reduced to 36 per cent from 58.

The participating firms also noted a considerable rise in the productivity over the past year, with 55 per cent agreeing to that the employee productivity had risen compared with pre-financial crisis levels. Additionally, 48 per cent are expecting it to continue to rise by next year.

According to a latest report published in The New York Times, US President Barack Obama is all set to present USD 3.8 trillion budget proposal for the financial year 2011 on Monday, Feb 1, 2010.

“President Obama will send a USD 3.8 trillion budget to Congress on Monday for the coming fiscal year,” New York Times reported.

The budget would aim to increase the financing for education and for civilian research programmes by over 6 per cent. As the report added, “Many programmes at the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and the Energy Department are in line for increases, along with the Census Bureau.” In addition, Pentagon’s Special Operations forces, the Army’s Black Hawk and Chinook helicopters, and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter are also in for an increase.

The budget for the next financial year starting October 2010 will offer USD 25 billion for severely hit states, although Obama is focusing on freezing much domestic spending.

In the last two years, amidst the worst global slowdown since the World War II, the city of London has witnessed more than 17,000 senior financiers losing their jobs. This figure accounts for almost 10 per cent of the highest-ranking employees in Britain’s financial services industry.

As the report published in The Sunday Times mentioned, “Redundancies, insolvencies and early retirement have wiped out about 10 per cent of the highest-ranking employees in Britain’s financial-services industry.”

The report added, “The scale of the job losses equates approximately to the entire population of Weybridge, Surrey — one of the City’s favoured ’stockbroker belt’ commuter towns.”

These figures, however, only account for the individuals who have been authorised by the Financial Services Authority, the City regulator and excludes all those who’ve lost their jobs in administration and support functions inside the banking sector.

US President Barack Obama unveiled a USD 33 billion package of tax cuts on Friday in order to encourage small businesses to hire new employees.

This move from Obama comes as the president targets the 10 per cent unemployment rate in the country.

Obama, who prioritized job creation in his administration, spoke as the White House got a rare economic boost with the country’s GDP reporting a growth for the fourth quarter at a higher than expected 5.7 per cent.

“It is time to put America back to work. We have had two very tough years,” Obama remarked.

This proposal from Obama, mandatory to be passed by the Congress, would offer the small businesses to claim a USD 5,000 tax credit for every new employee they hire. The firms can claim the credit every quarter.

According to White House, the estimated total cost of this proposal would total to USD 33 billion.

Last week, Toyota suspended the US sales of 8 models in a recall, and today, expanding to Europe the recall of millions of its most popular cars due to dangerous accelerator pedals, Toyota Motor Corp has suffered another major blow to its reputation as the world’s best and the largest car maker.

Toyota however hasn’t yet decided how many vehicles in Europe would be recalled. Nor has the company decided a date for it.

Media and experts are expecting that more than 2 million cars may get affected on top of some 6 million now recalled in North America.

The recall from Toyota and a related halt in production in North America of eight models including its best-selling Camry, tends to damage Toyota’s unshakeable record for reliability and safety.

The US economy recovered well and grew at a rate more than expected at the end of the last year recording a 5.7 per cent growth rate in the fourth quarter.

The 5.7 per cent annual growth rate recorded was the fastest pace reported since the year 2003.

According to a report released by the country’s Commerce Department on Friday reveals the strongest proof that the worst economic slump since the Great Depression of 1930s is now over!

A record four quarters of decline was marked by strong growth in two consecutive quarters put the economic clump t an end.

The expansion in the fourth quarter, however, was fueled by companies refilling depleted stockpiles, a trend expected to eventually fade.

The jump in growth rate is reportedly as the business spending on equipment and software jumped almost 13.3 per cent. This is in fact the second quarter in a row that the spending has increased after a record six quarters of decline.

Overall, however, the US economy declined 2.4 per cent in 2009, the largest annual drop since 1946 and the first since 1991.

According to the administration officials, the US President Obama is all set to call for a three-year freeze in spending on many domestic programmes to save USD 250 billion by 2020. This clearly highlights his seriousness to narrow down the budget deficit.

The officials have revealed that the proposal would be a major component both of Obama’s State of the Union address on Wednesday and also of the budget he is slated to send to Congress on Monday for the new financial year beginning in October.

The three year freeze is expected to cover the agencies and programmes for which Congress allocates specific budgets every year. This shall include air traffic control, farm subsidies, education, nutrition and national parks among others.

However, this proposal would exempt security-related budgets for the Pentagon, foreign aid, the Veterans Administration and homeland security, apart from the entitlement programmes that make up the biggest and fastest-growing part of the federal budget: Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

General Motors Corp is planning to make a come back to the electric motor business. The largest automaker announced on Tuesday that the company is planning to build its own electric motors for hybrid and electric vehicles, starting from 2013.

In order to lower the costs and improve the quality and reliability of the electric motors for the vehicles, the company is planning to make the motors in-house instead of getting it from other companies.

In a conference call with the reporters ahead of Tuesday’s announcement, Pete Savagian, engineering director for hybrids and electric motors, said, “ We need to not only buy the parts, we need to really understand them.”

GM however hasn’t revealed where the company is planning to build the electric motors but it said it will invest more than $246 million to build the electric motors.

The company also did not tell how many motors it is planning to build. “This isn’t the first time GM has built electric motors. It built them for its EV1 electric car in the mid-1990s, and some of the engineers of that car worked on the new motors,” Savagian remarked.

GM has been quietly developing a new electric motor since 2003, and will be the first US-based automaker to manufacture its own.

massive safety recall. This unprecedented move has raised numerous questions about the timing of its earnings recovery.

The company also added that it’ll also halt the production of the models including that of the best-selling Camry, at its plants in the United States and Canada in the first week of February.

Earlier, in the last week, the auto making giant, Toyota announced that the company would recall 2.3 million vehicles in the United States. This was to be implemented in order to fix potentially faulty accelerator pedals. This is Toyota’s second large recall in four months in the United States, which is co-incidentally, its largest market too!

Toyota also added that the production halt would initially last for a week.

Apple Inc., who has reportedly topped analysts’ estimates by a record sale of its Macintosh computer, is all set to launch a brand new product on Wednesday.

Apple Inc. reported an enormous 50 per cent jump in first quarter profits to USD 3.38 billion, or USD 3.67 a share. The company’s sales grew 32 per cent to USD 15.7 billion.

CEO Steve Jobs has asked to expect a “major new product” to be unveiled this week. On the other hand tech experts are speculating over this launch expecting Apple to unveil a device with a 10-inch (25-cm) touch-screen display that delivers music, movies, Web pages and other content.

Apple Inc. sold a record 8.7 million iPhones and 3.36 million Macs in the holiday shopping season, which has been Apple’s biggest sales quarter for the past four years. In fact, both iPhone and Mac account for more than 60 per cent of the company’s revenues.