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This week the World Bank released its extremely useful "Doing Business" Web index, with Singapore taking the top prize in overall ease of doing business, followed by New Zealand, the United States, Canada and Hong Kong. The index rates 175 national economies according to 10 topics, including property registration, dealing with licensing, employing workers, taxation and trading across borders. Another useful facet of the Doing Business project is its Law Library, which allows the reader to survey national regulations in areas such as land and building laws, labor laws and tax laws. In addition, the index allows you to create instant, customized "full data" reports on each aspect of each country’s economy, including costs.
The annual release of the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey, unveiled in August, reveals updated information that used to be available only after the decennial census. The 2005 ACS presents the first data since Census 2000 on the socioeconomic characteristics of places with populations between 65,000 and 249,999 people. Among its findings: New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Maryland had median earnings for males that were above $50,000 in 2005. Maryland and Connecticut were the only states where median earnings for women were above $40,000, as was the District of Columbia. Among the 20 major industry sectors, men earned the most in 2005 in the management of companies and enterprises sector ($79,023). Women had median earnings at $40,000 or higher in each of the following sectors: utilities ($44,302); management of companies and enterprises ($44,175); professional, scientific and technological services ($43,426); and information ($41,398).
Looking to make your earnings rise? GulfTalent.com, a Dubai-based online recruitment firm that surveyed 3,000 professionals across the Middle East, says salaries in Gulf countries rose by 7.9 percent during the year ended in August, and even included women in the mix. Here is the breakdown of base-pay increases: Among the trends highlighted in the report are increased pay pressure caused by economic growth in India (a traditional source of expat workers in the Gulf countries) and a weak U.S. dollar affecting recruitment from Europe. Construction and banking are the leading sectors in pay increases. GulfTalent.com says a tightening labor market is forcing companies to stretch their recruiting efforts to include women, fresh graduates and professionals from countries such as China and Malaysia.
Looking for analysis of the new Chinese regulations concerning foreign ownership of Chinese enterprises and its ramifications for real estate transactions? You may have to wait for the translation. But one place to check for updates is the American Chamber of Commerce People's Republic of China.. Cambridge Econometrics has issued a report on projected European productivity growth that finds most countries lagging the pace of the past five years, with some notable exceptions: 
Productivity is one attribute of the top performers in Forbes' new rankings of "The Best States For Business", based, among other things, on analysis by IAMC member Ron Pollina. That ranking features the following Top 25 states, broken down by six groups of criteria:
The Jones Lang LaSalle 2006 Real Estate Transparency Index, a ranking of real estate market transparency in 56 countries and territories, finds Australia in the top spot, followed in order by the United States, New Zealand, Canada and the United Kingdom. "Overall, two-thirds of the countries ranked in our 2004 survey exhibited some or significant improvement," said Jacques Gordon, LaSalle Investment Management's Global Investment Strategist, in July. "Some 14 countries moved up a full tier in our five-tier transparency ranking system and none slipped back. Additionally, many more countries earned higher transparency scores while remaining in the same tier." Highly Transparent countries for the first time in 2006 are Hong Kong, Sweden, France and Singapore, each having jumped to Tier 1 from Tier 2 since the 2004 survey. "Among the greatest sources of improvement are the introduction of new investment performance benchmarks, more financial disclosure by listed real estate companies and heightened external governance of these listed companies," he said. "That said, there has been slow progress in the legal and regulatory categories — two areas of great interest to investors and occupiers." Assembly magazine's 11th annual "State of the Profession" survey of U.S. assembly professionals, conducted in March and published in August, found that "36 percent of respondents claim they have added staff to their assembly operations, a 6 percent increase over 2005 and a 17 percent increase over 2004." Unsurprisingly, globalization and offshore production led the list of worries, with 53 percent naming it as their top concern. However, two-thirds of respondents had seen a pay increase in the previous 12 months. Selected findings include:
Ever wanted to work for the federal government? If so, this is the first place to go. One recently posted position: Plant manager for the U.S. Mint in Denver, Colo. The U.S. Mint operates a portfolio of facilities in five states and the District of Columbia. The health care and pension burden is a topic nearly as hot as it is heavy. There's "Redefining Health Care" , published by Michael Porter's Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness at Harvard Business School. And there's the clear and crisp contribution of professional explainer Malcolm Gladwell, author of "The Tipping Point" and "Blink," in his recent essay in The New Yorker on "The Risk Pool" and the importance of dependency ratios. Among the salient comments is this from investor Wilbur Ross, following his discussion of his reorganization of Bethlehem Steel: "Every country against which we compete has universal health care. That means we probably face a fifteen-per-cent cost disadvantage versus foreigners for no other reason than historical accident ... The randomness of our system is just not going to work." Statistics Canada reported in August that Canadian companies intend to spend (CA$14.9 billion) on industrial R&D in 2006, up 1.3 percent from the 2005 figure. Manufacturers will spend 56 percent of that total, up 2.2 percent from 2005. However, "the sector's share of total industrial R&D has fallen, from 61 percent in 2002 to an estimated 56 percent in 2006," reports the agency. Meanwhile, services' share has risen to 40 percent, and the subsector of information and cultural industries is expected to have doubled its share of total industrial R&D to 10 percent in 2006, the strongest rise of any sector. |
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