China’s $586 billion stimulus has spurred road-building and other works in addition to funding the banks’ spending spree and creating new jobs. However, experts have warned that it is going to take much more than just the stimulus plan if the recovery has to be sustained next year. They have also stressed on emphasizing more on consumption and services in comparison to investment and industry.

The government has also encouraged consumers to spend on education, health and termed it as a useful step to persuade consumers to save less for the time being.

Countries in East Asia and the Pacific have also been helped by the growth in the Chinese economy. However, the ‘rebound’ in GDP figures there is yet to translate into a ‘recovery’.

However, a total of 192,658 jobs were lost in the previous month but part of it was offset with new jobs coming up across different sectors. 62,447 new jobs were added in the service sector and 8,802 new workers found jobs in the construction industry.

The job market had fared better in the period from May to July. But since then, unemployment has been rising for the last three months. According to the Spanish government, Spain’s unemployment rate was at 17.9 percent in the third quarter- a high for the European Union.

More than 4 million Spanish people are feared to be jobless by the start of next year.

Fannie Mae has suffered losses of $111 billion since then, and with this $15 billion aid it has added almost one third of the $45 billion aid it had requested for earlier. Freddie Mac, meanwhile, has taken total aid equaling $51 billion.

Fannie Mae has said that it is likely to report losses and seek for Treasury aid in the time to come as well. It also said that certain activities like changing mortgages to help homeowners in avoiding foreclosure, which it has undertaken at the Treasury’s behest, were increasing its losses even further.

It has also said that a group of investors had approached it showing interest in purchasing 50 percent of its tax credits at a premium.

According to reports by the Labor Department, household surveys showed that the unemployment rate rose by 0.4 percent to reach 10.2 percent. Non- agricultural jobs fell by 190,000- most of them being lost in manufacturing, construction and retail trade.

The number of unemployed has risen by 8.2 million since the advent of the recession in December 2007. The rising unemployment further strengthens the Federal Reserve’s thinking that interest rates should be maintained at record lows to help boost up an uncertain recovery.

However, more recent figures seem optimistic as the number of jobless claims fell by 20,000 to 512,000 on October 31, showing a slight improvement in the condition of the labor market. Average earnings per hour rose by 0.3 percent to $18.72 whereas the average workweek remained unchanged for October at 33.00 hours.

As per reports from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, retail spending decreased by 0.2 percent in September. But this fall did not hit the recovery process and is actually a confirmation that the economy is recovering as planned.

The RBA had come out with its second hike in interest on Tuesday and stated that the pattern for growth was changing. It said that the spending pattern over the latter half of this year is likely to be different from the former half when household consumption overshadowed home-building and business investment.

The RBA is scheduled to publish the next edition of its quarterly statement on Friday, which would most likely highlight the economy’s brighter outlook on the back of a strong performance up to now.

Earlier this year, the company had come with an announcement to cut 5000 jobs for the first time since it was formed 34 years ago. It was confirmed that the layoffs had been completed well before the specified time frame which was supposed to last till June 2010.

The cost cutting measures helped Microsoft to gain investor confidence in the latter half of the last month, when it reported profits and quarterly sales well beyond the forecasts at Wall Street.

More than 90, 000 people are employed by Microsoft all over the world. The headcount at Microsoft was down 4% in the last quarter in comparison to last year – the largest decline in company staff over a year in the company’s history.

According to reports by the New Jersey based company New Brunswick, it is expected that the health products company is likely to reduce to its 117,000 strong workforce anywhere between 6 percent and 7 percent. The company has also said that these cuts are going to save the company approximately $1.7 billion by 2011.

Johnson & Johnson’s shares have been down by 1.5 percent this year. Last month, there were reports that the sales in consumer products dropped by 2.7 percent to $3.99 billion in the third quarter. The only unit which did not report a decline was the wound care unit. The profit for 2009 is expected to be between $4.54 and $4.59 per share, which confirms a forecast made earlier.

Opel currently employs more than 50, 000 people, more than 25,000 of whom are in Germany. German unions today announced their plans to go on strike and stand up against the decision to scrap the deal of selling the unit to Canadian car-parts maker Magna International.

Yesterday, Opel’s employee council had offered to contribute $265 million a year to cost cutting as German workers agreed to work without pay increases during 2011 and even let go of their Christmas and summer bonuses. Therefore, the news comes as an even bigger surprise for the workers.

The Germans have labeled Opel’s plans as ‘totally unacceptable’ and workers at all of Opel’s four plants in Germany are likely to stop work tomorrow and other plants in Europe are expected to follow suit.

The latest forecast marks a steep rise from the Washington based bank’s forecast in June according to which growth was expected to be at a rate of 7.2 percent. It also said that the rate of growth is likely to rise to some extent in the coming year. Amidst the global slowdown, the Chinese economy has been able to grow with robustness on the back of the government’s fiscal and monetary policies.

After similar reports from the International Monetary Fund and Asian Development Bank, the report of the upgraded forecast by the World Bank shows that economists were surprised by the fast rebound in the third largest economy of the world.

China grew by 8.9 percent in the previous quarter, after it had grown by 7.9 percent in the second quarter. This follows a 6.1 percent growth in the first quarter, which was the slowest in almost a decade. The World Bank has also said that the Chinese economy was on track to achieve its annual target of 8 percent growth.

Data from the Arizona based group Tempe highlighted that factory index for The Institute for Supply Management surged to 55.7, surpassing the expectations of economists and notching up a three-year high. Housing was also on the rise after seeing its worst slowdown since the 1930s. The Commerce Department’s figures showed an increase of 0.8 percent in spending on construction as well.

Amidst hope that the largest economy in the world is on its way recovery, stocks were on the up initially. Overseas sales are also expected to rise due to a global stimulus greater than $2 trillion and the dollar being cheap.

Manufacturing has been the driving force behind the economy getting back to growth in the previous quarter after four consecutive quarters of recession. But, unemployment continues to be a problem and is expected to have risen to 9.9 percent, the highest for 26 years, in a report due by the Labor Department on November 6.