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April 13, 2009
The aluminum industry has been hit hard by the global economic crisis with sharp falls in sales across the automotive, construction and aerospace industries.Prices have crashed, with the benchmark London Metal Exchange three-month contract dropping 62.2 percent, from a record $3,375 a ton in July of 2008 to a seven-year low of $1,275 in late February.However, a recovery has emerged in recent...
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April 6, 2009
The total output of flat glass in January and February was 85.37 million weight cases, dropped by 7.1 percent year-on-year; the output of float glass was 69.94 million weight cases, down 7 percent.In January and February, 42 scaled flat glassmakers shut down, which reduced the annual capacity at about 100 million weight cases. 9 float glass companies closed up and 42 companies lowered the...
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April 6, 2009
Nonfarm payroll employment continued to decline sharply in March (-663,000, seasonally adjusted), bringing the 12-month decline to 4.8 million (-3.5 percent), the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday. The unemployment rate rose to 9 percent, not seasonally adjusted (8.5 percent, seasonally adjusted), from 5.2 percent a year ago. Construction remained in the vanguard, with job losses of...
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April 3, 2009
According to the Associated General Contractors of America it is growing more likely that real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product will rise slightly in the quarter that began on April 1 from the dismal levels of the first quarter. The growth is likely to pick up gradually through the rest of the year. But it will be very uneven, unlike the downturn, which affected all sectors.Tax...
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April 2, 2009
Unemployment rates rose and nonfarm payroll employment in February fell in the District of Columbia and all states except Louisiana, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Compared to a year earlier, every state had higher unemployment rates and all had lower employment except Wyoming, +1.6 percent; D.C., +1.4 percent; Alaska, +0.9 percent; La., +0.3 percent; and North Dakota, +0.2...
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March 31, 2009
A few words included in one paragraph of the federal government’s massive stimulus package could spell lost business for glass makers, including Scotland County's [N.C.] Pilkington. The stimulus legislation gives homeowners making energy-efficient improvements a tax credit of 30 percent of the cost of the project, up to a total of $1,500.But, the stimulus legislation passed by...
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March 23, 2009
The decline in crude oil prices gets all the headlines, but the first globalized natural gas glut in history is driving an even more drastic collapse in the cost of gas that cooks food, heats homes and runs factories in the United States and many other countries.Six giant plants capable of cooling and liquefying gas for export are due to come on line this year just as the economies of the Asian...
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March 23, 2009
The U.S. jobs sector hit hardest by the recession, construction, may not reach bottom until sometime next year.With one in five U.S. construction workers out of a job, prospects for the sector remain dim amid ongoing cuts in construction spending, a decline in nonresidential projects, and concerns that government stimulus will take months to have any measurable effect, industry experts say,...
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March 18, 2009
Housing construction posted a surprisingly large increase in February, bolstered by strength in all parts of the country except the West.While the surge in construction was far better than the continued decline economists had expected, experts viewed the rebound as a temporary gain given all the problems the housing industry still faces.The Commerce Department reported Tuesday that construction...
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March 18, 2009
As anyone who lives too close to a baseball field knows, glass can be frustratingly fragile. But a new type of glass, made from opaque titanium and zirconium instead of transparent silicon, is harder and tougher—and weighs less—than stainless steel. The California scientists who developed and tested the opaque glass hope it could one day replace steel and aluminum in a wide variety of...