Finance Style – Financial News & Articles Summary

Decline in number of people filing for first-time benefits fails to match prior week’s surge, and continuing claims set record for 16th straight week.

Thousands of workers from the Italian carmaker Fiat have held a demonstration near the company’s headquarters to call for job guarantees.

Thousands of workers marched from the Mirafiori factory in the northern Italian city to near the headquarters, where union leaders gave speeches.

The Labor Department’s employment numbers were better than expected, but they may be offset by an uptick in government hiring.

Germany’s economy minister has said the government couldn’t afford to spend all the money required to save every threatened job at carmaker Opel.

The US lost 563000 jobs in April, down 100000 or so from the 663000 jobs lost in March. But the unemployment rate continued to rise, increasing from 8.5 percent in March to 8.9 percent last month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

By Lucia Mutikani WASHINGTON, May 8 (Reuters) – US employers cut 539000 jobs last month, the fewest since October, according to government data on Friday that signaled the economy’s steep decline might be easing and gave the stock market a boost.

Angelica Gomez, a bookkeeper who has been out of work for five months, left, gets information from the unemployment insurance phone bank at the Employment Development Department office in Sacramento, Calif.

The number of people filing first-time unemployment claims falls by 34000. Continuing claims hit 14th straight record high. By Ben Rooney, CNNMoney.

Planned job cuts announced by US employers totaled 132590 in April, a 12 percent drop from the 150411 layoffs recorded in March. That marks the third consecutive decline in monthly job-cut announcements and the lowest total since 112884 cuts were …