Economy

National retail sales are expected to rise 4.1 percent this year, according to the National Retail Federation. That would be the largest increase since 2011, when sales increased 5.1 percent year-over-year, according to the federation’s annual national retail forecast, which was released Thursday. Sales were up 3.5 percent last year. …

Retail added 34,800 jobs in January, as some merchants added to their staffs following the holiday shopping season. Job gains were posted in sporting goods, e-commerce and general merchandise stores, according to the National Retail Federation in Washington, D.C. Another sign that the U.S. economy is in recovery, the retail …

The U.S. economy added 257,000 jobs in January, according to data released Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. More good news: more jobs were added in November and December than previously reported, and average hourly wages in January rose 12 cents to $24.75, the largest gain in that …

The rise in new unemployment claims happened at a lower rate than expected last week, another sign that the job market is getting stronger. Claims in California increased by 11,000 to 278,000 for the week that ended Jan. 31, according to a Reuters report The previous week, claims declined to …

Manufacturing in the Inland Empire stayed strong last month. The region’s purchasing managers index in January was 53.5, one point below December but still an indication of a growing manufacturing sector, according to the Inland Empire Report on Business. Most important, January was the fourth consecutive month the index was …

Unemployment in California dropped to seven percent in December, a decline of two percentage points month over month. That’s the good news. The not-so-good news is that the state added only 700 jobs during the last month of 2014, bringing its official job gain to more than 1.5 million since …