Business Digest, March 9, 2013

A burst of hiring last month added 236,000 jobs in the United States and reduced the unemployment rate to 7.7 per cent, its lowest level in four years, from 7.9 per cent in January. More than half the decline occurred because 170,000 of the unemployed found jobs, but 130,000 gave up looking for a job. AP

Barclays chief executive Antony Jenkins told some shareholders the bank may shed 28 per cent of its workforce to about 100,000 over the next decade as automation and online banking cut the need for staff. Bloomberg