Latest Business News

While the news for small businesses has seen the market at its most uncertain since 2008-2009, more employees seem to be satisfied with their job, according to the Glassdoor Employment Confidence Survey.

The survey talked to 2,203 American adults ages 18 and up, with about 30 percent saying they are more satisfied with their job than they were one year ago compared to 26 percent in 2010.

High satisfaction may come from fewer employer cutbacks, the survey says, as 41 percent of workers reported their employer making changes to compensation and other perks compared to 54 percent in 2010.

Even though more are satisfied in their job, more are also concerned about layoffs.

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Tags: Market, Satisfaction Market

Marston’s was among the few stocks that managed to book gains as the wider London stock market veered south last night.

The pubs group rose by 1.3 per cent or 1.4p to 106.4p, compared with a bruising 1.6 per cent decline for the mid-cap index as a whole, after Credit Suisse analysts switched their stance on the stock to “outperform” from “neutral”, with a revised 131p target price, compared with 116p previously.

Against the backdrop of “resilient” like-for-like sales in the managed pub sector, the broker said the Marston’s new-build programme had continued to “outperform expectations”. Adding to that, Credit Suisse said that, in the group’s tenanted estate, it saw “further profit upside to Marston’s new franchise-style retail agreements”.

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Tags: Market, Market Report

Gmail has been popular with small businesses because it’s easy, affordable and has a lot of functionality. But you really aren’t getting everything you can out of Gmail until you start taking advantage of some of the many third-party apps that make Gmail even more powerful. Some Gmail apps require a download; others plug into the Web version.

Regardless, if you find yourself spending a lot of your workday in Gmail, check out these apps that will make your Gmail experience even richer:

Rapportive: Rapportive kills the annoyance of sorting through windows to look up your contacts on social media while you are in Gmail. The

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Tags: Business

In what could be great financial news for entrepreneurs, Office Depot has formed a partnership with Superior Financial Group, a lender for the Small Business Authority, to provide qualifying businesses with SBA loans worth up to $25,000.

The chain supply store said that the loans come at a time when small businesses have been struggling with the poor economy. The store cites a recent Office Depot Small Business Index, which said that only 56 percent of small businesses got all or most of what they needed when applying for a loan.

According to a report from the Charlotte Observer, only 30 percent of small businesses that wanted credit would qualify for traditional SBA-backed loans.

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Tags: Office Depot, Small

Women entrepreneurs are more optimistic about the economy than they were six months ago, according to the biannual Key4Women Confidence Index survey, conducted by the Center for Women’s Business Research in April and released in June.

Asked if they thought the economy would stay the same, worsen or improve in the next 6 months, 10 percent thought it would worsen (compared to 17 percent in the prior Key4Women survey in November 2010), 43 percent thought it would stay the same (compared to 50 percent in the last survey) and 47 percent thought it would improve (up from just 33 percent in the last survey).

The women business owners aren’t just talking about improvement—they’re putting their money where their mouths are. Among t

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Tags: Economy