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Mortgage rates jumped sharply this week, with the average rate on the benchmark conforming 30-year fixed mortgage rate rising to 4.89 percent, according to Bankrate.com's weekly national survey. The average 30-year fixed mortgage has an average of 0.36 discount and origination points.

StrongMail, a leading provider of marketing solutions for email marketing and social media, announced the results of its “2011 Marketing Trends” survey, which provides unique insight into how businesses plan to budget and prioritize marketing dollars in the New Year. Conducted in November 2010, 925 business leaders participated in the global survey.

A total of 153.9 million persons worked at some point during 2009, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. The proportion of workers who worked full time, year round in 2009 was 64.0 percent, down from 65.6 percent in 2008. The number of persons who experienced some unemployment during 2009 increased by 4.9 million to 26.1 million. The sharp increase reflects the continuing weak labor market conditions experienced throughout 2009.

The Conference Board Leading Economic Index® (LEI) for the U.K. increased 0.4 percent in October to 105.1 (2004=100), following gains of 0.5 percent in September and 0.5 percent in August. Six of the seven components made positive contributions to the index in October.

comScore, a leader in measuring the digital world, today reported holiday season retail e-commerce spending for the first 35 days of the November – December 2010 holiday season. For the holiday season-to-date, more than $17.5 billion has been spent online, marking a 12-percent increase versus the corresponding days last year. The most recent week saw four individual days eclipse $800 million in spending, led by Cyber Monday, which became the heaviest online spending day on record at $1.028 billion. Tuesday, November 30 reached $911 million, making it the third heaviest online spending day on record, with Wednesday ($868 million) and Thursday ($850 million) also reaching high levels, although growth rates for the season subsided in the latter half of the week and through the weekend.

For middle-class Americans, retirement simply means a new phase of their working years, according to results from the sixth annual Retirement Fitness Survey from Wells Fargo & Company. The survey found that 72% of middle-class Americans between the ages of 25 and 69 expect to work through their retirement years. The trend is driven both by deep deficits in personal retirement savings – 39% say they “will need to work” to make ends meet or maintain their lifestyles – and also by lifestyle choice, with 33% saying they will continue to work because they want to.

Consumer confidence reached its highest point in three years and saw its biggest month-to-month increase since April as more Americans believe U.S. economic conditions are improving and their personal finances are getting better, according to the Discover U.S. Spending Monitor.

There were 3.4 million job openings on the last business day of October, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. The job openings rate increased over the month to 2.5 percent. The hires rate remained at 3.2 percent in October, while the separations rate was essentially unchanged at 3.1 percent. This release includes estimates of the number and rate of job openings, hires, and separations for the total nonfarm sector by industry and geographic region.

As a result of limited signs of an economic recovery coupled with continued unemployment, dissatisfaction remains prominent across the United States, especially in the financial services industry. According to a recent OneWire survey, 77% of finance professionals think the economic recovery has been largely unsuccessful and 51% believe that the recovery has had no positive impact on any aspect of their lives.

Unemployment rates were lower in October than a year earlier in 235 of the 372 metropolitan areas, higher in 121 areas, and unchanged in 16 areas, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. Ten areas recorded jobless rates of at least 15.0 percent, while 12 areas registered rates of less than 5.0 percent. The national unemployment rate in October was 9.0 percent, not seasonally adjusted, compared with 9.5 percent a year earlier. One hundred eighty-two metropolitan areas reported over-the-year increases in nonfarm payroll employment, 178 reported decreases, and 12 had no change.