Business Blog

The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits last week fell only slightly to 382,000. The level suggests hiring remains sluggish. Here, from the Associated Press.  are the states with the biggest changes in unemployment aid applications. The state level data are for the week that ended September 8, one week behind the national data: [...]

When the phone rang, I was unpacking my bag at a local hotel on a Sunday afternoon. I was set to start my new job as the editor of the Delta Democrat Times in Greenville the next day. “Hello.” “Hi Ross. This is Chuck Jordan.” Chuck, then the president of Planters Bank in Greenville, was [...]

OXFORD – On Oct. 1, 1962, James Meredith became the first African-American student to enroll in the University of Mississippi, amid controversy and violence. The yearlong celebration of that important event began September 2011 and goes through Oct, 1, 2012 for the official “Opening the Closed Society” program. The campus will remember this significant occasion [...]

Greenville Mayor Chuck Jordan has told the Mississippi Business Journal he is resigning office after just nine months having learned he has advanced-stage pancreatic cancer. Tupelo Mayor Jack Reed Jr. also shared the news at his city council meeting Tuesday, which was tweeted by  Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal reporter Emily LeCoz. Jordan made an official [...]

  T.J. McSparrin at the Clinton Chamber had a to do-list last Thursday morning that included a call to Automatic Data Processing, better known as ADP. Time to pitch them on renewing their Chamber membership. You may want to scratch that from your list, I told her. ADP would soon be on a midnight train [...]

  The U.S. Justice Department has approved Mississippi’s redistricting plans for the state House and Senate. Legislative leaders received word of the approval Friday, the Associated Press reported. The 122 House districts and 52 Senate districts had to be redrawn to reflect population shifts revealed by the 2010 Census. Lawmakers approved new plans in the [...]

It didn’t take long for Mississippi wireless carriers to announce their planned retail release of the new Apple iPhone 5. National providers AT&T, Verizon and Sprint are prepping displays and readying for presales ahead of a September 21 release. Customers for prepaid carrier Cricket and Ridgeland-based C Spire Wireless will have to wait an extra [...]

Automatic Data Processing, a business-outsourcing provider more commonly known as ADP, is shutting down in Clinton and moving its approximately 100 jobs to Augusta, Ga. New Jersey-based ADP has not responded to phone calls over the last couple of days but a spokesman for the Mississippi Development Authority confirmed the company’s departure from the WorldCom [...]

Gray Swoope, the former head of the Mississippi Development Authority who left for a similar role in Florida in early 2011, has inserted himself into a political blame game in the Sunshine State. Swoope has been assigned the role of a blocking back of sorts for Rick Scott, Florida’s hugely unpopular Republican governor and the [...]

An Associated Press story is predicting that 2012 could be the worst year ever in the U.S. for West Nile disease. 1,405 serious illnesses and 118 deaths have already been logged so far across the country, the highest numbers being in Texas. Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Michigan have also seen large numbers of [...]