Money’s getting shallow and weak: A survey of U.S. chief executives shows a sharp drop in the number of large companies that plan to add jobs or hire more workers. The Business Roundtable reports today that only 29% of its member CEOs plan to increase hiring over the next six months. That’s down from 36% in June, when the group last released its quarterly survey. And it’s significantly lower than the 52% of CEOs who said in early 2011 they planned to boost hiring, the highest percentage since the survey began in 2002. Get all the details in the full story here.
Dance me to the end of love: Myspace, the once-mighty social network-turned-entertainment site, is trying to stage yet another comeback with the help of pop star Justin Timberlake. The company posted a video this week that teases the “New Myspace” and lets people sign up for invitations to join. Based on the video, the new site looks like an entertainment-focused version of Pinterest, with dashes of Twitter and Facebook thrown in. But Myspace has tried redesigns before, to no avail. It’s not clear whether the makeover will work. Timberlake, who’s featured prominently in the video, last year bought Myspace with a group of other investors for $35 million, mostly in stock. News Corp. bought it for $580 million in 2005. The Associated Press has the full story here.
Feeling Weezy: Lil Wayne is returning to New Orleans, his hometown, for the opening of the Trukstop skate park in the Lower 9th Ward. The Grammy-winning rapper, who recently launched a skateboarding-inspired clothing line called Trukfit, is scheduled to open the park today with his corporate partners, Mountain Dew and Glu Agency, a boutique advertising firm. The park will be a gathering place where residents have been slow to return since Katrina hit seven years ago. Flooding pushed homes off their foundations, and many blocks remain vacant and overgrown by weeds. Trukstop occupies a pre-Katrina building that survived the flooding. It was constructed using recycled materials and will be run using solar energy.
