New positions will be in New York, San Francisco, Atlanta: Macy’s plans to fill about 725 new positions over the next two years to assist with the growth of its online business. The Cincinnati-based company says its online sales climbed about 29% in the first 10 months of its fiscal year. Online sales have become more important to retailers as Internet shopping grows because of convenience, discounts and free shipping deals. Macy’s runs macys.com and bloomingdales.com. It says about 260 of the new jobs will be in New York City. The positions will be for macys.com and will concentrate on merchandising and marketing. Other related jobs will be added in San Francisco and suburban Atlanta.
Work in healthy range: Businesses ordered more factory goods in November, responding to stronger demand from consumers. Excluding a drop in demand for airplanes and autos, factory orders jumped by the largest amount in eight months. The Commerce Department says that total orders rose 0.7% in November, rebounding from a 0.7% drop in October. Excluding transportation, orders were up 2.4%. The November increase left total orders at $424.5 billion, which economists consider within the healthy range for manufacturing activity. That total is 20.4% above the recession low, hit in March 2009.
