Be mine: Valentine’s Day spending is expected to increase 3.3% over last year, with $17.6 billion in sales related to the romantic holiday. Because it falls this year on a Sunday, restaurants are expected to see a surge in business, while sales are expected to drop for florists, says IBIS World, a retail analysis firm. Restaurants are projected to see a 8.2% gain in sales related to Valentine’s Day, with more than $8.5 billion in anticipated activity. Flower sales are expected to drop 4.5%, from $1.4 billion in 2009 to $1.35 billion this year.
Back to work: Fifty-one percent of workers laid off in the past year have found new full-time jobs, according to a survey by CareerBuilder. The online jobs resource site notes that just 48% of laid-off workers had landed full-time jobs by June, the last time it conducted this type of survey. Of the workers who got jobs in 2009, 61% were able to get pay that is comparable or higher than compensation they received at their old positions. Twenty-six percent of the people who got new jobs relocated to a new city or state.
