Business Markets

Michigan’s April unemployment rate fell by two-tenths of a percentage point, down to 8.3 percent from the March rate of 8.5 percent, and more than two full percentage points below the same month last year.

April’s rate is the lowest for the state since July 2008, when the jobless rate was 8.2 percent.

Payroll employment in April rose by 5,000 jobs to 3.98 million, and total employment increased by 11,000, according to data released Wednesday by the Michigan Department of Technology, Management & Budget.

“The first four months of 2012 have been positive for Michigan’s labor market,” said Rick Waclawek, director of the Bureau of Labor Market Information and Strategic Initiatives.

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Trader Patrick Casey, center, works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. 

Stocks are closing lower after political instability in Greece sent U.S. and European markets reeling.

European indexes closed near multi-month lows Tuesday as Greek politicians appeared unable to form a coalition government. A key political leader said Greece is no longer bound by its earlier promises to cut spending in exchange for international bailouts.

U.S. markets opened lower and fell for most of the morning. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped nearly 200 points before late-afternoon buying erased much of the decline.

The Dow closed down 76 points at 12,932. The S&P 500 was down six at 1,363. The Nasdaq was off 11 at 2,946.

About three stocks fell for every two that rose on the New York Stock Exchange. Volume was average at 4.21 billion shares.

Dearborn’s Fidelity Bank was seized and sold by state and federal regulators Friday evening — Michigan’s first bank failure of the year.

The bank’s 15 branches will be operated by Huntington National Bank of Columbus, Ohio, which has been on a big push to expand its presence in Southeast Michigan. Huntington agreed to assume Fidelity’s deposits and buy essentially all of its assets, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

“Fidelity’s customers will have uninterrupted access to their accounts and experience a seamless transition to Huntington Bank,” Kevin Clinton, commissioner of the Michigan Office of Financial and Insurance Regulation, said in a statement.

The seizure was initiated by the Office of Financial Regulation, which appointed the FDIC as receiver. On March 21, the bank filed a report with the Securities and Exchange Commission, stating that it was considered “critically undercapitalized” by regulators, who ordered it to add a minimum of $26 millionto its reserves.

All Fidelity branches will re-open today as Huntington Bank offices, and deposits will be automatically transferred to the new owner. F

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Vincent Johnson’s quest for answers started when he opened his electric bill last October.

Back then, he wanted to find out why the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Co. had plunked $900 of other people’s utility charges on his home electric bill.

Now facing a bill almost double that — he wants to know why the  the state’s utilities regulator didn’t thoroughly investigate his claims that CEI tried to bully him into paying bills that weren’t his by threatening to shut off power to his home.

Johnson’s troubles apparently started back in the late ’90s, when he helped a couple of relatives buy an apartment building in East Cleveland.

A middle-school science teacher, Johnson never lived at or managed the building, and his relatives no longer own it.

He’d pretty much forgotten about the place until last October, when electric charges for some of the apartments showed up on his residential bill in Cleveland Heights. Th

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Shipments to the United States jumped nearly 28 percent thanks to the free trade agreement, but weak sales to the other big markets such as China and the European Union clouded prospects, data published on Sunday showed.

The median forecast from a Reuters survey of 14 economists was for exports to expand by 0.7 percent in March from a year earlier. Forecasts ranged from a fall of 5.1 percent to a rise of 8.3 percent.

“Exports will remain weak at least through the second quarter, although there won’t be a collapsing pattern in exports because we see some signs of bottoming in the Chinese economy and in the euro-zone crisis,” said Lee Sang-jae, economist at Hyundai Securities.

Exports reached 47.36 billion in March while imports fell 1.2 percent to 45.03 billion, producing a surplus of 2.33 billion.

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Two days of frost in parts of Michigan likely damaged fruit crops because of the early growing season prompted by unusually warm weather, an industry official said Tuesday.

Damage of peaches and cherries is expected in west central and northern Michigan from a Monday frost, said Ken Nye, horticulture and forestry specialist at the Michigan Farm Bureau, while damage from a Tuesday frost is projected in the eastern part of the state.

“Generally, everything is still too recent to really assess the damage,” Nye said in a Tuesday email.

Because of the unpredictability of the weather, it is unclear what effect the earlier growing season and freezes may have on crop prices for consumers.

Since the growing season has moved up a month, frost poses a threat to budding crops — especially fruit — through June, said Jeff Andresen, agricultural meteorology professor at Michigan State University and the state climatologist.

“The problem is that in many cases as those plants and crops come out of dormancy, they rapidly lose their resistance to cold temperatures,” Andresen said.

Michigan’s fruit and tree nut industry — made up mainly of apples, blueberries and tart cherries — generates $350 million a year in revenue, depending on price and yield, according to the Michigan Field Office of the U.S. Departm

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Money

If housing was growing now at the pace it was until 2006, unemployment would likely be 2 percentage points lower and economic growth would be 2 points higher.

And if Americans spent just $100 billion on U.S. goods instead of foreign goods – a gap that has widened the last few years – then that would create more than 1 million jobs in manufacturing in the United States.

Those are two of the sobering statistics cited Wednesday by renowned economist and author Robert Aliber, professor emeritus at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Aliber was one of three experts who participated in a 2012 Economic Outlook forum at the City Club in downtown Cleveland.

Aliber noted that the annual trade deficit has increased by $300 billion in recent years. Each $1 billion means 12,500 manufacturing jobs. Each $100 billion means $1.25 million jobs.

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