By Maxine Shapiro, KERA 90.1 business commentator
Dallas, TX – It's Friday so "It's Only Money," a review of the big and not-so-big stories of the week. I'm Maxine Shapiro with KERA Marketplace Middays.
The Texas jobless figures were announced and it's a good news/bad news scenario. First the bad: the jobless rate for Texas went up in July two-tenths of a percent to 6%. That eked us right above the national average. According to The Texas Workforce Commission, seasonally-adjusted nonagricultural employment fell by 51,300 jobs in July, the largest monthly decrease in more than 10 years. Quick, the good news: Dallas/ Forth Worth saw a decrease in the jobless rate last month. In Dallas, after reaching its ten-year high in June of 7.5%, unemployment dropped to 7.2%.
And Forth Worth/Arlington reported two-tenths of a percent decrease at 6.2% for July. If you're looking for the lowest unemployment rate in state, at 2.2 percent, you'll have to move to Bryan-College Station. And miss all the congested overcrowded highways here? I don't think so.
Plano-based Cinemark USA, Inc. announced their second quarter earnings earlier this week. Revenues were up almost 23% from same time last year. And their net income was over $14 million. Last year, there was a net loss of over $2 million. So either we're going to a lot more movies, or it's not my imagination that I need a second mortgage just to afford the tickets, popcorn and bottled water. For all you youngsters out there, there was actually at time when you could bring our own popcorn - so I heard.
What a miracle of life, August 14th came and went without another major accounting scandal. That was the deadline CEO's and CFO's had to swear under oath that their financial statements were accurate. Now if you don't count the story that the SEC is investigating a former executive at AOL for certain unethical practices, it was a pretty quiet week.
And Kellogg's Tony the Tiger turned 50 this week and I swear when I saw him on TV he didn't look a day over - 50. For KERA Marketplace Midday, I'm Maxine Shapiro.
Marketplace Midday Reports air on KERA 90.1 Monday - Friday at 1:04 p.m. To contact Maxine Shapiro, please send emails to mshapiro@kera.org.