10/01/2014 World Business Report

of democracy. Those are the latest headlines from BBC World News. Now

for the latest financial news with Alice Baxter and world Business

Report. US jobs figures may show hiring hit an eight-year high last

year. But can it make a dent in America's long-term unemployment?

Plus - China's annual trade passes the four trillion dollar mark -

confirming its position as the world's biggest trading nation.

Welcome to world Business Report. I'm Alice Baxter. Also in the

programme - why the art of dyeing fabrics is a dying art in Nigeria.

The last in our series on vanishing professions. But first - the health

of the US economy is the focus for global financial markets this

Friday. Specifically, is it creating enough new jobs for the Federal

Reserve to further wind down its stimulus programme - or even

consider raising interest rates? In a few hour's time the US government

releases its monthly employment figures for December. Here are the

numbers we are looking for. US employers are expected to have

created 196,000 new jobs in December - according to economists polled by

Reuters. That would be another strong month. But possibly not

enough to bring the jobless rate down any further from the 7% it hit

in November - that's a five-year low. Remember, the Federal Reserve

wants to see unemployment down at 6.5% before even it considers

raising interest rates. Still - that would bring the total jobs created

last year to more than two and a quarter million. That would be the

best year for job creation since 2005. But as Samira Hussain reports

from New York, all this is little consolation to America's millions of

long-term unemployed. This woman has been out of work for nine months.

She is exhausted her unemployment benefits and has very little left in

the bank. One day I woke up and was not as positive as I once was. I was

wondering, what was wrong with me that I was not able to find a job.

It starts to get you down on yourself. I've gone through this

will fits of depression here and there. It is difficult. It is a

struggle. I'm not the type to not work. I need to be a productive

member of society and be around people. She does not have a job

interview today but is going out to personally drop off the resume at a

company she knows has an opening. Her way of setting herself apart

from the competition. This career coaches seeming -- seen many people

like her. Although the job market is improving in America prospects are

tough the longer you have been out of work. Imagine if he had been out

for six months, or even two gears and you are competing against

individuals who are freshly unemployed or given that the market

is opening up, people who are working and looking to make a change

and competing against those folks. There are 4 million Americans who

have been out of work for six months or longer. The sheer numbers of

long-term unemployed as having a ripple effect in the US economy.

These workers are not earning to their full potential. It is less

money in their pockets that they can spend on groceries, clothing, gas,

bills, rent, mortgages. All things that are a drag on the economy. It

is this kind of spending that creates more employment in the first

place. Despite the months of searching, she remains optimistic.

Perhaps the next time she walks into this building, she will do it as an

employee. Let's move to China now - where official trade data for

December was released in the last few hours. It shows China's annual

trade passed the $4 trillion dollar mark for the first time in 2013,

confirming its position as the world's biggest trading nation. A

big jump in imports - goods coming into China - in December has also

given reassurance about the state of the country's domestic economy.

Remember - China is trying to rebalance its economy away from

exports being the world's factory and more towards domestic spending.

Sharanjit Leyl has been following the story for us in Singapore. With

imports with imports sharply up, chose domestic consumption is very

robust in China? It does to some extent. Those were better than

expected growth numbers for imports that are helping to raise sentiment

in what was a very mixed bag of numbers. Imports rising 8.3% from

the previous year indicating that strong domestic demand but still we

saw exports rising by a weaker than expected annual rate of just over

4%. That marked a slowdown from the over 12% growth we saw in November

for exports. Going back to the import numbers, we know they are

crucial because it does mean there is a strong domestic demand in

China. Something the government is counting on in a big effort to

restructure the economy. They want to try to move away from being so

export reliant, export and manufacturing are key drivers of

China's growth for decades but there has been a slowdown in key markets

like the US and Europe which has impacted the growth rate in recent

years. Having said that, for 2014, the numbers for exports have gone up

8%. Now - all this week we've been looking at vanishing professions -

jobs that are dying out with changes in the economy or developments in

technology. For the last in our series, we travel to northern

Nigeria, where a textile business that dates back to the 15th Century

is threatened with extinction. Reporter Tomi Oladipo brings us this

report from the Kofar dye pits. For more than 500 years, not an awful

lot has changed at this business. Artisans have worked in different

fabrics, weaving them and dipping them into the sty pits. The pits go

down sometimes six metres deep. It has -- it is an art that has been

handed down over the generations. One person who would know that very

well is Haroun Baffa. He is a seventh generation dying Artisan. We

put normal water over the feed. We get some ash from the fire. We put

it over the peat and leave at three days. Then it goes in to go. You

prepare the solution for three days? Yes, three days. We soak the fabric

inside the solution. In the Indigo. The plant has grown outside the city

and is needed to create the distinct colour. To make these patterns, part

of the cloth is tied with string and dipped in the die. The fabric is

popular for special Muslim occasions but apart from that it is hardly a

thriving market. People want wider varieties of fabrics to choose from

and these days they are found from around the world. Clothes come from

as far as China and India and they are affordable for the average

shopper. That means there is no market for the local textile

industry. You cannot really wear that traditional stuff every day. It

is for a special occasion. These are casual and they cost less. Money is

an issue. The ongoing insurgency has made northern Nigeria off-limits for

buyers. Before the crisis, we had plenty of visitors to come to see.

He says before the violence, customers came every few days. But

now no one shows up for months. The ancient form from Thai and I has

been around for generations but it has never been as much under threat

as it has been now. An Indian software giant has raised its

forecast as outsourcing demand has recovered. Improving US and European

economies has revived demand for its hundred billion dollar outsourcing

industry. A US court will hear two conflicting plans for bankrupt

electric car firm Fisker on Friday. Chinese auto parts firm Wanxiang

Group and Hong Kong billionaire Richard Li are both creditors who

want to take control of the company - which filed for bankruptcy

protection in November. America is the focus of those job numbers for

global markets everywhere. They weighed on the Asian markets which

were soggy today after Chinese trade day be a mixed bag. The papers are

next. A