Number of business flights taken by America's business leaders this past year, according to a Business Elite survey released today by Ipsos MediaCT: 5.5 million
Percentage of American business leader fliers who traveled first class or business class: 47
Source: Ipsos Media.
Despite an improved overall outlook, percentage of CFOs who rate U.S. economic growth as their No. 1 concern, according to findings of the CFO Outlook Survey conducted by Financial Executives International and Baruch College's Zicklin School of Business: 38
Percentage of CFOs who cite consumer spending/demand as their top concern: 26
Percentage who are concerned about competition: 25
Source: Financial Executives International and Baruch College.
Percentage of senior executives who say their customers highly appreciate what their company does for them, according to NFI Research: 80
Percentage of managers who say their customers highly appreciate what their company does for them: 65
Source: NFI Research.
Percentage of Americans in 2008 who lived in a family household that contained at least two adult generations or a grandparent and at least one other generation, according to a report based on the Pew Research Center's analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data as well as their public opinion surveys: 16 (an estimated 49 million people)
In 1980, percentage who lived in such a household: 12 (an estimated 28 million people)
Source: Pew Internet and American Life Project.
Since the recession began in December 2007, estimated number of jobs that the U.S. economy has lost, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics: 8.4 million
Percentage rise in unemployment: 200
Percentage drop in job openings: 33
Percentage drop in hiring: 19
Number of times longer that people are spending on the unemployment rolls: 3.5
Source: Sirota Survey Intelligence.
Percentage increase in single-track download sales of music in 2009, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry digital music report: 10
Percentage increase in the download of digital albums: 20
Source: International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.
Percentage of renters who have had a romantic relationship with a roommate or a neighbor living in the same apartment community, according to a national Apartments.com survey: 32
Percentage who have made those relationships last anywhere from a few months to more than a year: 21
Ranks of the pool and the laundry room on the list of the most popular spots for making sparks fly: 1, 2
Source: Apartments.com.
Despite workforce reductions, percentage of "trendsetter" CEOs who believe their companies's current workforce is well aligned to business objectives that must be met over the next 12 to 24 months, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers' Private Company Trendsetter Barometer survey: 61
Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Estimated loss by the United States in total travel-related spending caused by the decline in overseas travel since 2000, according to a report by the U.S. Travel Association in conjunction with Oxford Economic: $509 billion
Cost in jobs -- direct and indirect -- in all regions of the country: 441,000
Number of lost visitors, each of whom on average spend well over $4,000: 6.83 million
Source: U.S. Travel Association.
Percentage of the fastest-growing American companies that reported using at least one social media tool, according to a Center for Marketing Research study: 91
Source: Wake Forest University.
Idle Thought
"Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority." -- Thomas Henry Huxley
(Readers can contact John MacIntyre at johnmacintyre(at)bwr.eastlink.ca.)