… No Joy in June Jobs, British and German Manufacturing Output, the World’s First Global Union and MORE.

The Currency Blame Game Continues
Last week, United States lawmakers said they would maintain a bid to impose sanctions on China over its allegedly undervalued yuan currency.

“Four senior senators who have crafted legislation against China and other nations that allegedly manipulate their currencies for trade gains said in a statement that the sanctions option had not been taken off the table,” Agence France-Presse reports. “A mandatory twice-yearly U.S. Treasury report to Congress in May accused China of keeping its yuan currency ‘substantially undervalued’ but stopped short of branding Beijing a currency manipulator.”

Meanwhile, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao last week again called on the U.S. to stabilize the dollar, warning that “the greenback’s decline was posing threats to the global economy,” according to AFP.

No Boon in June Jobs
The U.S. economy shed 62,000 non-farm jobs in June while the unemployment rate unexpectedly remained at a four-year high of 5.5 percent, the U.S. Department of Labor reported late last week. Payrolls have now fallen in all six months this year for a total job loss of 438,000, the strongest evidence yet that the economic expansion has slipped into a recession of uncertain depth and duration.

The number of job losses in June, which was slightly worse than most economists had expected, was particularly high in the goods-producing and service sectors. “Employment continued to fall in construction, manufacturing, and employment services, while health care and mining added jobs,” the report said.

A total of 43,000 positions were lost in the construction industry, which has been hit hard by a lengthy slump in the housing market, and the manufacturing sector suffered a loss of 33,000 positions. Professional and business services firms trimmed their payrolls by 51,000 positions.

United Steelworkers to Form Global Union
The United Steelworkers aims to form “the world’s first global union,” reports Metal Producing & Processing. The organization would tie together 3.2 million active and retired workers from the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland who work in virtually every sector of the global economy, including manufacturing, service, mining and transportation.

British Manufacturing Output Falls
British manufactured production declined by 0.5 percent in May from April, the Office for National Statistics reports. The ONS adds that a wider measure of industrial production, which includes mining, quarrying and energy, sank 0.8 percent in May from April. Mining and quarrying output increased by 0.7 percent while energy supply output decreased by 5.2 percent.

“Output of consumer durable goods fell by 2.1 percent compared with the previous three months, and was 2.5 percent below the same period a year ago,” according to the Associated Press.

Total production output decreased by 0.8 percent between April and May.

German Industrial Output Falls
In May, German industrial production slumped by 2.4 percent compared to the same month a year earlier, according to data released by the German Economics Ministry today. This third consecutive month of decline in German industrial production offers further evidence that Europe’s largest economy is slowing, and fairly rapidly, according to Bloomberg News.

Manufacturing output was down 2.6 percent month on month. Meanwhile, construction was up 1 percent from April, though construction in April was already at a very low level. The seasonally adjusted industrial output index peaked in February, and has since been declining

Because Germany is Europe’s largest economy, these latest figures are somewhat surprising to market analysts, who expected a slight increase.

Big U.S. Exporters Next Casualties?
“A rare bright spot in the U.S. stock market this year has been big exporters. Although the domestic economy was weak, industrial outfits like Caterpillar rushed to meet the seemingly insatiable demand for their products from booming overseas economies,” BusinessWeek points out. “But now many worry that the global economy, dragged down by high oil prices and signs of accelerating inflation, is following the U.S. into a slowdown.”

Boosted by rising prices for oil and other commodities, inflation is mounting across the globe, a concern not only in emerging economies.

Biotech Investing in Maryland
Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) pledged last month to double tax credits provided by the state’s Biotechnology Investment Tax Credit program next year and then raise funding gradually, up to $24 million in 2013. Although O’Malley’s plan didn’t boost the limited pool for 2009 (The state allocates $6 million in tax credits on a first-come, first-served basis.), the maximum individual investment was raised this year to $500,000, from $100,000, according to The Washington Post.

The state’s Biotech Investment Tax Credit program, administered by the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development, provides tax credits equal to 50 percent of an eligible investment, and investors make an equal match. The increasingly popular program, which encourages investors to provide seed and early-stage funding to qualified, privately held Maryland biotechnology companies, has already leveraged more than $24 million in private investment since its inception in 2006.

Starbucks to Shutter 600 Stores
Bad news for some of the nearly eight in 10 Americans who drink coffee: Starbucks is pulling the plug on 600 under-performing U.S. shops, versus a previously announced plan to close 100. Most of the stores to be closed were opened since 2006. The coffee giant last week also said it will be trimming the number of stores it had planned to open over the coming year.

The somewhat-secretive closures seem to be due to the slowing economy and consumer spending, as well as increasing competition of its core business and overreach. Starbucks, which has doubled in size in four years, now operates about 7,000 stores itself and licenses 4,100 more in the U.S.