Plus: Oil Drilling Ban Thrown Out, Job Market Still Struggles and Supply Chain Software Dips.

OECD Economies Grew in Q1 2010
Leading industrialized economies grew by 0.6 percent in the first quarter of 2010 compared with real gross domestic product (GDP) in the final quarter of 2009, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said last week. Stockbuilding was the main contributor to GDP growth in the OECD area for the third consecutive quarter.

“Changes in inventories contributed 0.45 percentage point to overall growth in the first quarter, and private consumption contributed 0.3 percentage point, but these were partially offset by negative contributions from gross fixed capital formation and net exports,” the international economic organization said on Thursday.

Agence France-Presse notes that Canada recorded the strongest growth (1.5 percent) among the OECD’s seven top economies, followed by Japan (1.2 percent) and the United States (0.7 percent). Growth was slower in Europe, where momentum picked up 0.1 percent in France in the first quarter, 0.2 percent in Germany and 0.3 percent in the United Kingdom.

Oil Drilling Moratorium Rejected
A federal appeals court on Thursday rejected the White House’s efforts to enforce a six-month moratorium on offshore oil drilling after an earlier court ruling struck down the temporary ban in late June, citing the possible economic repercussions that a general halt in drilling could have on the already-damaged Gulf Coast.

“The Interior Department said the moratorium was necessary because of the uncertainties about the cause of the BP oil well blowout in April, a shortage of response equipment and a need to write strict new drilling rules,” the New York Times reports.

Following testimony from companies claiming to be financially hurt by the temporary drilling ban, the appeals court upheld a previous ruling from June 22 in which a federal judge struck down the moratorium on the grounds that it was arbitrary and economically harmful to businesses in the Gulf region.

“Amid the legal uncertainty, oil companies remain in limbo,” Agence France-Presse reports. “With their crews and equipment idled since the moratorium was issued in May, oil companies are considering moving their drilling operations inland or abroad.”

Meanwhile, efforts to repair the ongoing Gulf oil spill are becoming more aggressive. Today, BP Plc, the majority owner of the blown-out well, plans to install a 30-foot cap equipped with three rams that could potentially close the wellhead.

“After the new cap, or stack, is in place, oil and gas will flow out a perforated pipe,” the Washington Post explains. “The next move will be the termination of collection efforts by the rig Q4000, which has been capturing about 8,000 barrels of oil a day, plus gas, and flaring both at the surface.”

Should the installation be successful, BP will attempt an “integrity test” that will temporarily or perhaps permanently halt the leak. However, according to the Associated Press, BP executives are “careful to keep expectations grounded, stressing that once the cap is in place, it will take days to know whether it can withstand the pressure of the erupting oil and feed it through pipes to surface ships.”

Job Market Still Struggling
A second consecutive month of lackluster hiring by businesses in the United States is “sapping strength from the economic rebound,” the Associated Press says.

The U.S. Department of Labor on Friday reported a net loss of 125,000 jobs in June. The unemployment rate dropped to 9.5 percent for the month, as more than half a million people gave up looking for work and were no longer counted as unemployed.

“In another one of those unwanted lessons in how we calculate unemployment data, the unemployment rate dropped from 9.7 percent to 9.5 percent — but not because people got hired,” the Washington Post‘s Ezra Klein writes. “Instead, 652,000 people gave up and stopped looking for work. And that number might be higher than it looks, as the natural monthly growth in the labor force is about 100,000 — so to see a 652,000-person drop might mean something like 752,000 current workers left as 100,000 new workers entered.”

On Thursday, the International Monetary Fund forecast that U.S. unemployment will remain above 9 percent through 2011 despite economic growth of more than 3.25 percent this year and about 3 percent in 2011.

In the week ending July 3, the number of people filing first-time claims for unemployment benefits declined 21,000 to a still-high 454,000.

Supply Chain Software Declined in 2009
The global market for supply chain management (SCM) software declined across several key indicators in 2009, according to a June report from IT research firm Gartner. Worldwide SCM software revenue fell to $6.2 billion last year, down 0.7 percent from 2008, while revenue from new licenses dropped 7.4 percent over the same period.

However, recurring revenue from subscriptions and maintenance grew by 10.8 percent and 0.2 percent, respectively, offsetting some of the broader losses.

“Despite the slight dip in overall revenue, the market for supply chain applications seems to have largely weathered the recent financial storms,” Chad Eschinger, research director at Gartner, said in an announcement of the findings. “Although the first nine months of 2009 contracted, the fourth quarter sustained 6 percent annual growth, driven by some pent-up demand, but more so from growth in subscriptions and the many maintenance renewals that were due in the fourth quarter.”