Tidbits from The Economist of 2 July '05

From the magazine: Part-time work is continuing to increase in importance in most developed economies. But its salience varies a lot. In the Netherlands it comprises 35% of total employment. This contrasts with shares of 13% in the United States and 6% in Greece. Despite these national differences, part-time jobs in all countries are generally the preserve of women, who account for 72% of part-time employment across the OECD.

It would be interesting to see what the breakdown is for reasons why women make up the larger percentage of part time workers. While it would be easy to attribute it to child rearing concerns/issues, I wonder if there may not be more to this than might otherwise seem obvious.

I have no clue what this is telling is exactly. I was surprised at the amount of foreign investment coming out of Europe and Japan and had to wonder why that is. I expected there to be more coming out of the U.S. than there is, so that raised additional questions. Anyone with any insights on this one please feel free to share.

From the magazine: Demand for broadband connections is booming in the developing world, growing by 100% or more each year in many countries. In the developed world, meanwhile, growth has slowed to mere double-digit rates, according to Point Topic, a market-research firm. Separate figures from iSuppli, another market-research firm, suggest that global broadband growth peaked in 2004 at 52%, and will slow to 31% this year.

This isn't the first time I've seen something that shows South Korea as having the most broadband users in the world, followed by the other Asian "tigers", again inviting a "Why's that?" from me.