Job openings at businesses fell to 2.54 million in June from 2.6 million in May, meaning there is now five unemployed workers on average for every job opening.

There's a brighter spot in manufacturing, where some companies are looking for workers.

The government says there are 227,000 open manufacturing jobs, more than double the number a year ago. One hundred eighty-three thousand have been created since December, the strongest seven-month streak in a decade.

14 months after filing for bankruptcy and taking $50 billion in government loans, General Motors reported its strongest quarter in six years.

The person brought in to manage a turnaround - CEO Ed Whitacre - told a media conference call his work here is done.

"We've restored profitability," said Whitacre. "We've positioned the company for success and things look good."

On Sept. 1, Whitacre turns the reins over to GM board member Dan Akerson, a Wall Street veteran with no auto industry experience.

Mortgage rates sank to the lowest level in decades this week, pushed down by the weak economy and the Federal Reserve's move to help lift the recovery by purchasing government debt.

Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac says the average rate for 30-year fixed loans this week was 4.44 percent, down from 4.49 percent last week. That's the lowest since Freddie Mac began tracking rates in 1971.

The average rate on the 15-year fixed loan dropped to 3.92 percent, down from 3.95 percent last week and the lowest on record.

The number of homes lost to foreclosure surged in July, another sign lenders are moving quicker to take back properties from homeowners behind in payments.

Lenders repossessed 92,858 properties last month, up 9% from June and an increase of 6% from July 2009, foreclosure listing firm RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday.

Banks have stepped up repossessions this year to clear out the backlog of bad loans. July makes the eighth month in a row that the pace of homes lost to foreclosure has increased on an annual basis.

Stocks and interest rates tumbled Wednesday as investors around the world took a bleaker view of the U.S. economy.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 265 points, its biggest drop in six weeks, and all the major indexes fell more than 2%. The yield on the Treasury's 10-year note fell to its lowest level since March 2009 as investors worried about the economy and avoiding stocks sought the safety of government securities.

Wells Fargo was ordered Tuesday to pay $203 million to compensate customers who faced higher overdraft fees due to the bank’s practice of posting larger checks first.

Wells Fargo said it puts through customers’ checks for larger amounts first because it’s often their more important payments covering a mortgage or auto loan. But if that payment overdraws the account, smaller checks posted afterward would bounce, with each bounced check assessed up to $35 in overdraft fees.

With Washington cracking down on Wall Street, banks are finding more ways to charge customers for services.

And one type of fee that is here to stay is the ATM fee. In fact, in 2007, consumers paid more than $4 billion dollars in ATM fees, according to Bankrate.com.

Some such fees now run as high as five-to-ten dollars.

But there are ways to skirt them altogether, and CBS News Business and Economics correspondent Rebecca Jarvis filled viewers in about them on "The Early Show" Wednesday.

Netflix Inc. will pay nearly $1 billion during the next five years for the online streaming rights to movies from Paramount, Lionsgate and MGM in a deal that could help Netflix attract even more subscribers.

Consumers and businesses in Great Britain lost more than $1 million dollars so far this summer from a Trojan that is infecting their computers, prompting them to log into their bank accounts and then surreptitiously transferring money to scammers in other countries, security researchers said on Tuesday.

About 3,000 bank accounts were found to be compromised at one financial institution, which was not identified, according to a white paper released by M86 Security.

The long-rumored geolocation "check-in" feature at Facebook is slated to debut within weeks, multiple sources familiar with the matter told CNET.

It's going to take the form of an application program interface (API) for third-party companies on the Facebook developer platform, integrating existing "check-in" start-ups more deeply into the massive social-networking service and in turn permitting location-aware data to become a part of existing platform applications.