Business in brief: Key Tronic has earnings spike

Spokane Valley-based Key Tronic Corp. reported second-quarter earnings of $1.7 million, or 17 cents per share, up sharply from earnings of $100,000 or 1 cent per share for the same period a year earlier.

The company, an electronic manufacturing service provider, reported Tuesday that revenue for the quarter dipped slightly to $44.8 million, from $47 million a year ago.

The company said in a news release that “a favorable sales mix … resulted in unusually high gross margins of 11 percent and operating margins of 4 percent, up from 8 and 1 percent respectively from one year earlier.”

Tom Sowa

‘Avatar’ revenue passes ‘Titanic’

Los Angeles – Self-proclaimed “king of the world” director James Cameron has upstaged himself.

The filmmaker’s sci-fi fantasy epic “Avatar” has surpassed his own 1997 record-setting disaster movie “Titanic” to become the highest-grossing movie ever, not accounting for ticket price inflation, foreign currency fluctuations and surcharges on 3-D screens.

Through Monday, “Avatar” racked up $1.85 billion in worldwide ticket sales, edging past “Titanic’s” $1.84 billion – a feat it achieved in less than 40 days, according to the film’s distributor, 20th Century Fox.

Los Angeles Times

Target won’t sell farmed salmon

Minneapolis – Target Corp., the nation’s second-largest discounter after Wal-Mart Stores Inc., said Tuesday that it pulled all farmed salmon from its stores as it looks to be more environmentally conscious.

The retailer said it will no longer carry farmed salmon in its fresh, frozen or smoked seafood sections. The move impacts national brands and the chain’s own Archer Farms and Market Pantry brands, which will now use wild-caught Alaskan salmon.

Associated Press

Job losses put at 27 million

Davos, Switzerland – Twenty-seven million people around the world lost their jobs in 2009, the U.N. labor agency said today, warning of a jobless recovery in a report released on the opening day of the World Economic Forum.

About 12 million of the newly unemployed were in North America, Japan and Western Europe, the International Labor Organization said. The jobless jumped by nearly 4 million in both Eastern Europe and Latin America, while unemployment rates were more stable last year in Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

In an 82-page report, the Geneva-based agency said it expected unemployment to remain high through 2010.

Associated Press