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John Russo’s chemical lab in North Kingstown has been growing in recent years, even despite a deflated economy, and he expects to add another 15 to 20 positions to his 49 employees over the next year.

But the president of Ultra Scientific Analytical Solutions has found himself in a vexing spot, struggling to fill openings that require specialized training in a state where the jobless rate is close to 11 percent, the third-highest in the nation.

“It’s very difficult to find the right person, and there’s all walks of life trying to find jobs. I honestly think there’s a large swath of unemployable,” said Russo, whose firm manufactures and supplies analytical standards. “They don’t have any skills at all.”

He’s talking about the so-called skills gap, a national problem that has left businesses without a crucial pipeline of the skilled workers they need in a rapidly changing economy.

States from Rhode Island to Washington are taking steps to address the gulf. Michigan launched a “No Worker Left Behind” initiative, allowing unemployed or low-wage workers to get up to $10,000 in free tuition for community college study or other training. Several legislatures passed bills creating “lifelong learning accounts,” which, like a 401(k), help workers save for education, training or apprenticeships. The Aspen Institute is spearheading a national campaign that aims to do something that hasn’t happened nearly enough: get community colleges and employers talking.

The need for such efforts, experts say, is enormous.

In a major report in February, Harvard University highlighted what it called the “forgotten half” of young adults who are unprepared to enter the work force. Some drop out of high school. Some who finish can’t afford college. And some who can afford it find that what they’ve learned in college or vocational programs doesn’t match employers’ demands.

“Our system for preparing young adults is broken,” said William Symonds, director of the Pathways to Prosperity Project at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. “We’re not saying that the system is failing everybody, but it is leaving a lot of young people behind.”

Educators and business leaders say that a “college for all” mentality is no longer realistic, if ever it was. Many positions _ known as “middle-skill” jobs _ don’t require a degree from a four-year institution. The Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce estimates there will be 47 million job openings in the decade ending in 2018. Nearly half will require only an associate’s degree.

Career and technical education programs, once derided as being for those who couldn’t cut it academically, offer one path. But growing those programs has not been a national priority and their quality is inconsistent at best. Education Secretary Arne Duncan has called career and technical education the “neglected stepchild” of education reform.

U.S. Rep. James Langevin, D-R.I., who co-chairs the bipartisan Career and Technical Education Caucus in Congress, wants to change that. He has pushed to expand federal funding for such programs so they can access state-of-the-art technology and equipment. He notes that Perkins Act funding has remained stagnant over the last decade even though demand for career and technical education programs has increased. The funding was cut in the current fiscal year.

The caucus co-chairman, U.S. Rep. Glenn Thompson, R-Pa., points to the story of Tricia Reich, 18, who graduated this month from the Central Pennsylvania Institute of Science and Technology. The school trains students in everything from heavy equipment operation and dental assisting to building construction and landscape design Online payday loans.

In the automotive technology program, Reich learned everything there is to know about how a car works. She spent her third and final year not in the classroom but working at an auto dealership, at first earning $8 an hour as a service writer. She’s now employed at another dealership that sells and services Mercedes, Volvos and Audis, saving money in hopes of attending community college.

Reich said programs like hers give students “a leg up” once they get in the real world. “It’s definitely a big plus,” she said.

Rhode Island has been hit harder by the recession than many states, undergoing a difficult transition from an economy historically made up of low-tech, low-skill manufacturing and service jobs to a “knowledge” economy centered on IT, bioscience and health care and other such fields.

Take the old Jewelry District in downtown Providence. It’s been rebranded the Knowledge District, envisioned as a life sciences hub. But fulfilling that vision is years off.

Keith Stokes, executive director of the Rhode Island Economic Development Corp., notes that the 19-acre parcel is a stone’s throw from south Providence, home to the kind of lower-income, minority population that’s been disproportionately affected by the skills gap. But it might as well be “on the other side of the Grand Canyon,” Stokes said.

“We held on too long to these low-wage, low-skill industries, and we didn’t make the strategic long-term investments in education,” he said. “We’re playing a bit of catch-up. It’s critical for us to be able to catch up and accelerate.”

Part of the problem is the dropout rate. In Rhode Island, for every 100 students who start high school, only 73 will graduate, according to Ray DiPasquale, president of the Community College of Rhode Island. That puts the state slightly above the national average of about 72 percent.

But of those 73 who graduate in Rhode Island, 40 will enter college. And of that number, just 21 earn a degree.

At CCRI, the on-time graduation rate is only 9.8 percent, in part because the vast majority of its nearly 18,000 students require remedial coursework. The national rate is 15 percent.

The skills gap is already taking an economic toll. Some businesses spend tens of thousands of dollars to “skill up” new employees. Leaving positions unfilled is hardly better. Understaffed firms, particularly small ones, can’t deliver goods as fast as they need to or take on new customers.

The problem is likely to become even more acute as the economy picks up.

“If we don’t address this skills problem, American businesses will lack the world-class work force needed to compete at a global level, and many Americans will remain out of work, instead of accessing the high quality jobs of today and tomorrow,” said Penny Pritzker, a Chicago business executive who is advisory board chair of the Aspen Institute’s skills gap campaign.

It took Ultra Scientific’s Russo more than half a year to fill one of those jobs. Until recently, he couldn’t find anyone to operate a specialized piece of equipment that performs high-pressure liquid chromatography, a technique that separates compounds in a solution.

But his firm’s gain represents an economic loss to the state: The Ph.D. Russo is hiring is coming from Thermo Fisher Scientific, which is shuttering its manufacturing facility in east Providence.

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Bank of America is near to a deal to pay $8.5 billion to settle a lawsuit by investors who purchased mortgage securities that soured, handing a victory to a group of money managers including Pimco and BlackRock as well as the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

The company’s board has yet to approve the settlement, but both sides are aiming to get it done by Thursday, according to an individual close to the negotiations. The timing is intended to take place before the second quarter ends.

Bank of America stock jumped 38 cents in after-hours trading to $11.19 a share after news reports of the deal.

The issue of how much the bank would have to compensate investors in mortgage securities it had assembled has been hanging over the shares since last fall. But the company does not anticipate having to raise capital or sell stock to come up with the money for the settlement.

The settlement was less than the tens of billions some investors feared Bank of America would have to shell out, but it will wipe out all of the company earnings in the first half of this year, while heightening the risks that other banks will be sued by investors who hold securities the banks assembled from home loans that have since defaulted my credit score.

“I think this is huge,” said Mike Mayo, a bank analyst with Credit Agricole in New York. “It’s about time the industry resolves issues from the financial crisis and focuses more on righting their companies and improving the economy. This is the most significant step since the financial crisis that helps do that.”

Last fall, analysts warned the toll from suits by these investors and other private holders could total tens of billions of dollars, but the proposed deal would lift some of that uncertainty. The securities affected by the deal come almost entirely from Countrywide, the subprime mortgage lender whose excesses have come to symbolize the excesses of the housing boom. Bank of America bought Countrywide in 2008.

The $8.5 billion settlement represents just a portion of the bank’s total exposure to faulty mortgage bonds. Analysts say it appears to cover about $56 billion of the roughly $222 billion of troubled loans that were bundled into securities, largely by the Countrywide Financial business in acquired in early 2008.

Other huge risks from the fallout of the subprime mortgage crisis still loom

The labour disputes at Canada Post and Air Canada have certainly caught the country’s attention. Stopping mail delivery and disrupting people’s travel plans, even for a short time, will do that.

Air Canada quickly reached a deal with its 4,000 striking customer service workers after the government threatened back-to-work legislation but it’s likely going to be a long, hot summer for the airline as several other unions are also at the bargaining table.

Meanwhile, Canada Post and its union face binding arbitration if the government has to pass back-to-work legislation to end the lockout It’s a messy situation.

One of the core issues in both disruptions is pensions. Get used to it. We are going to see a lot more disputes like these in the coming years. There is a clash of interests taking shape in our society. Employees are trying to protect what they regard as basic entitlements, one of the most important of which is pension plans. Meanwhile, corporations and governments, to an increasing extent, are realizing they can no longer afford the costs of Cadillac pension plans.

Both Air Canada and Canada Post are trying to cope with huge pension deficits, compounded in Air Canada’s case by the fact it now has more retirees than active employees to support them.

In both cases, management’s solution is to propose a two-tier system. Current employees can remain in the existing defined benefit (DB) plans, which guarantee a specific level of income at retirement — a guarantee the companies are obligated to fulfill if the plan runs short of money, assuming they are still solvent. New hires would be moved into a defined contribution (DC) plan, in which there is no income guarantee at the end. The amount of money each person receives depends on how much was contributed over the years and the investment performance of the money credited to each individual.

When it comes to providing a secure retirement, defined contribution plans suck. With no guarantee of income, there is no certainty. A stock market crash a few years before retirement could wipe out half the accumulated assets. It happened as recently as 2008-2009. No wonder the unions are fighting back.

Unfortunately, economic realities will probably defeat them. The private sector is increasingly turning away from defined benefit plans to embrace defined contribution plans or hybrids.

The 2011 Pension Risk Survey published by human resources consulting firm Towers Watson reported that 51 per cent of private-sector defined-benefit-plan respondents have now converted their plans to defined contribution for current or future employees. That was up from 42 per cent in 2008. A press release issued by the company said there is no indication the trend is relenting.

Towers Watson described the future of defined benefit plans as being at “a tipping point,” saying private-sector employers have “crossed a pension Rubicon.”

Ian Markham, Canadian retirement innovation leader at Towers Watson, added: “This year’s survey results show employers planning a conversion to DC are intent on doing so regardless of whether economic conditions improve, or a more sponsor-friendly legislative environment appears, or even in lieu of less dramatic changes to plan design or investment strategy.”

The upshot is that if you work in the private sector and are fortunate enough to have any kind of a pension plan (only 25 per cent of people do, according to Statistics Canada) it will likely be the DC type. This puts the onus on you to manage the money to best advantage. Unfortunately, many people have no idea how to do that.

I occasionally lead seminars for defined contribution plan members at which I explain how their plan works and how to use it to their best advantage. Most of the participants have no idea where to start. Many of them simply leave their contributions in a money-market fund or put it into five-year GICs.

In both cases, the returns are well below the level needed to build a healthy retirement fund. For example, one plan I looked at recently was paying less than 2 per cent on a five-year GIC while the one-year return on its money market fund was 0.96 per cent. That’s not good enough.

If you belong to a DC plan, you need to take control. Otherwise, you are going to be sadly disappointed when you discover how little income you’ll receive when you retire. Here are some things you should do.

Know the investment options. A typical DC pension plan will present members with a smorgasbord of investment choices — one I looked at recently had 29 options, including stand-alone funds, portfolio funds and GICs. Understandably, many people are overwhelmed when presented with such a complex menu. It’s no wonder they fall back to the familiar world of GICs.

There are no easy shortcuts. You have to make time to study the choices carefully or use a financial professional to do it for you. Over the years, you’ll be contributing tens of thousands of dollars to the plan — in fact it is probably the largest single investment you will ever make apart from your home.

Decide on asset allocation. Before you commit, decide on your asset allocation: the percentages of cash, bonds and stocks you want to hold in your plan. The less able you are to handle risk, the greater your emphasis on cash and bonds. Younger, more aggressive pension plan members should give greater weighting to equity funds to maximize returns but scale back the risk level as they get older.

Make changes as needed. Your first selections are not locked in. Except for nonredeemable GICs, you should be able to make changes in your pension plan portfolio whenever you wish. So check the performance of your plan, and of the individual holdings, at least twice a year. Replace underachieving funds with better performers — you should receive regular updates from the company that administers the plan.

Also, review the asset allocation at least once a year. If one of the components does exceptionally well, the added value will skew your weightings and you’ll need to rebalance. For example, if you have a target weight of 60 per cent equity funds and stock markets have a great year, as in 2009, you’ll probably find the weighting at year-end has ballooned to 65 per cent. At that point, switch some of the equity funds to bond or money market funds to get back to your original target.

Maximize your contributions. Some defined contribution plans allow you to decide how much of your pay you want to contribute, for example between 4 per cent and 6 per cent. Choosing the highest level will pay off big-time in the long run, especially if the employer is matching your contribution.

Let’s say your income is $50,000 annually and you have 30 years remaining until retirement. Your employer offers the choice of a contribution level of 4 per cent, 5 per cent, or 6 per cent, which the company will match. Assuming an average annual compound rate of return of 6 per cent, if you choose the lowest contribution level the value of the plan after 30 years will be just over $316,000. If you put in 5 per cent of your pay, that increases to $395,000. But if you choose the highest level of 6 per cent, the plan will be worth $474,000 when it comes time to stop work. The end difference between the lowest and highest contribution levels is $158,000 more in retirement savings!

As you can see, there’s a lot of money involved. That’s why it is so important to take the time to properly manage your defined contribution pension plan. It may not be the best plan around but if that’s the type you have, make the most of it.

Also read:

Why $1 million in an RRSP isn’t a pension

Freedom 45: I plan to retire in 13 years

Gordon Pape publishes the Internet Wealth Builder newsletter. His website is www.BuildingWealth.ca

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Almost 30 percent of women have high levels of anxiety about their finances, compared with 17 percent of men, according to a new survey in the U.S.

The results, from a questionnaire filled out by more than 1,000 people in the first quarter, also showed that 9 percent of women reported “overwhelming financial stress,” compared with 3 percent of men. That may be because of women’s greater sense of obligation to children and home, said Gregory Ward, head research analyst at Financial Finesse Inc., which conducted the survey.

“Certainly a part of it is the psychology of how men and women view things,” he said.

For both genders, worries about money have lessened since 2009, when the U.S. was emerging from the recession, the survey showed.

That year, Financial Finesse found that 97 percent of people questioned said they experienced some level of stress over finances, citing debt and retirement savings, compared with 86 percent in the most recent study.

Of the 438 women surveyed this year, 28 percent said they had “high” or “overwhelming” financial stress, and 62 percent reported ’some.”

Among the 618 men, 66 percent acknowledged ’some” unease and 17 percent “high” or “overwhelming” levels.

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Booming Asia had more millionaires than Europe for the first time last year and is fast closing in on North America for the top spot, a report released Thursday said.

The Asia-Pacific region was home to 3.3 million people in 2010 worth $1 million or more, excluding their houses, an increase of roughly 10 percent from the year before, according to the 15th annual World Wealth Report by Merrill Lynch’s wealth management division and consultancy Capgemini.

Asia’s growth outpaced Europe, where so-called high net worth individuals increased 6 percent to 3.1 million, and puts it within reach of North America, where the number rose 8.6 percent to 3.4 million.

The report’s findings illustrate how Asia’s economies are growing much more quickly than developed countries and, in the process, minting scores of new millionaires and billionaires. Asia’s growth has been powered by China and India, whose economies grew 9-10 percent last year while European and North American growth was in the low single digits.

“It is entirely conceivable that Asia would overtake North America in the near future,” said Wilson So, a managing director at Merrill Lynch Global Wealth Management. “I would be surprised if that does not happen very soon.”

The U.S., Japan and Germany still account for just more than half the world’s 10.9 million wealthy, while China is in fourth place with 535,000, about 58,000 more than in 2009. Australia has moved up one notch to ninth place, edging out Italy, while India cracked the top 12 for the first time Payday advance. It replaced Spain, which fell to 14th.

While 2010 was the first time Asia has overtaken Europe in number of wealthy people, it is the second year Asia’s combined wealth was bigger than Europe’s.

The world’s wealthy were worth a total of $42.7 trillion in 2010. Asia’s share of that amounted to $10.8 trillion, putting it in second place for the second year in a row, just behind North America’s $11.6 trillion.

Six of the 10 economies with the fastest growing millionaire populations were in Asia, led by Hong Kong and Vietnam, which each saw annual growth of 33 percent. Others included Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Singapore and India.

Asia also had a bigger proportion of young millionaires, with 3 percent aged 30 or under. All other regions had 2 percent or less.

Globally, women are increasingly in the ranks of millionaires. The report found that 27 percent of the world’s wealthy last year were women, up from 24 percent in 2009.

While the majority of wealth is held by Americans, Japanese and Germans, the authors of the report expect the distribution to become more diverse over time as developing countries continue to grow faster than developed ones.

The superrich, defined as people worth more than $30 million, fared well. Their numbers grew 10 percent to 103,000 last year.

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ConAgra’s fourth-quarter net income more than doubled thanks to higher food prices and an insurance settlement.

But the company warned Thursday that first-quarter earnings may fall below last year’s numbers in what CEO Gary Rodkin calls a “challenging” market place. ConAgra shares fell 3 percent in premarket trading.

ConAgra and other food producers have had to raise prices as higher ingredient and material costs cut into profits. This quarter, the company’s consumer foods segment saw cost inflation rise 9 percent.

The maker of Slim Jim, Healthy Choice, Chef Boyardee and other food products earned $254.9 million, or 61 cents per share, for the period ended May 29. That’s up from $90.6 million, or 20 cents per share, a year earlier.

Adjusted earnings from continuing operations rose to 47 cents per share from 38 cents per share, the company said Thursday.

Analysts polled by FactSet expected 48 cents per share.

The current quarter’s results included about 16 cents per share from an insurance settlement, approximately 2 cents per share in restructuring charges and other items.

Revenue climbed 5 percent to $3.21 billion from $3.05 billion, just edging out Wall Street expectations.

The consumer foods division, which made up 63 percent of the quarter’s sales, reported a slight sales increase in the quarter with strength in brands such as Hebrew National, Peter Pan, Wesson, Slim Jim and others.

ConAgra said it raised prices for cooking oil-related products, frozen foods and snacks loans for people with bad credit. The company said more prices hikes have been made in early fiscal 2012 and that prices will rise again if needed.

In the commercial foods segment sales rose 15 percent on higher flour milling prices, price increases and better volumes for Lamb Weston specialty potato products. The unit comprises 37 percent of the quarter’s sales.

For the year, ConAgra reported net income of $817 million, or $1.88 per share. That compares with $725.8 million, or $1.62 per share, in the previous year.

Adjusted earnings from continuing operations were $1.75 per share.

Annual revenue improved to $12.3 billion from $12.01 billion.

ConAgra Foods Inc., based in Omaha, Neb., expects fiscal 2012 adjusted earnings per share to climb by a low- to mid-single digit percentage rate from fiscal 2011’s $1.75 per share.

Analysts forecast $1.87 per share for the year.

The company also said it expects its first-quarter earnings to come in below the prior-year period’s 34 cents per share.

Wall Street predicts quarterly earnings of 36 cents per share.

ConAgra’s shares dropped 77 cents to $24.65 before the market opened.

The company maintained its long-term earnings per share forecast for 6 percent to 8 percent growth each year.

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Australia’s two largest telecommunications companies signed lucrative deals with the government to join the rollout of a fiber optic national broadband network that will be among the world’s fastest.

Telstra Corp. and Optus Pty. Ltd. _ which combined represent 60 percent of Australia’s retail broadband market, signed separate deals with the government Thursday to close down their own infrastructures and transfer customers to the national broadband network, known as the NBN.

The deal with Telstra, the larger company, was required under the NBN business plan to achieve the rollout at 36 billion Australian dollars ($38 billion).

Without it, NBN Co., the government-owned company that is building the super-fast network, would have had to duplicate Telstra’s unrivaled infrastructure.

But the deal with Optus, a subsidiary of Singapore Telecommunications Ltd., is an added bonus that will boost customers and drive down costs, Treasurer Wayne Swan said.

“Two major telcos have now signed on with the NBN and that will mean a very strong take up of the NBN,” Swan told reporters. “This will, of course, completely change the market structure in Australia.”

Both deals need the approval of Australia’s competition watchdog, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. Telstra also needs the approval of shareholders at an Oct. 18 annual meeting.

Telstra, a former government-owned monopoly that still owns the nation’s aging copper wire communications infrastructure, which it leases to competitors, has agreed to progressively disconnect that infrastructure.

Telstra and the government expect the agreement to deliver AU$11 billion to Telstra over decades in replacement revenue through disconnection payments, and new revenues through payments for access to its infrastructure.

Telstra services will migrate to the NBN over its expected 10-year construction.

Telstra will also provide NBN Co. with access to other infrastructure for a period of 35 to 40 years.

Optus will progressively migrate its hybrid fiber coaxial cable (HFC) customers to the NBN starting in 2014, for which it will earn AU$800 million.

The government has already begun rolling out the network, which will deliver broadband speeds of 100 megabits per second to 90 percent of Australian homes, schools and businesses through fiber-optic cables connected directly to buildings.

The new speeds are 100 times faster than most Australians currently get _ enough to watch multiple high-quality downloads of movies or television shows at once from the same connection.

A handful of countries _ South Korea, Japan, France and Germany among then _ currently have comparable speeds.

The plan to make Australians one of the most wired people in the world with uniform Internet access is made more challenging by the vast and scarcely populated Outback, which separates the major coastal cities.

The conservative opposition argues the plan is too expensive.

The opposition Liberal Party went to elections in August last year promising to deliver a smaller, slower _ but much less expensive _ AU$6 billion network with a range of technologies, including optical fiber, wireless and DSL.

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Asian shares posted modest gains Tuesday after confidence got a boost from Europe’s vow to contain the Greek debt crisis.

Oil prices hovered above $93 a barrel. The dollar was lower against the euro and the yen.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.9 percent to 9,437.38, a day after the government upgraded its economic assessment for the first time in four months, as the world’s No. 3 economy continued to battle back from a devastating earthquake on March 11.

Shares of Nissan Motor Co. and Mitsubishi Motors Corp. rose after announcing joint development of a mini-vehicle for the Japanese market in the first half of fiscal 2013. Nissan rose 3.1 percent and Mitsubishi was up 1.1 percent.

Signs that the European financial crisis may be contained helped ease investors’ concerns. European Union officials in Luxembourg said Monday that the EU would take steps to prevent Greece’s debt problems from affecting other struggling countries like Ireland and Portugal.

“This eased concerns significantly and saw currencies and equity markets rally strongly from the lows,” said Ben Potter, a strategist at IG Markets in Melbourne.

South Korea’s Kospi was 0.1 percent higher at 2,022 payday loans for bad credit.24 and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 0.4 percent to 21,694.34. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was 0.8 percent higher at 4,489.20.

Benchmarks in Singapore, Taiwan, Indonesia and the Philippines were higher. Shares in New Zealand were lower.

In New York on Monday, investors largely put aside their concerns about the Greek financial crisis and focused on value, analysts said, snapping up shares at bargain prices.

The S&P 500 index rose 0.5 percent to close at 1,278.36. The Dow Jones industrial average added 0.6 percent to 12,080.38. The Nasdaq composite gained 0.5 percent to 2,629.66.

Benchmark oil for July delivery was up 4 cents to $93.33 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose 25 cents to settle at $93.26 on Monday.

In London, Brent crude for August delivery was down 30 cents to $111.39 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.

In currencies, the euro rose to $1.4330 from $1.4190 late Monday in New York. The dollar sank to 80.17 yen from 80.32 yen.

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Greece is talking with international creditors about a second bailout package “roughly equal” to the first euro110 billion ($157 billion) rescue it accepted a year ago, the prime minister confirmed Sunday.

George Papandreou also blamed Greece’s bloated and inefficient state sector for bringing the country to its knees and vowed to effect deep changes with a fall referendum on the constitution that would make it easier to get rid of inept officials or workers.

His proposals were a populist response to widespread popular anger at politicians as austerity measures cut deeply into disposable incomes. Riots erupted on the streets of Athens last week against a new round of spending cuts and tax hikes being demanded by the European Union and the IMF.

“I ask for a vote of confidence because we are at a critical juncture … the debt and deficits are national problems that have brought Greece into a state of dependence that may have protected us from bankruptcy, but which we need to get out of,” Papandreou said, opening a three-day parliamentary debate that culminates Tuesday in a confidence vote.

He dismissed any calls to default on the country’s massive debt, saying this would be “a catastrophe for households and banks alike” and made it clear he would not back off from efforts to reduce the debt.

Papandreou called for an autumn referendum on changes to the political system, including to the country’s constitution. He said he will appoint an independent commission of up to 25 people to collect proposals from citizens and submit a report before the fall vote.

Papandreou said the constitutional revision will make it easier to prosecute delinquent government officials, now protected by a strict statute of limitations. He added other changes would include reducing the number of deputies, more transparent funding of political parties and candidates and a new electoral system, possibly even with term limits.

European donors and the International Monetary Fund are demanding that Greece pass new austerity measures before they release the next euro12 billion ($17 billion) loan from the first rescue package.

Many experts say Greece’s debt load is too great and expect it to eventually default. The European Central Bank, however, has been adamant that a Greek default is unthinkable because it could set off an unpredictable chain reaction that would badly hurt European banks, roil markets and make it harder for other indebted countries to cope. The ECB also has significant exposure to Greek debt.

Spooked by financial markets’ reaction to Greece’s political turmoil, Germany on Friday dropped its demand that the private sector be forced to share in the pain of a second Greek bailout. Papandreou also reshuffled his Cabinet and named a new finance minister, Evangelos Venizelos, who was in Luxembourg on Sunday at a EU finance ministers meeting.

Papandreou said the original loan’s assumption that Greece would be able to borrow from the markets in 2012 was no longer valid, but insisted his Socialist government had done all it was required to, passing painful austerity measures and reducing the deficit as a percentage of GDP by 5 percent in 2010.

Instead, he blamed ratings agencies, tax havens, “derivatives speculators” and the media for allegedly spreading panic and discouraging potential investors.

Papandreou said his government had tried from the start to negotiate lower interest rates and reschedule payments for the first bailout package, something he said his government finally achieved in March.

“This way, we will save, by 2015, euro48.5 billion ($69 billion) in debt repayments, including euro4 billion ($5.7 billion) on interest alone,” he said.

Opposition leader Antonis Samaras, meanwhile, called for early elections and said Papandreou’s referendum proposal was an evasive maneuver masking his inability to govern. He demanded that Papandreou be tougher in negotiating bailout terms with international creditors and repeated that raising taxes and cutting wages and pensions was the wrong way to go.

“We do not ask you to better apply the wrong recipe but to change it,” Samaras said.

Samaras also proposed that Papandreou reactivate stalled highway projects to create jobs and seek faster EU funds for such projects.

With 155 deputies in the 300-seat parliament, Papandreou is expected to win the confidence vote. His next task is to pass the new austerity package by the end of the month, despite near-daily protest marches and sit-ins.

Protesters who flock each afternoon to Athens’ central Syntagma square in front of parliament have been wearing stickers saying “We owe nothing, we’ll sell nothing, we’ll pay nothing” _ rejecting creditors’ demands to sell off state assets.

Keeping up the anti-austerity drumbeat, GENOP, the powerful union of state electric employees, was to begin rolling 48-hour strikes at midnight Sunday, threatening blackouts across the country.

Unions are planning a 48-hour general strike on the date, yet to be determined, when parliament votes on the new austerity package.

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Millions of domestic workers stand to gain labor rights for the first time as countries meet in Geneva to vote on a new convention that will protect maids, nannies and cooks around the world from exploitation.

Governments meeting at the annual International Labor Conference are voting Thursday on whether to accept that domestic workers deserve basic rights, such as regulated working hours, maternity leave and unemployment insurance.

Countries have taken decades to agree on the convention in part because of concern about the impact of granting labor rights to large numbers of people in the informal economy unsecured personal loans.

The International Labor Organization says 56 million workers could be covered by the convention, but campaign groups put that number at 100 million.

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