Americans in their late 30s are now the group most likely to doubt they will be financially secure after retirement, a major shift from three years ago when baby boomers nearing retirement age expressed the greatest worry.
The survey findings by the Pew Research Center, released Monday, reflect the impact of a weak economic recovery beginning in 2009 that has shown stock market gains while housing values remain decimated.
As a whole, retirement worries rose across all age groups — roughly 38 percent of U.S. adults say they are “not too” or “not at all” confident that they will have sufficiently sized financial nest eggs, according to the independent research group. That’s up from 25 percent in 2009.
COURTS
Wal-Mart sued over pay for temp agency workers
NEW YORK — Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is being slapped with a lawsuit that claims that the world’s largest retailer and its staffing agencies broke federal minimum wage and overtime laws by requiring temporary workers to appear early for work, stay late and work through lunches and breaks without compensation.
According to the proposed class action suit filed Monday in the U.S. District Court of Illinois Eastern Division, Labor Ready and QPS, two of the staffing agencies that the discounter used in the Chicago area, failed to provide workers assigned to the Wal-Mart stores with required employment information.
The suit also says Wal-Mart itself failed to keep accurate records of workers’ time. That has made it difficult for workers to make claims that they were not paid by the temporary agencies for all hours worked.
ACQUISITION
Private equity firm to buy Ancestry.com for $1.6B
Genealogy website Ancestry.com has agreed to be acquired by a group led by European private equity firm Permira Funds in a cash deal valued at about $1.6 billion.
The offered price of $32 per share is a nearly 10 percent premium over Friday’s closing price of $29.18. Its shares jumped 7.75 percent, or $2.26, to $31.44 Monday.
Ancestry.com Inc. operates a website for researching family history and has more than 2 million paying subscribers. It says more than 10 billion records have been added to its site over the past 15 years.
The company said it has developed and acquired systems that digitize handwritten documents, and it works with government archives, historical societies and religious institutions around the world.
HOLIDAYS
FedEx to hire 20,000 temps for holiday season
NEW YORK — FedEx, a leading package delivery company, said Monday it would hire 20,000 temporary workers to help handle shipments during the year-end holiday season.
FedEx Corp. predicted its biggest day of the year would be Dec. 10, when it expects a record 19 million shipments, up 10 percent from a year ago, driven by online orders.
For the overall holiday season between Thanksgiving and Christmas, FedEx forecasted it would handle more than 280 million shipments worldwide, 13 percent more than in the same period in 2011.
VIRGINIA
Without buyer, Dominion to close Wis. power plant
RICHMOND — Dominion Resources Inc. said Monday that it plans to close and decommission its Kewaunee Power Station in Wisconsin after it was unable to find a buyer for the nuclear power plant. It would be the first such closure since 1998, federal officials said.
The Richmond-based energy provider said the facility in Carlton, Wis., is expected to stop producing power in the second quarter of 2013 and move to safe shutdown status.
• From wire dispatches and staff reports
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