Business news in brief

Tyco Electronics Ltd.

, the Berwyn maker of electronic connectors, said it would cut about 2,500 jobs worldwide as part of its previously announced effort to accelerate $100 million in cost reductions. The company is not detailing where the job cuts will take place until workers are notified, a spokeswoman said. It has about 96,000 employees.

- Bloomberg News

US Airways Group Inc.

was third in on-time arrivals among major airlines in October, with 87.5 percent of flights nationwide arriving within 14 minutes of schedule. Only

Northwest Airlines Corp.

with 90 percent and

Southwest Airlines Co.

with 89.6 percent performed better, the Transportation Department said. US Airways, Philadelphia's dominant airline, reported 3.08 mishandled bags per 1,000 passengers in October, down from 6.42 per 1,000 in October 2007. US Airways still had more customer complaints in October than any other major airline. Airlines operated 11.5 percent fewer flights in October than a year earlier, after cutting capacity - flights and seats - because of record-high fuel prices last summer. The cuts helped reduce air-traffic congestion, officials said.

- Linda Loyd

Penn National Gaming Inc.

, Wyomissing, Pa., says it could lay off up to 15 workers from its casino in south-central Pennsylvania. Company spokesman Eric Schippers says the economic downturn is forcing staff cuts at the Hollywood Casino at Penn National Race Course near Harrisburg. Schippers says Penn National originally envisioned laying off 22 to 30 employees, but some people were offered other jobs at the casino or at other company properties. He said some of the remaining 15 were still considering other available jobs. The casino opened in February and employed 900 people.

- AP

Met-Pro Corp.

has received an order worth more than $800,000 to provide two odor-control systems to a municipal wastewater-treatment facility in the Southeastern United States, the company announced. Met-Pro, which makes industrial products, including pollution-control and air- and liquid-purification products, expects the systems to be shipped in the first quarter of the company's next fiscal year. The name of the client was not disclosed. Shares closed up 34 cents, or 2.87 percent, at $12.17 on the New York Stock Exchange.

- Roslyn Rudolph

Office Depot Inc.

said it would close almost 10 percent of its North American stores and cut 2,200 jobs, or 4.5 percent of its workforce, as the recession sapped demand for business furniture. The Philadelphia-area stores that will close are in Bensalem, Exton, Langhorne, North Wales and Willow Grove, in Pennsylvania; and Delran, Deptford and Cherry Hill in New Jersey. The company is closing 112 stores and six distribution centers in the next three months.

- Bloomberg News

China's exports shrank unexpectedly last month as global demand plunged, raising the threat of heavy job losses, which could fuel political unrest, and a sharper downturn in the world's fourth-largest economy. November's exports fell 2.2 percent from the year-earlier period, the government reported, a sharp drop from October's 19.1 percent expansion and far below analysts' forecasts of up to 15 percent growth.

- AP

The

Bush administration

has declined to cite China for manipulating its currency to gain unfair trade advantages against the United States. A Bush administration report criticizes China for slowing the pace at which its currency was rising in value against the dollar. It also says China must return to a more rapid pace of appreciation for its currency. But in the report, which must be submitted to Congress every six months, the administration says China did not meet the standards set in U.S. law for being cited as a currency manipulator.

- AP

Several

Supreme Court

justices questioned whether

AT&T Corp.

was discriminating against former employees by paying smaller retirement checks to women who took pregnancy leaves in the 1960s and 1970s. The court heard arguments in the case of four women who lost seniority credit when they took maternity leave before passage of a 1979 law that barred the practice of treating pregnancy leaves differently from other disability leaves. AT&T attorney Carter Phillips told the justices that AT&T has long since changed its leave policy to comply with the 1979 Pregnancy Discrimination Act. But he argued that law does not retroactively apply to old pregnancy leaves.

- AP

Years of rising health-care premiums are making U.S. workers less willing to choose plans with higher up-front costs, according a survey by consulting firm

Watson Wyatt Worldwide Inc.

A survey of large-company employees shows that workers are significantly less willing to pay higher premiums to keep out-of-pocket expenses like deductibles and copays lower this year compared with 2007. Only 19 percent of employees surveyed this year were willing to opt for higher premiums, compared with 38 percent last year.

- AP

National Public Radio

said it was laying off 7 percent of its staff after experiencing sharp declines in funding, especially from corporate sponsors. NPR said the layoffs, the first in 12 years, affected 64 full-time staff, of which half come from news and programming. The news was first reported by the Wall Street Journal. Twenty-two of the job cuts will come from the cancellation of two shows,

Day to Day

and

News and Notes

.

- AP

The average seven-day yield on taxable money market funds was 0.94 percent this week, down from 1.04 percent last week,

iMoneyNet Inc.

said. A seven-day yield is an annual yield based on the preceding seven days' level of income by the fund. The average yield on tax-free funds was 0.62 percent this week, down from 0.79 percent last week.

- Rhonda Dickey