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Does handing out unemployment benefits to out-of-work Americans discourage them from finding a job?

In an op-ed article in Monday’s Wall Street Journal, Harvard economist Robert Barro argues that the current unemployment rate would be 6.8 percent rather than 9.5 percent if the Obama administration hadn’t extended unemployment-insurance eligibility to up to 99 weeks from the standard 26 weeks.

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NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — First it was Hurricane Katrina, then it was the BP oil spill. Now the Louisiana coastal region faces a third economic crisis: Northrop Grumman Corp. will close the shipyard in Avondale, eliminating 5,000 jobs.

Northrop Grumman (NOC, Fortune 500) said late Tuesday that it will “wind down” the shipyard, located in the immediate vicinity of New Orleans, by 2013. First it must finish building two LPD-class Navy ships, which are used to transport Marines.

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NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The drugmaking arm of Johnson & Johnson said late Thursday that it is laying off hundreds of workers at the manufacturing plant at the center of a recall of millions of units of children’s Tylenol, Motrin and other over-the-counter drugs.

Johnson & Johnson’s (JNJ, Fortune 500) McNeil Consumer Healthcare division said 300 of more than 400 positions at the Fort Washington, PA facility will be eliminated as the company conducts a complete quality overhaul at the facility.

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NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Lawmakers come back to work Monday facing a tough decision: Whether it’s more important to spend money to keep the economic recovery going or to watch their pennies.

One camp, made up mostly of Democrats, is arguing that Congress must spend to help cash-strapped states and people who are hurting from the downturn.

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BEDFORD, Ohio — Factory owners have been adding jobs slowly but steadily since the beginning of the year, giving a lift to the fragile economic recovery. And because they laid off so many workers — more than two million since the end of 2007 — manufacturers now have a vast pool of people to choose from.

Yet some of these employers complain that they cannot fill their openings.

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“The job losses during the Great Recession were so off the chart, that even though we’ve gained about 600,000 private sector jobs back, we’ve got nearly 8 million jobs to go,” said Lakshman Achuthan, managing director of Economic Cycle Research Institute.

Excluding temporary Census workers, the economy has added fewer than 100,000 jobs a month this year — a much faster and stronger jobs recovery than occurred following the last two recessions in 2001 and 1991.

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NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — There are as many as 10,000 people that work on deepwater oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. These are jobs that could soon begin to disappear because of the temporary ban on such drilling.

But not only those jobs are at stake. From helicopter pilots to offshore catering chefs, another 25,000 jobs could be affected by the six-month ban imposed by President Obama while the investigation into the BP accident is underway, according to David Dismukes, a professor at Louisiana State University’s Center for Energy Studies.

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NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The last thing someone who is unemployed needs to be told is that they shouldn’t even apply for the limited number of job openings that are available. But some companies and recruiters are doing just that.

Employment experts say they believe companies are increasingly interested only in applicants who already have a job.

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LONDON – World stock markets tumbled Monday, dragged down by weak U.S. employment figures and fresh fears that Europe’s debt crisis is spreading.

The euro, which has turned into the barometer for investor risk appetite in recent weeks after Greece’s debt crisis, fell below $1.1900 to its lowest in more than four years. Commodities also fell after the disappointing U.S. data and amid angst about euro zone debt problems fed fears the world economy may falter in its recovery.

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WASHINGTON – The economic rebound last quarter turned out to be slower than first thought, one of the reasons unemployment is likely to stay high this year.

The economy grew at a 3 percent annual rate from January to March, the Commerce Department said Thursday. That was slightly weaker than an initial estimate of 3.2 percent a month ago. The new reading, based on more complete information, also fell short of economists’ forecast for 3.4 percent growth.

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NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — More than 80% of U.S. school districts are expected to eliminate jobs and more than half will likely freeze hiring during the upcoming school year, an education organization said Tuesday.

Based on a survey of school administrators from 49 states, a total of 275,000 education jobs are expected to be cut in 2011, according to the American Association of School Administrators.

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NEW YORK – The U.S. manufacturing sector expanded in March at its strongest pace in 5 1/2 years, leading the rebound from the recession on growth in exports and inventory rebuilding. Another drop in construction spending in February, however, underscored weakness in real estate.

Meanwhile, the number of people filing first-time claims for unemployment benefits slipped last week as the economy moves closer to generating more jobs.