Automatic Data Processing Inc. (ADP) News

SEOUL, Aug. 4 (UPI) -- The South Korean economy is expected to rebound strongly in 2010 following a year in which the economy grew 0.2 percent, a government research group said.

The Korean Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade is a think-tank that produces reports separate from the official government data.

KIET predicted Wednesday the South Korean economy would grow 5.8 percent this year with a 24.4 percent increase in exports compared to 2009, the Yonhap News Agency reported.

Domestic consumer spending is also expected to grow this year, KIET said.

The gross domestic product estimate is 0.1 percentage points shy of the government's forecast of 5.9 percent growth this year. But KIET predicted net-positive trading with the United States would reach $27.7 billion, $4.7 billion higher than the government's estimate.

The growth rate would be the highest since 2002, when the GDP grew 7.2 percent, but this time the gains are in comparison to a recessionary year.

"In addition to exports and consumption, the high annual growth reflects sluggish gains posted in 2009," KIET said.

ROSELAND, N.J., Aug. 4 (UPI) -- Payroll firm Automatic Data Processing said Wednesday the U.S. private sector added 42,000 jobs from June to July.

The number of jobs added to the economy in the sixth consecutive month of increases came in slightly higher than the consensus forecast of 40,000 jobs.

The additional jobs were considerably more than the 13,000 private-sector jobs added a month ago and significantly less than the 57,000 added in April to May.

ADP said the monthly increases have averaged "a modest 37,000" per month February through July.

The figure is positive, but far sort of the number needed to drop the unemployment rate, which stands at 9.5 percent.

The government's report on employment, due Friday, completes the picture with the addition of public sector jobs and an array of descriptive data. The unemployment rate is likely to stagnate, however, as more people enter the workforce each month.

TEMPE, Ariz., Aug. 4 (UPI) -- New orders in U.S. service industries rose in July, the Institute for Supply Management said Wednesday.

The new orders index rose to 56.7 with an additional 2.3 percentage points over June, the industry research group said.

Numbers above 50 indicate business growth and numbers below indicate a contraction.

The headline index for the service sector, the Purchasing Managers Index, also rose, adding 0.5 percentage points to 54.3.

The employment index rose 1.2 percentage points, jumping from slight contraction to slight growth with the index reading 50.9 in July.

Thirteen of 16 service industries reported growth for the month. Only construction, utilities, accommodation and food service, and wholesale trades posted contractions during the month.

The largest growth came from real estate and leasing, arts, entertainment and recreation, and company support and management services.

TOKYO, Aug. 4 (UPI) -- Prosecutors in Japan indicted a former high-level government adviser on obstruction of justice charges, court papers say.

Takeshi Kimura, former economic adviser to Heizo Takenaka, a finance minister when Junichiro Koizumi was prime minister (2001-2006), was indicted along with three other executives of the Incubator Bank of Japan on charges of deleting hundreds of e-mails during a Financial Services Agency investigation.

Also indicted were former bank president Tatsuya Nishino, former senior executive Hiroyuki Yamaguchi and former executive officer Nobuhiro Sekimoto, Kyodo News reported Wednesday.

The bank was also indicted.

Kimura founded the bank in 2004 and was its chairman in January 2005 through May 2010, stepping down as the lender reported a loss on the year.