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Attending school in California and becoming an engineering major can really pay off for college graduates — by thousands of dollars a year.

According to a report released Thursday from salary-tracker PayScale.com, petroleum engineering majors and graduates of Harvey Mudd College are taking home the biggest paychecks.

While mid-career salaries fell 1.5% overall between 2009 and 2010, engineers, scientists and mathematicians continued to rake in the big bucks, as well as students who graduated from Ivy League schools.

"Our society values something practical — that’s why poetry isn’t popping up on the top of the list," said Al Lee, director of quantitative analysis at PayScale. "As in the past, engineering and [similar] fields with a strong math component plus a physical world component remain on the top, with lots of money to be made in these fields."

The data in the report, collected from 999 bachelor degree institutions in the last year, track median starting salaries of employees who graduated in the last five years and median mid-career salaries of graduates with more than 10 years of experience in a given field.

Follow the money: So where are all the lavishly paid engineers bred? According to PayScale.com, it’s Claremont, Calif., where Harvey Mudd alums go on to earn a mid-level salary of around $126,000.

"Harvey Mudd is the nexus of all good places to be in terms of graduate earnings," said Lee. "Not only do engineering majors make good money and this happens to be a specialized school for engineering, but southern California is an area that tends to have some of the highest wage earners in the country."

Meanwhile, Dartmouth College, which claimed the title as the school with the highest paid graduates for the past two years, was knocked down the list to number two — tied with Princeton — with its graduates receiving a starting salary of $54,100 and a mid-career salary of $123,000.

Since a large chunk of Dartmouth students typically head into financial services post-college, many graduates felt a blow to their wallets in the last year as financial companies cut back on pay, said Lee.

Harvard, California Institute of Technology, Colgate, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford, Duke and Bucknell rounded out the top ten list of schools with the highest-paid mid-career graduates no fax cash advance.

On the other end of the spectrum, if you choose Coker College in South Carolina — the worst-paying school on the list — be prepared for a starting salary of around $28,900 and a mid-level salary of $40,300.

Majors that pay: Topping the list of best-paying degrees this year, petroleum engineers earn a starting salary of $93,000 and a mid-level salary of $157,000.

That’s $49,000 more than the next most lucrative majors, aerospace engineering and chemical engineering, which both produce graduates earning a salary of around $108,000.

"Petroleum engineering has been an incredibly profitable sector for the last few years," said Lee. "It’s a very cyclical field and depends largely on the price of oil, and we’re very much on an up cycle right now."

Electrical engineering was the third-highest paying major on the list, with mid-level pay of $104,000 per year, followed by nuclear engineering, applied mathematics, biomedical engineering, physics and computer engineering.

But I don’t want to be an engineer! If science and math aren’t your thing, don’t worry. There are plenty of other majors — many you wouldn’t expect — that will put you on the money-making track.

"People always think they have to be an engineer if they want to make good money down the line, but there are a lot of other majors that will help you find good careers with salaries that anyone would be comfortable living on," said Lee.

A building construction major typically leads to a mid-career salary of more than $94,000, while mid-level government majors earn $87,300 on average. International relations, supply chain management and urban planning also boast average salaries of more than $80,000 a year.

Even majors like film production and zoology can help you land a good-paying job. While film-makers earn a starting salary of only $36,100 and recently-graduated zoology majors tend to make about $34,600, mid-level salaries come in at about $77,800 and $68,800, respectively. 

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Alibaba.com’s first U.S. acquisition will be small-business sales software company Vendio Services Inc. of San Mateo.

Terms of the deal, announced Thursday, were not disclosed. The deal is expected to close next month.

Alibaba, the giant Chinese Internet company based in Hangzhou, said the acquisition is part of its $100 million investment plan for AliExpress, a wholesale transaction platform operated by Alibaba.com.

With the deal, Alibaba picks up a company with more than 80,000 small-business customers in the United States that use Vendio software to sell across multiple online marketplaces.

Alibaba.com CEO David Wei called Vendio a “strong strategic fit” for the company.

“We continue to look for synergies and investment opportunities to grow our customer base, acquire additional technology and add new applications that will help our customer base grow and prosper,” Wei said in a press release.

Vendio will become a new business unit within Alibaba.com and will retain its own brand name and operations. Mike Effle, Vendio’s COO, will assume the role of CEO while current CEO, chairman and co-founder Rodrigo Sales becomes a strategic advisor to the company.

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This is a weekly roundup of promotions, appointments and employee accomplishments in the Birmingham metro area. For more People on the Move, check out the Birmingham Business Journal’s print edition each week. Send announcements to ccrawford@bizjournals.com.

FINANCIAL

J. Samuel Henderson III, president of Jefferson and Shelby counties for Southern States Bank, was named Paul Harris Fellow by Rotary International. Henderson is active in the Shades Valley Rotary Club. He joined Southern States Bank in October 2008.

LEGAL

Baker Donelson Bearman Caldwell & Berkowitz PC named Kevin R. Garrison its Birmingham Pro Bono Attorney of the Year. Garrison works with the Homeless Experience Legal Protection program and is part of a team of attorneys representing individuals wrongfully incarcerated by small towns in the metro Birmingham area because they could not afford to pay fines for minor infractions such as traffic violations and petty misdemeanors. He concentrates his practice in construction litigation.

MANUFACTURING

Bob Holt, vice president of sales and marketing for ThyssenKrupp Steel USA LLC, will deliver the keynote address at the 2010 University of Alabama Spring Sales Banquet April 23 at NorthRiver Yacht Club. The event will take place from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Holt, a veteran of the steel industry, was appointed to his current position in October 2007. He is responsible for the commercial activities in the carbon steel segment of TK's new $4.2 billion carbon and stainless flats processing facilities, currently under construction in Calvert, 30 miles north of Mobile.

MEDIA

Thomas E. Jackson was honored for more than 22 years of service to the Alabama Educational Television Commission by Alabama Public Television at a dinner March 24. Jackson, who is leaving the commission, was appointed to the position in 1987. Jackson is the founder and president of Market Technologies, a Birmingham-based company that provides medical diagnostic equipment across the Southeast.

Niki Noto, a recent graduate of University of Alabama, won a challenge in Atlanta Falcons Reality Inside Reporter Competition, which could lead to a chance to be a personality on AtlantaFalcons.com through the 2010 football season, beginning with the NFL Draft.

NONPROFITS

Members of the Nature Conservancy of Alabama’s Board of Trustees recently met at the HudsonAlpha Institute of Biotechnology in Huntsville. Members are Steve Graham and Rick Horsley of Birmingham; Dr. Ed Colvin of Birmingham, Jim Wadsworth of Clanton, Donald Sweeney of Birmingham; Steve Northcutt and David Donaldson of Birmingham and Elizabeth Downing of Mobile.

U.S. Marshal Marty Keeley is scheduled to be guest speaker for the Homewood Chamber of Commerce’s April 20 luncheon at the Homewood Public Library Auditorium. Keeley was appointed to the position in 2002. He began his career in law enforcement in 1969 at the Mountain Brook Police Department. In 1987, he was promoted to the rank of chief of police. He is a graduate of the FBI National Academy and has a law degree.

REAL ESTATE

Dennis Key of Jasper was recognized as the Appraisal Institute’s April Volunteer of Distinction for Region IX, which includes Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee. Key has been a member of the Appraisal Institute for 20 years and involved in the real estate valuation profession for more than 30 years. He currently teaches appraisal courses at Auburn University of behalf of the Alabama State Revenue Department and serves as an appraiser mentor to new appraisers in the days before state licensing. He has been president of his own firm, Key Co. Inc., since 1979.

UNIVERSITIES

University of Alabama at Birmingham professor of history Colin J. Davis has been selected to receive the 2010 Caroline P. and Charles W. Ireland Prize for Scholarly Distinction. Davis, who works in the UAB Department of History and Anthropology, specializes in comparative labor history and U.S. labor history. He has been a member of the UAB faculty since 1991. He will present his lecture “Trans-Atlantic Maritime History: Food For Thought” during a reception April 19 at The Club.

Urban education expert Steve Perry, author of “Man Up! Nobody is Coming to Save Us” and “Raggedy Schools: The Untold Truth,” is scheduled to speak at the University of Alabama at Birmingham from 7 to 9 p.m. April 27 at the Alys Stephens Center.

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Prices at the wholesale level plunged in February by the largest amount in seven months as a big drop in energy prices offset higher food costs.

The Labor Department said Wednesday that wholesale inflation dropped 0.6 percent, much larger than the 0.2 percent decline economists expected. Excluding food and energy, prices edged up a slight 0.1 percent, in line with expectations.

The deep recession and weak economic rebound are keeping inflation at bay and giving the Fed leeway to maintain record low rates in an effort to build momentum from stronger economic growth.

While overall wholesale prices have risen 4.4 percent over the past 12 months, core inflation, which excludes energy and food, is up a much more subdued 1 percent over the past year.

Economists said they expect inflation pressures to ease even more in coming months because many of the dampening effects on inflation from the steep recession have yet to be felt guaranteed high risk personal loans.

Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics, said he expected the 12-month rate for core wholesale prices to dip from the current 1 percent to below zero in coming months.

The 0.6 percent fall in Labor’s Producer Price Index in February was the biggest decline since a 1.2 percent drop last July. In January, wholesale prices surged by 1.4 percent, driven by rising energy costs. Last month, energy prices plunged by 2.9 percent with most of that decline reflecting a 7.4 percent drop in gasoline costs.

However, gasoline pump prices have resumed rising over the past few weeks and now stand at a national average of $2.79 according to automotive club AAA’s daily fuel gauge. That is up from $2.62 a month ago and $1.91 a year ago.

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Virginia may be for lovers, but Florida is for romantics, with four cities – Miami, Gainesville, Orlando and Tallahassee – ranked among the 20 most romantic cities by Amazon. com.

Miami ranked second, followed by Gainesville at No. 6, Orlando at No. 10 and Tallahassee at No. 18.

Miami was also named the nation’s sexiest city, with the most per capita sales in the sexual wellness category, according to Amazon.

Miami Gardens was on the list of least romantic cities, with the fewest number of overall purchases in that category.

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About 155 employees at a Mississauga air conditioning manufacturer that abruptly closed three weeks ago did not get their back pay before Christmas, but finally collected some of it by New Year’s Day.

Bob Chernecki, a senior official for the Canadian Auto Workers, said on Monday that workers at the M&I Air Systems plant picked up cheques with two weeks of earnings worth more than $1,000 on Dec. 30 after a glitch with M&I’s bankers prevented earlier payment.

However, the workers are still waiting for cheques for a third week of work and vacation pay, plus some indication about the plant’s future, Chernecki added.

"They (the workers) have been told that management is making arrangements for the third week and vacation pay sometime later this month.

"Beyond that, there are no guarantees of anything until they know the status of the plant."

Chernecki also said the company didn’t give the employees eight weeks’ notice of a layoff, as required under provincial labour law.

M&I, which provides air-moving technology and systems for industrial and institutional buildings, missed a pay on Dec high quality business cards. 10 but told employees it would submit earnings the following Monday if they worked on the weekend to finish a project.

But the company didn’t pay the employees, who earn between $18 and $19.50 an hour, on the Monday and laid them off the next day without warning.

When demands for pay and information about the plant’s status were ignored, workers occupied the plant for more than three hours on Dec. 21. They left after M&I agreed to a meeting with the union.

M&I indicated it would provide workers with two weeks of back pay within a few days and a decision soon on whether the plant would reopen, Chernecki said.

"They (employees) should know this week or next whether they have a future," Chernecki said.

A company spokesman could not be reached for comment.

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U.K. unemployment unexpectedly fell for the first time since February 2008, adding to signs the economy is emerging from its deepest recession in at least three decades.

Claims for jobless benefits declined by 6,300 in November to 1.63 million, the Office for National Statistics said in London today. The median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey of 26 economists was an increase of 12,500. The number of people seeking work in the three months through October rose 21,000 to 2.49 million, the smallest gain in 17 months.

The figures are a boost for Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who is counting on an economic revival to lift support for his Labour Party before a general election due by June. The economy has lost more than 600,000 jobs since the recession began, with the axe falling hardest on people under the age of 24.

“This a real shot in the arm,” Howard Archer, chief European economist at HIS Global Insight in London, said by telephone. “It’s very encouraging. However, I don’t think it’s an end for the rise in unemployment, which may continue until the end of next year. There’s a still a danger the economy may relapse next year, so I don’t think it’ll have a big impact on the Bank of England’s view of things things.”

Market Reaction

The pound rose after the report and was trading at $1.6334 as of 10:38 a.m. in London compared with $1.6240 yesterday. The 10-year gilt yield was little changed on the day at 3.892 percent.

The number of people in work rose by 53,000 to 28.9 million in the quarter through October, the biggest increase for 17 months, the statistics office said. In October, the number of claims rose by 5,900 instead of the 12,900 originally reported. The claimant rate in November was unchanged at 5 percent.

“It is encouraging that there are more people in jobs as we get near to Christmas, and also that so many more young people have been helped,” Work and Pensions Secretary Yvette Cooper said instant payday loan. “But it is still tough for a lot of people, and we still expect unemployment to increase again. So we are determined to do more.”

Unemployment has risen by less than officials initially predicted as companies froze pay and cut working hours to retain skilled labor needed once the economy returns to growth.

Jobless Rate

At 7.9 percent, the U.K. jobless rate is below the 10 percent in the U.S. and the 9.8 percent euro-region average. Many economists expect it to peak below 10 percent, compared with the postwar high of 11.9 percent record in 1984. Treasury forecasts published last week show the level of jobless claims is close to a peak.

The opposition Conservative lead in opinion polls has shrunk in recent weeks to less than 10 percentage points after Brown stepped up attacks on bankers and portrayed the Conservatives as the party of the rich. The margin is narrow enough to deny the opposition an outright majority at the election.

The labor market is likely nevertheless weigh on the wider economy, and companies may be slow to resume hiring as they initially increase the hours of existing workers, economists say.

Average earnings growth picked up to 1.5 percent in the quarter through October from 1.4 percent, with the rate excluding bonuses unchanged at 1.7 percent.

The fragility of the recovery was underlined earlier this month when Corus Group Ltd., the European unit of India’s Tata Steel, said it will cut 1,700 jobs at its Teeside plant in northeast England after demand for metal dropped. Diageo Plc, the world’s biggest liquor-maker, is also cutting jobs after closing facilities including a packaging plant and a distillery.

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The worldwide decline in equities spurred by Dubai’s efforts to reschedule its debt is a sign that government spending alone won’t be enough to protect financial markets, according to Arnab Das of Roubini Global Economics.

Stock volatility will probably jump as countries and companies default on loans, said Das, the head of market research and strategy at RGE, the advisory firm founded by economist Nouriel Roubini.

Shares slumped from Shanghai to Brazil and European shares fell the most in seven months yesterday after Dubai World, the government investment company burdened by $59 billion of liabilities, sought to delay repayment on much of its debt. Governments have spent, lent or guaranteed $11.6 trillion and central banks held interest rates near zero percent to end the first global recession since World War II.

“We’re bound to see a rise in risk aversion,” Das, who is based in London, said in an interview. “The Dubai situation signifies that although the major central banks around the world have stabilized the financial system, they can’t make all the excesses simply disappear. We still have to work out those balance sheet stresses. The recovery is proceeding, but significant challenges still lie ahead.”

Japanese stocks fell today after commodity prices declined and the dollar depreciated to a 14-year low against the yen, dimming the overseas earnings prospects for exporters. The Nikkei 225 Stock Average lost 1.9 percent to 9,204.65 as of 10:10 a.m. in Tokyo. Futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index slipped 2.1 percent after the MSCI World Index of 23 developed- country markets lost 1.4 percent yesterday.

Bank Writedowns

Banks wrote down or lost $1.7 trillion from the collapse of the subprime mortgage market and raised $1.5 trillion since the credit crunch began in 2007, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

“In some countries and sectors, debtors will be able to get by because government intervention has made it easier for them to refinance,” said Das. “In other places, excessively leveraged debtors, who always get access to too much credit during a boom, cannot roll over their debt and will default.”

Das, the former head of emerging-markets strategy at Dresdner Kleinwort, joined RGE last month to lead a new team that advises investors on allocations in stocks, bonds, interest-rate products, commodities and currencies in developed and emerging markets advance payday loans. Roubini, an economics professor at New York University and chairman of RGE, predicted the financial crisis that spurred credit losses and asset writedowns at global financial companies.

Protected Investors

Roubini’s 2006 warning about the crisis shielded clients from the worst slump in global equities since at least 1988. He said in March that the stock rally that began that month was a “dead-cat bounce” and that it may “fizzle” in May. The MSCI World Index of has since rallied 68 percent, and the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index has climbed 64 percent in the steepest rally since the Great Depression.

Roubini warned in July that the economy is “not out of the woods.” Reports since then have shown that the U.S. exited a four-quarter contraction in gross domestic product, expanding 2.8 percent from July through September.

The benchmark index for U.S. stock options, which measures the cost of using options as insurance against declines in the S&P 500 over the next month, has dropped 49 percent this year. It surged last November to a record 80.86, a level almost four times higher than its 20.28 average over its 19-year history.

Market Correlation

The so-called correlation coefficient that measures how closely markets rise and fall together reached the highest level ever in June, with the S&P 500 and benchmark measures for raw materials, developing-country equities and hedge funds rallying in tandem, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Oil has jumped 71 percent this year, the Reuters/Jefferies CRB Index of 19 raw materials climbed 21 percent and the MSCI Emerging Markets Index soared 69 percent.

“All this should magnify differentiation between riskier and less risky asset classes and names, after a couple of quarters in which correlations have risen sharply as market participants put on risk pretty much across the board,” Das said. “That will make it harder to make money simply by riding the liquidity wave from central banks. People are going to have to start focusing even more on the fundamentals.”

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Investors reacted sharply and in great numbers Thursday to a move by Manulife Financial Corp., Canada’s largest insurance company, to raise $2.5 billion in a major stock issue.

On the Toronto Stock Exchange, Manulife was down $1.23, or 6.1 per cent, at $18.95 as frenzied trading saw almost 19.2 million shares change hands.

The firm’s stock has been under pressure for months after it cut its dividends in half earlier in the year.

But even savvy investors were caught by surprise by Wednesday’s decision, which Manulife admitted would be dilutive to shares but was praised by chief executive Donald Guloien as something that would build "the fortress level of capital necessary to buffer against more conservative economic scenarios."

That didn’t sit well with Stephen Jarislowsky of Jarislowsky Fraser Ltd., one of Manulife’s largest shareholders.

"I was terribly disappointed because I was left very much under the impression that the company, if they cut the dividend, would have fortress levels of capital and that the last thing they wanted to see was more share dilution," Jarislowsky said in an interview.

Under the bought-deal financing with underwriters, led by Scotia Capital Inc. and RBC Dominion Securities Inc., Manulife will issue about 132 million shares at $19 each.

Upon closing, Manulife subsidiary The Manufacturers Life Insurance Co. will have access to the highest level of capital since it became a public company, Manulife said.

The company said that funds raised will be used for general corporate purposes, which may include contributions of capital to its insurance business and other subsidiaries, as well as potential acquisitions.

The public offering, which will dilute Manulife’s current share capital of 1.61 billion shares by more than 8 per cent, was expected to close Nov. 30, although it was reportedly being taken up more slowly than expected on Thursday.

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Some former bankers are planning to bid for failing banks in the Federal Insurance Deposit Corp auction process, and getting financial backing from Wall Street firms like Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Deutsche Bank AG, the Wall Street Journal reported citing sources.

JPMorgan Chase & Co’s former Chief Executive William Harrison, former Wachovia Corp CEO Robert Steele and Herb Boydstun, former CEO of Hibernia Corp were among the banking veterans considering such plans, the paper said citing people familiar with the situation.

Last month, former executives at Citizens Financial Group Inc, a unit of Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC, raised $1 faxless payday loans.15 billion in a private placement and formed NBH Holdings Corp in an effort to buy battered banks, the Journal said.

Other bankers who are looking for investors to enter the auction include Charles Rinehart, former chairman and CEO of H F Ahmanson & Co and Daniel Healy, former finance chief of North Fork Bancorp, the Journal said citing sources.

(Reporting by Supantha Mukherjee in Bangalore; Editing by Valerie Lee)

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