Employment outlook remains bleak.

• Position: YOUR LIFE

The optimism of CFOs around the world has improved, especially in Asia. However, in the near term, U.S. and European chief financial officers say their companies do not plan to start hiring or increase capital spending. Most firms will take several years to return to prerecession employment levels and some expect to operate with permanently reduced workforces. These are some of the findings of the most recent Duke University-CFO Magazine Global Business Outlook Survey, which asked CFOs from a broad range of global public and private companies about their expectations for the economy. The research has been conducted for 54 consecutive quarters.

A summary of the findings indicates:

* CFO optimism continues to increase, with American CFOs rating the overall economy at 56 on a scale of 1-100 (compared with 52 last quarter). Internationally, Asian CFOs rate their optimism at 68 (63 last quarter), Chinese CFOs at 71 (70 last quarter), and European CFOs at 52 (47 last quarter).

* Forty-three percent of U.S. companies expect to reduce their workforce over the next year. Among firms that have laid off employees recently, 13% say their workforce will return to 2007 levels sometime next year. In contrast, firms plan to increase their offshore workforces by about three percent over the next year.

* Capital spending probably will continue to decline over the next 12 months, with American firms expecting to decrease capital spending by three percent on average. Of the corporate spending deferred since the start of 2008, 58% of those outlays have been postponed indefinitely and one-fourth cancelled permanently.

* Credit problems remain, with 56% of American firms reporting they are...