How many emails do you send a week? How many people do you work with? What do you estimate the total number of emails send out by your company, including auto replies to CV's, out of office responses, etc., to be?

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) publication Labour Force, Australia shows that the unemployment rate fell by 0.2 percentage points to 5.3% in seasonally adjusted terms, and dropped by 0.1 percentage point to 5.4% in trend terms in January 2010.

The participation rate was 65.3%, and the number of employed persons rose in both trend and seasonally adjusted terms.

In the ACT the unemployment rate rose by 0.1% to 3.8% in January, however the participation rate also increased by 0.2% to 72.7% during the month.

Brisbane-based recruitment marketing specialist, Employment Office has joined forces with Global Corporate Health Company, Healthwise, in a bid to increase employee engagement and boost staff retention.

Managing Director of Employment Office, Tudor Marsden-Huggins, says companies need to find innovative ways to engage employees and maintain staff productivity in order to remain competitive.

There is no denying that marketing departments have been victims of the ongoing economic crisis, with firms concentrating on surviving rather than battling it out for new business.

However, the new year could herald a fresh start for the sector with various reports suggesting that budgets for email, mobile and online marketing will be much healthier in 2010.