A Week's Worth

• Tech trouble: After reaching lofty highs early this year, tech stocks have begun a slow retreat. The high-flying Nasdaq fell 1.7 percent for the month of February - the first monthly loss since last September. The drop says more about investors' mood than the economy. The nation's gross domestic product grew a little faster last quarter than previously believed: 4.1 percent, according to the Commerce Department. Some economists think GDP will grow a little faster than that this quarter.

• Staying in school: US workers are getting more education. In 1962, a secretary averaged 12.4 years of schooling; by last year, he was up to 13.2 years, according to a study by the Employment Policy Foundation. Even highly technical occupations saw improvement. Dentists surged from 17.8 years in 1968 to 19.0 last year.

• Hispanic hiring: For the first time since January 2000, Latinos experienced increases in employment last year that consistently outpaced their population growth in the US. A Pew Hispanic Center report found that immigrant males, especially the most recently arrived, and those in the construction industry, did the best; Hispanic women and native-born Latinos, particularly those of the rapidly growing second generation, did less well.

• Femme Exed: Marion Shaub of Wrights- town, Pa., won a $3.2 million judgment against Federal Express. Her sexual-harassment lawsuit alleged that as the only female tractor-trailer driver at one of its facilities, she was barraged with antifemale remarks and threats, and her truck brakes were sabotaged.