Employment

Beat the Unemployment Blues

April 19, 2011 by Guest Contributor

Unemployment rates are still at decade highs and if you count discouraged workers who have given up looking for a job the rates can be as high as 16%. This means as many as 1 in 6 people are looking for a job. With odd like that stacked against you, you need to find an edge. Take some advice from Stephanie on how to stack the job hunting odds in your favor. ~Tim McMahon, editor

By Stephanie Staszko

With unemployment rates soaring, the local job center has become a cattle market and a survival of the fittest has come into play when it comes to applying for jobs. Humans, as a race, do not take well to rejection and can be left feeling worthlessness and undervalued. Job seekers are often heard saying “I’ll never get a job”. If this mind-set is allowed to embed itself into the brain, job seekers can find themselves sinking into the black hole of unemployment with no glint of light on the horizon. In order to remain a valuable candidate to employers, they must beat the unemployment blues.

Workers Compensation Costs for December 2010

January 28, 2011 by Tim McMahon

January 28,2011

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the data on compensation costs today.

Compensation costs for civilian workers increased 2.0 percent for the 12-month period ending December 2010. The majority of the increase came from an increase in benefits costs, i.e. primarily retirement costs. Benefits costs were up 2.9% compared to a 1.6% increase in wages and salaries.

During the previous year (2009) the increase in compensation costs was 1.4 percent.

Factories Expand 17 Consecutive Months, Jobs Don’t

January 6, 2011 by Tim McMahon

Today I’d like to welcome Mike Shedlock aka. “Mish”. He is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management. He has graciously allowed me to reprint his article that answers the question “Can we expect more factory jobs out of the current expansion?” He includes some compelling arguments on why unemployment isn’t falling. Tim McMahon~editor

The latest ISM reports show Factories grow for 17th straight month in December.

Manufacturers produced more goods and booked more orders last month, leading to the fastest growth in factory activity since May.

The Institute for Supply Management said Monday that its index of manufacturing activity rose to 57 in December from 56.6 in the previous month. Any reading over 50 indicates growth. The latest is well above the recession’s low of 32.5, hit in December 2008. But it’s below the reading of 60.4 in April, the highest level since June 2004.

The report shows that manufacturers carried considerable momentum into the new year. Automakers, computer and electronics companies, and industrial machinery firms showed particular strength, [Read more…] about Factories Expand 17 Consecutive Months, Jobs Don’t

Total Compensation Costs

July 30, 2010 by Tim McMahon

From The Bureau of Labor Statistics

Compensation costs for civilian workers increased 1.8 percent for the 12-month period ending June 2010 while the overall inflation rate (CPI-U) was only 1.05%. This was the same Compensation cost increase as the 12-month period ending in June 2009. Wages and salaries increased 1.6 percent for the current 12-month period, compared to a 1.8 percent increase for the 12-month period ending in June 2009. Benefit costs rose 2.5 percent, up from a 1.8 percent increase for the 12-month period ending June 2009.

Work in the Future

July 30, 2010 by Tim McMahon

Back in 1963 Bob Dylan wrote

Come gather ’round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’
Or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’.

Those lyrics seem eerily appropriate almost fifty years later.

In that time many things have changed, change seemed rapid and incessant. Over the years the way we work has also changed. Back in the 1960’s the U.S. was primarily made up of Blue collar workers. Now we are increasingly white collar telecommuters.

A recent special report in Time magazine entitled “The Way We’ll Work” explained the work situation in this way:

Ten years ago, Facebook didn’t exist. Ten years before that, we didn’t have the Web. So who knows what jobs will be born a decade from now? Though unemployment is at a 25-year high, work will eventually return. But it won’t look the same. No one is going to pay you just to show up. We will see a more flexible, more freelance, more collaborative and far less secure work world. It will be run by a generation with new values — and women will increasingly be at the controls.

“$100,000 A Year for Part-Time Work”

July 27, 2010 by Tim McMahon

Job Security May Not Be What It Used To Be for Some Government Positions

By Robert Jay

When these are the facts….

61 percent of Americans “always or usually” live paycheck to paycheck, which was up from 49 percent in 2008 and 43 percent in 2007.
66 percent of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans.
24 percent of American workers say that they have postponed their planned retirement age in the past year.
Only the top 5 percent of U.S. households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975.
Average Wall Street bonuses for 2009 were up 17 percent when compared with 2008.
In the United States, the average federal worker now earns 60% MORE than the average worker in the private sector.

(Business Insider, 7/15)

… Then people tend to get agitated when they learn that some part-time city employees are earning $100,000 a year.

Yes, it’s another “can you believe this?” financial story of a California town … MORE

[ad#Commission Junction Medium Square]