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WASHINGTON, Oct. 7, 2008 – The Defense Department is a strong supporter of the federally managed AbilityOne program, which works with private and public groups to provide goods and services to the government and jobs for the blind and other people who have severe disabilities, including wounded veterans. “As the largest customer of this program, the Department of Defense has a responsibility and a tremendous opportunity to increase support by procuring more goods and services provided by the AbilityOne program,” John J. Young Jr., undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, stated in a March 24 memorandum. AbilityOne,...

According to the Rochester, NY, Democrat & Chronicle (which can't be posted or excerpted here thanks to the cretins at Gannett news), there are good, high paying, manufacturing jobs available in upstate New York, but the companies can't find workers willing to take them.

A number of readers have taken me to task over my contention ...that most poor people are impoverished by choice. To be clear, I don't mean that one day a person gets up and decides to live in poverty. I believe a person winds up poor because he or she chooses not to succeed. Truth is, staying above the poverty line is relatively simple. Basically, all that's required is to finish high school, wait until at least age 20 to get married and not have a child out of wedlock. Now how hard is that? Not very, which is why...

ARLINGTON, Va., Oct. 2, 2008 – Military spouses often have a hard time finding employment, and even when they do, there’s little opportunity to continue their career because it’s only a matter of time before their servicemember spouse is transferred to another duty station. Inova Health System of Northern Virginia is trying to help. “It’s a challenge to build and keep a family together, especially while the nation is at war,” Michael L. Dominguez, principal undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, said yesterday during a ceremony in which Inova made its commitment to the military community. Inova’s pledge gives...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 30, 2008 – President Bush signed an executive order this week that will make it easier for spouses of servicemembers to get federal jobs. The order authorizes noncompetitive hiring of spouses and should make the hiring process easier and faster for those in this category, said Patricia Bradshaw, deputy undersecretary of defense for civilian personnel policy. “It shall be the policy of the United States to provide for the appropriately expedited recruitment and selection of spouses of members of the armed forces for appointment to positions in the competitive service of the federal civil service as part of...

New York Gov. David Paterson Monday said Wall Street might lay off 30,000 workers in a worst-case scenario following Lehman Brother's bankruptcy filing and problems at other big financial firms. Paterson, speaking a news conference where he also noted the impact of Bank of America's surprise agreement to purchase Merrill Lynch and problems threatening insurer American International Group, said the impact of the financial sector's downturn may not be known for months or even years. The Democratic governor announced plans to aid American International Group by letting the insurer tap $20 billion of its own capital, staving off a liquidity...

In this Democratic give away, these Senators reneged on the pledge they signed. Instead of “Drill Here, Drill Now “ it is “Tax Here, Tax Now” Taxing domestic oil production will only increase the amount of foreign imported oil and the loss of American jobs.

Phil Gramm may not know when to shut his mouth, but this Economics Professor can sure explain things well. He compares the three states having the best economies (Texas, Florida, Arizona) with the three states that have the worst economies (Ohio, Illinois, Michigan). Despite what angry Democrats tell us, our nation does not have one uniform economic policy. Each state and locality employs distinct taxation, employment and business laws that affect employment rates and wages.Because of this, we have numerous observable experiments going on all over the US. We can study these various economies to learn what works and what...

The Democratic presidential candidate, Barack Obama, has a great twofer pitch: "green jobs." It sounds like a winner. In one fell swoop he can promise to end unemployment and fix and save the planet from climate change. Or so he says. "I'll invest $150 billion over the next decade in affordable, renewable sources of energy — wind power and solar power and the next generation of biofuels; an investment that will lead to new industries and five million new jobs that pay well and can't ever be outsourced," he told the Democratic National Convention. Wow. Five million new jobs. All...

Layoffs can turn social butterflies into near hermits who shun such outlets as book clubs and even church groups, finds a new study. < > The researchers suggest the reason could come down to tit for tat, or an attitude of "you don't scratch my back, why should I scratch yours?" "Social engagement often involves an element of social trust and a sense that things are reciprocal - that you give some support if you get some support, and you benefit from society if society benefits from you," said lead researcher Jennie Brand, a sociologist at UCLA. "When workers are...

Cannot post. here is the link:http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?Date=20080827&Category=NEWS&ArtNo=808270366&Ref=AR

Jimmy P. at the DNC—Another staple of the many convention speeches is the claim that Obamanomics, via government "investment," will create five million "green collar" jobs. But here's the thing: These jobs are, for the most part, not the kind of gigs many middle class folks would have much interest in doing: bike repair, hazardous material cleanup, landscaping, tree cutting, attic insulation, large-scale green waste composting. Then again, these jobs really aren't geared toward the middle class to begin with. A 2007 report by the city of Berkeley—of course!—described the potential pool of applicants for green collar jobs this way:...

SOCORRO, New Mexico (STPNS) -- Obama’s latest ad about creating 5 million new jobs really got my attention. Up to this point my opinion was that he really doesn’t say anything meaningful, but 5 million jobs would be a great thing. So I took the bait and went to his site to see if he had something concrete to say for a change (you owe me big time for wading through all his rhetoric). And (drum roll) – nada, zero, zip, bumpkus. He says he will create the jobs, but as far as I can tell, he will do it...

Employment at Air Force Plant 42 and its adjacent defense contractor facilities appears to have decreased slightly in the first six months of 2008, but two of the major contractors are hiring. For the first time in several years, the figures released by Plant 42 officials included the employment numbers for the Federal Aviation Administration Air Traffic Control Center. The center employs approximately 500 people, including controllers, technicians and the like, said FAA spokesman Ian Gregor. Including the FAA center, employment over the first six months of the year was 6,858 people, compared to 6,412 people during the last six...

It may not be apparent from the outside, but activity at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics' facility in Palmdale is increasing. With work on the F-22 and F-35 fighters ramping up, the company is seeking some 100 experienced hourly employees for positions such as mechanics, machinists and composite technicians, said Lockheed spokeswoman Dianne Knippel. The hirings come despite the retirement of the F-117 stealth fighter, the last of which left Palmdale for storage in Nevada on Aug. 11. During the course of the fighter's nearly 30-year history, Lockheed's Palmdale site was home to modifications and upgrades to the fleet, as well as...

Maine is notorious for having one of the strongest environmental regulations on the planet. Mainers care more about rats birds bugs weeds and puddles than they do about unemployment, poverty, budget deficits and homelessness. Maybe that's way the later four are so common in Maine. Similarly in states like California where citizens and its agriculture must suffer a drought to protect a bunch of sucker fish or in Florida where a big swamp matters more than new jobs or agriculture the welfare and rights of human beings are compromised along with their jobs and homes to protect useless dumb animals...

BARACK OBAMA says that he would "end tax breaks for corporations that ship jobs overseas" and blasts John McCain for refusing to condemn such loopholes. But the offshoring issue is more complicated than Mr. Obama's rhetoric suggests. Indeed, while there's no doubt that some individuals and communities are hurt by corporate decisions to shift manufacturing or other operations overseas, overall job creation may well benefit. Economists Mihir Desai, Fritz Foley and James Hines looked at U.S. manufacturers that expanded foreign operations between 1982 and 2004 and found that they tended to grow domestically as well, hiring more U.S. employees, paying...

Many people dream of retiring early, but few actually make it a reality. Taking certain proactive measures, such as investing in a 401(k) in your 20s and eliminating debt, will help set you on the path to early retirement. But even if you achieve these goals, it's nearly impossible to know whether that nest egg will be enough to get by. You'll have to consider certain factors such as the lifestyle you'd like to maintain, the number of years before you start receiving Social Security checks (full benefits kick in between age 65 and age 67, depending on the year...

Congress adjourned for a month-long recess on Aug. 1, the same day that the Bureau of Labor Statistics released distressing news about unemployment. The July economic news was not good. The official unemployment rate hit a four-year high of 5.7 percent, as the economy shed 51,000 jobs last month, bringing the total of lost jobs for 2008 to 463,000. Seemingly oblivious to what is happening back in their states and districts, the House Immigration Subcommittee finished up business for the rest of the summer by approving legislation that, if enacted, would “recapture” some 557,000 visas that were not used during...

Teenage workers are disappearing from the U.S. workforce. Something appears to have happened to drive them out of the workforce in large numbers. Phil Miller and Doc Palmer say that the recent mandated hikes in the minimum wage very likely has something to do with the teenagers getting disappeared, but no one in the media is willing to finger them as a promising culprit behind the workplace disappearances. Could they be right? To find out, we went straight to the source: the Bureau of Labor Statistics. What we did was to take the BLS' report on the Characteristics of Minimum...

"What we need today is an economic surge. ... Now we need an economic surge to keep jobs here at home and create new ones. We need to reduce the tax burden on businesses that choose to make their home in the United States of America. We need to open new markets to U.S. products. And we need to reduce the cost of healthcare, and we need to end the out of control spending in Washington that's putting our debt on the backs of our children." -- John McCain John McCain Media Availability Jackson, OHAugust 6, 2008 John McCain:...

Barack Obama repeated his call for a 15% reduction in electrical demand in Youngstown, Ohio, and held California up as a model for the rest of the nation to follow. Claiming that the Golden State made great strides towards efficiency, Obama apparently forgot the travails California went through: Finally, I will call on businesses, government, and the American people to meet the goal of reducing our demand for electricity 15% by the end of the next decade. This is by far the fastest, easiest, and cheapest way to reduce our energy consumption – and it will save us $130 billion...

CALEXICO — In the past four months this border city’s officials have traveled into Mexicali about 60 times, attended meetings with their industrial commissions and chambers of commerce and met with potential Chinese, German, Spanish and Indian investors. The activity is all in the pursuit of economically stimulating the city that shares a border with a Mexican metropolis. Since making economic development its priority last year, amid a budget deficit, a screeching slowdown in the housing market (once a major revenue maker for the city because of processing fees) and the increasing need for city amenities such as parks, Calexico...

Private employers added 9,000 jobs in July, according to a private report by ADP Employer Services released on Wednesday. In June, the private sector slashed 77,000, according to revised data. June was originally reported as 79,000 jobs lost. The median of estimates from economists surveyed by Reuters was for the ADP report to show a drop of 60,000 private-sector jobs in July. The 32 forecasts ranged widely from a decline of 110,000 to a fall of 4,000...

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Recently I saw two movies that attacked the controversial Wal-mart department store. A PBS documentary called Is Wal-Mart good for America? And Wal-Mart the high cost of low price an independent movie about Wal-mart and the Walton family. I also visited wakeupwalmart.com for more info this article is a refutation on most of the BS that appeared on the two documentaries. First of all we need to ask ourselves why "Wal-Mart is under ferocious attack by the left?" Wal-Mart delivers well on its promise of low prices to Americans. Being a resident of one of the poorest and liberal states...

Taylor used to be a player in Williamson County, with it and Georgetown vying for funds and the attention of passers-through. But no more, and despite what many city officials will tell you, it will not be a player unless something is done to counteract the rapid growth of surrounding communities. What needs to be done is, Taylor needs to forget its past and embrace something residents see as so vile, that when I first arrived here I thought its mere mention was a dirty word. I am speaking of Rick Perry’s Trans-Texas Corridor. The Texas Department of Transportation (another...

WASHINGTON, July 18, 2008 – The hunt for a fulfilling job can be frustrating, but disabled veterans have a new online tool available to help them tackle that task. Job Opportunities for Disabled American Veterans is a nationally based online recruitment application geared specifically to assist disabled veterans find employment. “Our goal here is simple, to connect disabled American veterans with employers who are proactive in hiring them,” said Nicholas Corso, project director of disABLEDperson Inc., Job Opportunities for Disabled American Veterans’ parent organization. “This is a free service to the DAV community.” Employers listing job openings on the...

Just back from my first trip to the Berkshires (in western Massachusetts) where the affluent of the East Coast megalopolises like to summer and play, and I was just stunned to see nearly every visible job filled with an English-speaking American. This is intriguing because it is among the nation's elites that we find most of the resistance to passing the SAVE Act or other legislation mandating the use of E-Verify to ensure that illegal aliens don't keep U.S. jobs -- with the elites complaining that without all the illegal foreign workers, large parts of our service economy would...

On the way in to work this morning, I heard a sound-bite where Obama states that the only jobs blacks in America can get is by playing basketball. Has anyone else heard this? Does anyone know where I can get the sound-bite or a video? Thank you.

The number of U.S. workers filing new claims for unemployment benefits posted its biggest drop in almost three years last week. But a Labor Department analyst cautioned against interpreting the decline as a sign of better days ahead in the economy. Seasonal adjustments are difficult in early July due to seasonal layoffs in automobile and other manufacturing industries, the analyst said, and an increase is likely next week. Indeed, continuing claims lasting more than one week hit a fresh four-and-a-half year high, according to the Labor Department report, an indication that it is taking the unemployed much longer to find...

In 1983, when the seafood processing plants on the New Bedford waterfront broke the back of the Seafarer's Union, the starting salary for a line worker was around $7.50 an hour. Twenty-five years later, the starting salary for processing and packing workers at the New Bedford fish houses was about the same, $7.50 an hour.

WASHINGTON, June 30, 2008 – The goal of a troop-support group’s new Web-based campaign is simple: tell the troops “thank you” a million times over, starting today. Hire A Hero, which works to connect military job seekers and military-friendly employers, has created the “One Million Thank Yous” campaign to do just that. “We … know that servicemembers are not aware of the tremendous amount of support that exists for them,” said Brac Selph, executive director of Hire A Hero. “We want servicemembers to have a virtual place they can go to remind themselves that what they are doing is...

The high-priced corporate lobbyists walking Capitol Hill corridors have a new mantra: innovation. They demand that Congress bring in more guest workers, especially from Asia, in order to maintain American innovation supremacy. The lobbyists' backup buzzword is "the best and the brightest." They argue that U.S. workers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics are in short supply and we must now import foreign engineers and scientists, i.e., allow the multinationals to bring in an increased or even unlimited number of H-1B visas. Their argument lacks evidence: Economics 101 teaches that shortages in labor or goods produce higher wages or higher...

CASCADE TOWNSHIP -- GE Aviation today announced it will cut about 100 jobs at its Digital North America operations at plants in the Grand Rapids area, Clearwater, Fla., and Germantown, Md. Spokeswoman Jennifer Villarreal said about 95 of those positions will come from the Cascade Township location, formerly Smiths Aerospace, 3290 Patterson Ave. SE, which employs about 1,500. GE purchased Smiths last year. The job cuts are a cost cutting measure to keep the company competitive and "complete engineering design work for some of our large aerospace programs," according to a prepared statement.

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - One in three information technology professionals abuses administrative passwords to access confidential data such as colleagues' salary details, personal emails or board-meeting minutes, according to a survey. U.S. information security company Cyber-Ark surveyed 300 senior IT professionals, and found that one-third admitted to secretly snooping, while 47 percent said they had accessed information that was not relevant to their role. "All you need is access to the right passwords or privileged accounts and you're privy to everything that's going on within your company," Mark Fullbrook, Cyber-Ark's UK director, said in a statement released along with the survey...

Sen. Barack Obama shed new light on his economic plans for the country, saying he would rely on a heavy dose of government spending to spur growth, use the tax code to narrow the widening gap between winners and losers in the U.S. economy, and possibly back a reduction in corporate tax rates. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, the Illinois Democrat said that he was trying to put together tax and spending policies that dealt with two challenges. One is the competition from rapidly growing developing countries, like India and China. The other: the U.S. becoming what...

The McClatchy Co., battered by declining profits and revenue, announced a 10 percent companywide cut in its workforce Monday, including the Sacramento publisher's first-ever across-the-board layoffs. The decision will eliminate 1,400 jobs through a combination of layoffs, voluntary departures and attrition. The Bee announced it will eliminate 86 jobs, 46 by layoffs. The reduction will trim the paper's work force by 8.1 percent. McClatchy, publisher of The Bee, has prided itself on avoiding across-the-board layoffs even as it has used buyouts and attrition to cut its head count by 13 percent since April 2006. But with the company struggling and...

This month 3,700 recent college grads will begin Teach for America's five-week boot camp, before heading off for two-year stints at the nation's worst public schools. Teach for America offers smart young people something even better than money – the chance to avoid the vast education bureaucracy. Participants need only pass academic muster and attend the summer training before entering a classroom. If they took the traditional route into teaching, they would have to endure years of "education" courses to be certified. On average, high school students taught by TFA corps members performed significantly better on state-required end-of-course exams, especially...

Democratic Sen. Barack Obama on Friday called for higher payroll taxes on wage-earners making more than $250,000 annually, a step that would affect the wealthiest 3 percent of Americans. The presidential candidate told senior citizens in Ohio that it is unfair for middle-class earners to pay the Social Security tax "on every dime they make," while millionaires and billionaires pay it on only "a very small percentage of their income." The 6.2 percent payroll tax is now applied to all wages up to $102,000 a year, which covers the entire amount for most Americans. Under Obama's plan, the tax would...

The rising cost of shipping everything from industrial-pump parts to lawn-mower batteries to living-room sofas is forcing some manufacturers to bring production back to North America and freeze plans to send even more work overseas. "My cost of getting a shipping container here from China just keeps going up -- and I don't see any end in sight," says Claude Hayes, president of the retail heating division at DESA LLC. He says that cost has jumped about 15%, to about $5,300, since January and is set to increase again next month to $5,600. HOMEWARD BOUND • The News: Soaring fuel...

Finals week is over; summer is here. And thanks to misguided politicians, your teenager is more likely to be sitting in front of the television than waiting tables or scooping ice cream. This year, it’s harder than ever for teens to find a summer job. Researchers at Northeastern University described summer 2007 as “the worst in post-World War II history” for teen summer employment, and those same researchers say that 2008 is poised to be “even worse.” According to their data, only about one-third of Americans 16 to 19 years old will have a job this summer, and vulnerable low-income...

ARAB JABOUR — She wears a head scarf and long robe covering her from shoulder to toe; only her hands and face are visible. Yet despite her traditional clothing, Maha Aziz Abass Al-Jabouri is working hard to cast aside the stereotypical role of women in the Arab Jabour region. Abass, a language teacher at the al-Hamza School, is one of several women in the village of Alemia who work to empower women in the area. “Before, our future was farming. Now we want jobs like the women in the city,” Abass said. As the Rasheed Women’s Council representative from Alemia,...

Despite a recent spike in the nation's unemployment rate, the danger that the economy has fallen into a "substantial downturn" appears to have waned, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Monday. Addressing a Fed conference in Chatham, Mass., on Monday night, Bernanke said a government report last week showing the unemployment rate rising from 5 percent in April to 5.5 percent in May — the biggest one-month jump in two decades — was "unwelcome." However, the Fed chief said other forces should "provide some offset to the headwinds that still face the economy." The Fed's powerful doses of interest rate...

I should have put the year I took up boxing on my resume. It's sixth period, my first day teaching high school, and my regular Junior English class refuses to settle down. I give them a brief talk, amid the jostling and visiting (and the walking, and the love taps, and the food trading, and the vaulting over desks) about respect. I will respect them, I say, and they will respect me.

iGate isn't only 'villain' hiring foreign high-tech workers By Mark Houser TRIBUNE-REVIEW A local high-tech company has put a Pittsburgh face on a national debate about hiring foreign workers. Computer consulting firm iGate Corp. of Findlay paid the Justice Department $45,000 in April to settle charges it discriminated against U.S. workers by posting online job ads seeking foreigners with special visas. The fine for favoring holders of H-1B visas, which go primarily to computer and engineering specialists, is the highest yet, said Justice Department spokeswoman Jamie Hais. Critics say cases such as iGate's are not the only problem with the...

Brazil, Ind, native Spc. Ean Blakley of the Indiana National Guard’s 76th Infantry Brigade Combat Team registers an Iraqi worker at the host national workforce program center. Blakley has been has been working to identify workers with developed trade skills in order to provide Iraqis with more employment opportunities and Logistical Support Area Anaconda with a more developed host nation workforce. Photo by Staff Sgt. Lesley Newport. BALAD — Hundreds of local Iraqis arrive each work morning at the pedestrian gate of Logistical Support Area Anaconda, bustle through security inspections then are bussed to the directorate of public works’ local...

Cannot post. Here is the link:http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aZ6VzqO8N1Ag&refer=home

Worker productivity increased at a faster pace in the first three months of this year than previously estimated, while wage pressures moderated. The Labor Department reported Wednesday that productivity rose at an annual rate of 2.6 percent in the January-March period, faster than the government's initial estimate of 2.2 percent made a month ago. Wage pressures, meanwhile, moderated from the final three months of last year with unit labor costs rising at an annual rate of 2.2 percent in the first quarter. That was a marked slowdown from a 4.7 percent surge in labor costs in the final three months...

U.S. private-sector employers added 40,000 jobs in May, according to a private report on Wednesday by ADP Employer Services that defied Wall Street's expectations of a fall. The ADP data release comes ahead of the government's monthly jobs report due on Friday, one of the biggest events on the monthly economic calendar. A Reuters poll shows analysts expect that to show non-farm payrolls fell by 58,000 in May. Economists' median expectation for the May ADP jobs figure was for a drop of 30,000 jobs, according to a Reuters poll. In April, ADP said, the private sector added 13,000 jobs, which...