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If you still have a job, maybe Friday's numbers from the Labor Department will give you a chance to exhale. Since the recession began in December 2007, the employment market, for the most part, has been one negative headline after another. Now, we've learned that the U.S. lost only 11,000 jobs in November, that the unemployment rate surprisingly ticked down from 10.2% the previous month to only 10%, and that for the prior two months the total of jobs lost actually wasn't as bad as initially thought. The last time the data were so bright, if they can be called...

Data from Rasmussen Reports national telephone surveys shows that 15.0% of Democrats in the workforce are currently unemployed and looking for a job. Among adults not affiliated with either major party, that number is 15.6% while just 9.9% of Republicans are in the same situation. These findings are from interviews with 15,000 American adults in October. The numbers show an increase in all categories from earlier in the year. The percentage of unemployed Democrats has grown less than a point from 14.2% in February. Among those not affiliated with either major party, unemployment has grown by more than two percentage...

At 10% Unemployment America Still Doesn't Have Enough Workers Joe WeisenthalOct. 12, 2009, 1:10 PM Here's a little paradox for you. Even with unemployment officially sitting around 10%, studies continue to suggest that America is deficient when it comes to having a skilled workforce. A new survey by the Business Roundtable finds that many businesses say they can't get as skilled-enough workforce for what they need. Remember, we're in the middle of period where there's a record number of jobseekers for every listing. But of course, it's really not much a paradox at all. After years and years of a...

The U.S. District Court in Maryland ruled in favor of an executive order first issued during the Bush Administration that would require all federal government contractors to use E-Verify. The order was delayed once by Pres. Bush and three times by Pres. Obama while they were awaiting the outcome of lawsuits filed by various business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Under the court's ruling, all federal contractors holding contracts of more than $100,000, regardless of size, will be required to use E-Verify, beginning on Sept. 8. Subcontractors will also be subject to the rule if their portion of...

What is a mancession, you ask? It's a recession that hurts men much more than women, and we are allegedly in the worst mancession in recent history. Eighty percent of job losses in the last two years were among men, said AEI scholar Christina Hoff Summers, and it could get worse. Here some graphs provided by Mark Perry, an economist from the University of Michigan who coined the term mancession that, with any luck, is not long for our world. Unfortunately this trend doesn't look to be reversing itself any time soon. How do we explain this? The decline in...

HCL Technologies is one of India's most powerful and respected tech firms. The company scored a massive $170M USD outsourcing contract from Microsoft last year. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer lavished them with praise, stating, "That extra mile walk by the team (at HCL) has increased our mutual trust and has taken our relationship to newer heights. " Now HCL's CEO Vineet Nayar has gone on record with some controversial remarks about the quality of American technology college graduates. Tired of hearing stereotypes about Indian tech grads, Mr. Nayar, speaking before an audience of business partners in New York City, blasted...

OK, before you get your knickers in a twist, let's put the CEO's comments into context. Vineet Nayar, the highly respected CEO of HCL Technologies, one of India's hottest IT services vendors, was speaking this morning in New York City to an audience of about 50 customers and partners when he related a recent experience with an education official in a large U.S. state. The official wanted to know why HCL, a $2.5 billion (revenue) company with more than 3,000 people across 21 offices in 15 states, wasn't hiring more people in his state. Vineet's short answer: because most American...

There's one segment of the population for whom employment is growing! As John Mauldin pointed out in his latest weekly email, there is one segment of the American population that is actually seeing strong employment growth: Those who are 55+. Specifically, older Americans and now getting out and getting not just one but sometimes two jobs. And they're doing this against a backdrop of plummeting employment among the rest of the population. Why are these folks suddenly working so hard to find work? Because the value of their twin nest eggs--houses and stocks--has been demolished. Here's John Mauldin, quoting former...

Intel chairman says US education lacking By SANDRA CHEREB Associated Press Writer May. 12, 2009 RENO, Nev. -- The outgoing chairman of the world's largest computer chip maker says the United States needs to rethink its approach to public education and raise the bar for academic achievement in mathematics and science if it hopes to be competitive in a 21st century world. "We haven't even chosen to compete in this area yet," Craig Barrett, retiring chairman of Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel Corp., said Monday. "We're still operating as though we're the only game in town."

US President Barack Obama Friday announced a new scheme to use unemployment insurance as a springboard to get laid-off workers back to work, by offering expanded access to retraining education. "Our unemployment insurance system should no longer be a safety net, but a stepping stone to a new future," Obama said in excerpts of a speech he was due to give later on Friday after the release of monthly jobless figures. "It should offer folks educational opportunities they wouldn't otherwise have, and give them the measurable and differentiated skills they need to not just get through these hard times, but...

You're hired—next year Apr 30th 2009 | NEW YORK From The Economist print edition The recession is changing the way American firms recruit people IT SOUNDS like something for a racing driver, rather than a company in a recession. But Allan McKisson of Manpower, an employment-services company, insists that companies should be adopting a “ramp-up plan” and hiring new talent now, to ensure that they are firing on all cylinders when the economy rebounds. According to a survey carried out by Watson Wyatt, a consulting firm, three-quarters of American companies have implemented a hiring freeze. But that means around a...

Looks like Washington Post Editorial Page Editor Fred Hiatt sort of put his foot in his mouth -- or his pen as the case may be -- in an April 27 editorial where he as much as called America's older workers "lumbering" and less talented than "younger, nimbler" employees. In a nation that has one of its largest blocks of citizens in the "older" category, those over 40, it seems like Hiatt just insulted the largest number of Americans. Not the best way to sell newspapers, eh? In his headlined "600,000 Bad Hires? Making Federal Jobs Cool Once Again," Hiatt...

SAN DIEGO — She's 78 years old and in good health. But Re Johnson has no illusions of spending her days playing bingo, knitting or traveling. Instead, she's looking for a job and expects to work for the rest of her life. Johnson, a Spring Valley resident, said she's seeking a position in merchandising or customer service. While she has been able to cover the mortgage payments on the home where she has lived for more than 40 years, she wants to be able to buy a car, or perhaps take a trip. “I want to get to the point...

Major U.S. banks sought government permission to bring thousands of foreign workers into the country for high-paying jobs even as the system was melting down last year and Americans were getting laid off, according to an Associated Press review of visa applications. The dozen banks now receiving the biggest rescue packages, totaling more than $150 billion, requested visas for more than 21,800 foreign workers over the past six years for positions that included senior vice presidents, corporate lawyers, junior investment analysts and human resources specialists. The average annual salary for those jobs was $90,721, nearly twice the median income for...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 27, 2009 – The Defense Department is forming a civilian expeditionary workforce that will be trained and equipped to deploy overseas in support of military missions worldwide, according to department officials. The intent of the program “is to maximize the use of the civilian workforce to allow military personnel to be fully utilized for operational requirements,” according to a Defense Department statement. Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England signed Defense Department Directive 1404.10, which outlines and provides guidance about the program, on Jan. 23. Certain duty positions may be designated by the various Defense Department components to participate in...

The land of milk and honey is souring for Generation Y, just as its members get their careers into full swing. With the unemployment rate skyrocketing, employees under 30 have the most reason for worry. Joblessness is far higher among younger people than for those later in their careers. For workers under 29, the unemployment rate jumped to more than 11 percent in December, compared with under 9 percent a year ago, according to Labor Department figures. That is far worse than the overall rate of 7.2 percent, up from 4.9 percent a year ago. The rate for teenage workers,...

MANPOWER is a global staffing agency with about 4,500 offices in 80 countries and territories that place workers into permanent, temporary and contract jobs. In 2007, the company had $21 billion in revenue worldwide. Although Manpower is based in Milwaukee, where it was established 60 years ago, it derives 67 percent of its revenue from Europe. Jeffrey A. Joerres became the company’s chief executive in 1999 and chairman in 2001. In a recent interview, he spoke about the global employment outlook for a wide range of industries. Q. What are your tips for job seekers in what is shaping up...

WASHINGTON - The White House says President Bush signed into law a bill that Congress approved to keep unemployment checks flowing to jobless Americans through the holiday season. Bush signed the bill at the White House just before boarding Marine I Friday morning for a short trip to Andrews Air Force Base and a flight to Lima, Peru, to attend the 21-nation Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. The Senate approved the bill following an earlier report Thursday saying that new claims by laid-off workers for jobless aid had reached a 16-year high and the number of people looking for work had...

Powerful House Democrats are eyeing proposals to overhaul the nation’s $3 trillion 401(k) system, including the elimination of most of the $80 billion in annual tax breaks that 401(k) investors receive..... “The savings rate isn’t going up for the investment of $80 billion,” he [Democratic Congressman George Miller] said. “We have to start to think about ... whether or not we want to continue to invest that $80 billion for a policy that’s not generating what we now say it should.” “From where I sit that’s just crazy,” said John Belluardo, president of Stewardship Financial Services Inc. in Tarrytown, New...

Borderline Insecurity by: Melinda Zosh, July 08, 2008 Mark Krikorian, author of The New Case Against Immigration argues that today’s society is vastly different, and low-skilled immigrants actually harm America. “[Today’s] immigrants aren’t that different from the past but we’ve changed,” said Krikorian. “High levels of immigration on incompatible with the goals of modern society.” And one of the goals of modern society, Krikorian argued, is the creation of even wages and a fair labor market. Immigration actually threatens the jobs of teens and blacks. “Certain groups of American workers most directly in competition [with immigrants] are in fact seeing...

WASHINGTON - Congress thinks the federal government would work better if more civil servants just stayed home. The House, on a voice vote Tuesday, approved legislation requiring the head of each federal agency to set policies allowing qualified workers to telework, or work from home or a convenient location. The bill specifies that eligible employees should be permitted to telework at least 20 percent of the hours worked in a two-week period, generally the equivalent of two work days. "A happy workforce is a productive workforce," said Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill., the bill's sponsor. He said giving more federal workers...

Los Angeles is at the leading edge of a U.S. demographic trend, with half of its workforce immigrants, many of them unskilled and speaking little English. As baby boomers retire, the same pattern will emerge across the country, the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday. Demographers estimate that by 2025 most of the growth in the workforce will be from immigrants. Ernesto Cortes Jr., Southwest regional director of the Industrial Areas Foundation, said Los Angeles is at a crossroads. "The question is: Are we going to be a 21st century city with shared prosperity, or a Third World city with an...

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc (NYSE:LEH - News), the Wall Street investment bank, is laying off 5 percent of its work force, or about 1,430 people, because of difficult market conditions, a person briefed on the matter said on Monday. The cuts are being made across all divisions and regions, and employees affected are being notified on Monday, the person said. Lehman employed about 28,600 people as of November 30, 2007, according to the company's most recent annual report. The bank declined to comment. Before Monday, Lehman had eliminated close to 4,000 jobs in the last year. Many were in mortgage...

Robert Beasley says he is “training young adults to be professional” — and he approaches his job with all the enthusiasm of an evangelist. Beasley, 48, is a career specialist with Arbor Education and Training located at the Greenwood WIN Job Center. The program teaches young adults how to act during an interview, complete a job application, assemble a resume and cover letter and perform other related tasks. “Basically, we’re giving them the skills to find a job, to get a job and to keep that job,” said Beasley, a Greenwood native and Jackson State University graduate. Arbor Education and...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Mexican President Felipe Calderon on Monday decried anti-immigrant perceptions in the United States and argued that Mexican immigrants complement American workers. On his first trip to the U.S. as Mexico's president, Calderon said he is working to combat anti-Americanism in Mexico and to improve job prospects there to reduce migration. He said he hopes that Americans resist anti-Mexican sentiments. "The worst thing that happened in this country is this anti-Mexican or anti-immigrant perception of people. We need to contain this," Calderon said after a speech at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. "I need to change...

The percentage of older Americans in the workforce is increasing markedly, partly driven by a need for affordable, employment-based health insurance. A report released this morning by the nonpartisan Employee Benefit Research Institute said the percentage of 55-and-older persons in the labor force ballooned from 38 percent 1993 to 45 percent in 2006. The percentage of Americans aged 65 to 69 jumped from 18 percent in 1985 to 29 percent in 2006. The increased workforce participation — especially among full-time, full-year workers — also is prompted by the need to accumulate retirement savings, the institute report said. Two primary forces...

A new McDonald's Corp. commercial tells the story of Karen King, who began her career as a teenage crew member in the 1970s and rose to head the company's $10-billion Eastern-U.S. division. The spots are meant to resonate with American teenagers, who are leaving the workforce in droves — and leaving McDonald's with a labor crunch that threatens to take a bite out of its surging sales. "It's a shrinking labor market, and we recognize less people will be available to hire," Ms. King says. The declining number of teenage job-seekers presents a super-size challenge for McDonald's, where 40% of...

WASHINGTON -- Seventy percent of Americans now say the economy is getting worse, a belief contradicted by a growing workforce, increased wages and household wealth, and a stock-market rally that has boosted worker-retirement investments.

IN THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN community, discussion, debate and uneasiness continue over how much the tide of new immigration impacts job opportunities. T. Willard Fair, president of the Greater Miami Urban League, criticized Senate Democrats for supporting the immigration bill while ignoring the concerns of African-Americans shut out of restaurant and other low-paying jobs because of immigrant labor. For that he was labeled a tool of right-wing anti-immigrant conservatives. The Congressional Black Caucus, which is on record as supporting access to citizenship, job training and fair wages for immigrants, is now finally getting around to forming a task force to address some...

Businesses took on 180,000 more workers in March, only slightly short of the 200,000 per month average during the last two months. The unemployment rate fell by 0.1 percentage point to 4.4%, equaling its level of last October. Joblessness hasn't been lower since May 2001, just before the last recession. Wages also continued their recent upward march. Average hourly earnings of production workers advanced six cents to $17.22, and have risen 4% over the past year. Average weekly earnings rose even faster -- 4.4% during the year. Investors, facing the combination of a tighter jobs market and potentially inflationary wage...

...Yesterday, Montgomery County school officials announced a pilot program tailored to the specific needs of students such as Lisama: recent immigrants who have had little formal education although they are reaching the age when most native-born Americans graduate from high school... The program, Students Engaged in Pathways to Achievement, would begin this summer at Wheaton High School, a campus serving a large immigrant population, and focus initially on about 15 students in their late teens. Students would be taught functional English, with an emphasis on career-specific vocabulary. Other classes would explore careers, including horticulture, cosmetology and hospitality. Students also would...

Asia is fast developing into an economic powerhouse, with China and India gradually transforming themselves into the new masters of the universe. Meanwhile, the West faces the prospect of losing the globalization game, as European labor is devalued -- by the millions.

OTAY MESA, Calif. - Under the glare of the port lights, federal agents watched as the GMC Yukon approached the immigration booth. Two years of legwork — interviewing sources, listening to wiretaps and watching just as they were watching now — had led to this. Aurora Torres, the suspected smuggler, was behind the wheel. Weeks earlier, agents had heard her on the telephone with her contact. "Are you going to invite me to the movies tonight?" she asked. "It's going to be four tickets." "Right at 12," a man responded. "If I can't make it, I'll send you a 9-1-1."...

WASHINGTON, May 19, 2006 – The United States is depending on every one of its Defense Department employees, military and civilian alike, to contribute their talents to winning the war on terror, the defense secretary and top-ranking U.S. military officer said today at a Pentagon town hall meeting. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld reminded the Pentagon town hall audience May 19 that the U.S. has to pressure the terrorists. "We can't just play defense," he said. "We have to play offense. ... We have to go after them and put pressure on them and make everything they do more difficult."...

Aging workforce means labour shortage looms Transport company trying heavier advertising A major labour shortage is looming for the industry that keeps Canada's economy rolling. Research from Statistics Canada shows the country's trucking industry could lose as much as 20 per cent of its workforce in coming years, and young people aren't coming into the industry in enough numbers to replace those departing. That's a frightening statistic, given that more than half of everything Canada exports, 78 per cent of its imports and 90 per cent of its food, moves to its final destination over the road. "We have the...

By 2010, nearly one in three workers in the United States will be older than 50, according to CompTIA. As the number of younger workers declines, attracting and retaining "experienced and reliable workers" will become a core business strategy for all employers. The aging workforce is becoming a significant concern for technology employers in the U.S., where a third of employees will be aged 50 or older in just four years. Ten years ago, the story was the "graying of Japan," where aging workers were expected to be less productive in their golden years as well. By Gene Koprowski

In addition to their graduation certificates, students leave with a starter kit of supplies or tools needed to work in their respective fields. QALAT, Afghanistan, Feb. 24, 2006 — More than 30 students graduated from a basic computer class at a new vocational school Jan. 18 at the Qalat Provincial Reconstruction Team base in Zabul Province. "The Qalat [Provincial Reconstruction Team] believes this vocational school is moving the Afghan work force forward. There is a … willingness from the youth of Zabul Province (to take) a substantial interest in the future of themselves as well as Afghanistan." U.S. Army Lt....

The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently re-benchmarked the payroll jobs data back to 2000. Thanks to Charles McMillion of MBG Information Services, I have the adjusted data from January 2001 through January 2006. If you are worried about terrorists, you don't know what worry is. Job growth over the last five years is the weakest on record. The U.S. economy was more than 7 million jobs short of keeping up with population growth. That's one good reason for controlling immigration. An economy that cannot keep up with population growth should not be boosting population with heavy rates of legal and...

WASHINGTON (AP) - A Senate-passed measure to add more visas for foreign workers in high-tech and specialty fields was dropped from a budget bill that passed the House early Monday, disappointing high-tech and manufacturing firms in search of skilled workers. The Senate plan would have allowed 30,000 more of the popular H1-B visas each year, and increased fees for those visas to help trim the budget deficit. Congress capped the six-year H-1B visas at 65,000 per year in 2004, and that cap has already been reached for the 2006 fiscal year that began Oct. 1. The Senate language also would...

Change in work site enforcement policies means heavier penalties for violators December 18, 2005 — For three decades, Victor Bocanegra has run GIRO Landscaping & Construction, offering services that include general lawn and garden care and building retainer walls for waterfront properties just about anywhere in the Rio Grande Valley. It’s hard work and requires skilled laborers. It doesn’t always require proof of citizenship, Bocanegra suggested. The San Benito resident admits he’s employed undocumented immigrants and says they’re paid the same as legal workers, above minimum wage. And, in his 33 years in the lawn and garden business, he’s only...

Thanks to high oil prices, the Kingdom is experiencing a new boom, one that promises to be even more dramatic for the country’s development than the one in the 1970s and early 1980s. That is because what is happening now is not development from scratch. There is a massive base on which to build — infrastructural, educational and economic. But lessons should be learned from the 1970s and 1980s. There were great strides forward then but there was also waste, corruption, inadequate planning and economic naiveté. Gone, thankfully, are the days of imagining that Saudi Arabia must be self-sufficient in...

HOUSTON - After only a year at CenterPoint Energy, Shelley Daniel has big plans for her career. In 20 years, she sees herself in the company's executive management ranks; by the time she retires, CEO. This recent college grad, in other words, is exactly what the energy industry is looking for - not just because she's highly motivated, but because she wants to remain in the business. For years, energy analysts have been warning that their industry will run out of employees faster than it runs out of oil or gas. By some estimates, half the workforce will retire in...

The War on Wal-Mart continues apace this week in New York City. There, the cost of living is high -- as is the demand for Wal-Mart's services. But the labor movement's tactics, as always, are lower than low. Their latest tactic: a bill that will require grocery stores in the five boroughs with 35 or more employees to provide their workers with "prevailing" health-care benefits. What this means, in practice, is erecting yet another wall to keep Wal-Mart out. Back in February, big labor prevailed upon Gotham's political class to keep the country's largest private-sector (and non-union) employer from opening...

Economists and employment specialists foresee worker bees getting older - and older. In the UCLA Anderson Forecast, a quarterly report on long-term prospects for the U.S. labor force, senior economist Michael Bazdarich focused on the ways aging Baby Boomers and "increasing life expectancies" will impact the economy - or, as he put it, "the growth path of production and consumption." The upshot: Large numbers of people will be forced to work beyond what has been the traditional retirement age, sometime between 62 and 65. That outcome is already materializing in the Antelope Valley, according to Shirley Kemp, the job service...

Toyota to build 100,000 vehicles per year in Woodstock, Ont., starting 2008 11:03 PM EDT Jul 07 New President of Toyota Motor Corp. Katsuaki Watanabe said that the automaker plans to build a new plant in Canada. (AP/Shizuo Kambayashi) STEVE ERWIN WOODSTOCK, Ont. (CP) - Ontario workers are well-trained. That simple explanation was cited as a main reason why Toyota turned its back on hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies offered from several American states in favour of building a second Ontario plant. Industry experts say Ontarians are easier and cheaper to train - helping make it more cost-efficient...

WOODSTOCK, Ont. (CP) - Ontario workers are well-trained. That simple explanation was cited as a main reason why Toyota turned its back on hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies offered from several American states in favour of building a second Ontario plant. Industry experts say Ontarians are easier and cheaper to train - helping make it more cost-efficient to train workers when the new Woodstock plant opens in 2008, 40 kilometres away from its skilled workforce in Cambridge. "The level of the workforce in general is so high that the training program you need for people, even for people...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is looking for a few good workers. A few thousand. Despite his stump speeches about curbing government spending, the state has added 4,983 full-time government jobs this fiscal year. And the Schwarzenegger administration proposes creating 6,288 jobs in the fiscal year that starts Friday, adding up to a net gain of more than 11, 000 full-time jobs in two years, Department of Finance documents show. Overall, Schwarzenegger's budget calls for 329,045 positions next year, up 3.5 percent from two years ago. Lawmakers are scheduled to vote today on a budget that Democratic backers say closely mirrors Schwarzenegger's...

The number of women making up the U.S. IT workforce fell 18% in eight years. Last year, women accounted for 32% of the IT workforce, down from a high of 41% in 1996, according to new research from the Information Technology Association of America, an industry trade group. During the same time, the percentage of women in the overall workforce was virtually unchanged, at roughly 46%. In addition, most racial minorities remain significantly underrepresented in the IT workforce, according to the report, Untapped Talent: Diversity, Competition, And America's High-Tech Future. The lack of diversity isn't good for the United States...

An analysis by BusinessWeek finds that increased productivity of older Americans and higher labor-force participation could add 9% to gross domestic product by 2045, on top of what it otherwise would have been. This would add more than $3 trillion a year, in today's dollars, to economic output. For most of the 20th century, retirement ages fell as life spans grew. The trend seemed unstoppable: While in 1950, 46% of men 65 and older were in the labor force, by 1985 the fraction had plummeted to 16%. An influx of women into the labor force only partially offset the overall...

A current commercial campaign for Geico insurance depicts modern-day cavemen who get offended when people assume they're uneducated. A similar theme could hold true when it comes to illegal aliens, according to a new study. Contrary to the stereotype of undocumented migrants as single males with very little education who perform manual labor in agriculture or construction, the Pew Hispanic Center report shows that most of the illegal population lives in families, a quarter has at least some college education and that illegal workers can be found in many sectors of the U.S. economy. "Not all of the unauthorized population...