By LIZ WOLGEMUTH (U.S. News & World Report)
Posted: November 11, 2009
President Obama summed up the precarious nature of today's economy and job market in a recent interview with ABC's Jake Tapper. "Now that we've rescued the economy and the economy is growing," Obama said, "businesses aren't yet hiring." Indeed, it's strange to see a "rescued" economy in which nearly 16 million unemployed face a paltry 2.5 million openings each month. Employers have not stopped cutting jobs, and the unemployment rate soared to 10.2 percent last month.
With 2010 just around the corner, everyone is crossing their fingers for a better year. Here are a few things you can expect:
Washington will keep trying to create jobs:
The gross domestic product climbed 3.5 percent in the third quarter, while payrolls continued to fall. This is no doubt proof of the rule that employment is a lagging indicator. But some economists see it as particularly lagging at this point. The Conference Board's employment trends index, which takes into account eight labor market indicators, rose in October. It was the second consecutive month of growth. (September's rise had been the first since January 2008.) The index numbers suggest job losses would end by early next year, and "that's a very optimistic statement compared to the consensus at this point," says Gad Levanon, senior economist at the Conference Board.
When the private sector isn't creating jobs, government tends to step in by lowering taxes, creating incentives, or spending to spur hiring. President Obama signed a bill providing another federally funded unemployment extension Friday and said he would likely do more: "My economic team is looking at ideas such as additional investments in our aging roads and bridges, incentives to encourage families and businesses to make buildings more energy-efficient, additional tax cuts for businesses to create jobs, additional steps to increase the flow of credit to small businesses, and an aggressive agenda to promote exports and help American manufacturers sell their products around the world." The White House has stopped short of calling these tools "stimulus." On Capitol Hill, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told colleagues Tuesday that Senate Democrats would take up a bill aimed at job creation, but did not elaborate on its details, according to the Hill.
The deficit will begin to weigh on Washington's efforts to create jobs:
While the president laid out a lengthy menu of possible job-creation tools, he is receiving no small amount of pressure to begin tackling the deficit. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is the most powerful voice among many pushing Obama in that direction. The president says that he is beginning to look at the fiscal 2011 budget and that he understands the nation's long-term debt is a problem. While unemployment is clearly a nearer-term problem, deficit concerns will weigh on each decision. Countries that buy American debt could begin to demand higher returns. To pay higher yields on debt, the government would be forced to raise interest rates, a situation that could endanger the fledgling recovery.
Unemployment will peak next year:
By and large, economists do not believe the unemployment rate will tick downward in November or December. Instead, they expect a peak sometime next year. Even the Congressional Budget Office is anticipating an average unemployment rate of 10.2 percent in 2010 and about a percentage point lower in 2011.
Unemployment will likely fall by the end of next year—or even toward the middle of next year—but even the most bullish economists do not anticipate major drops in the unemployment rate. Brian Wesbury and Robert Stein of First Trust Advisors are expecting a drop of a full percentage point. The Conference Board's Levanon says he expects the unemployment rate to remain elevated over the next several years.
Productivity will, eventually, help boost employment:
Productivity grew at a 9.5 percent annual rate last quarter. Americans were working hard. Labor productivity is measured by dividing output by hours worked. In the third quarter, output rose by 4 percent while the number of hours worked fell by 5 percent. This can make people nervous, because employers are doing more with less and would seem to have no incentive to increase their payrolls. But productivity numbers during downturns "do all sorts of strange things," says Dean Baker, codirector of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. And they can look very good after employers cut payrolls.
A longer purview shows productivity to be a very positive thing for employment. Productivity allows more to be produced with less capital. "The increased productivity of capital raises the supply of other kinds of capital that contributes to a growth in the earnings of workers," says Gary Becker, an economist at the University of Chicago. "In the very short run, productivity improvements are associated with rising unemployment and reduced employment, but in the somewhat longer run it will raise the demand for workers and earnings."
(Editor's Note: Let us hear your opinion. Should we be dependent on the government creating jobs for people or should steps be taken that will allow the private sector to create the jobs?)
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Saturday, November 21, 2009
California Was Among States With Record Unemployment
By Courtney Schlisserman, Nov. 20 (Bloomberg) --
California, Delaware, South Carolina and Florida registered record rates of unemployment in October as weakness in the labor market stretches from coast to coast and limits the economic recovery.
Joblessness rose in 29 U.S. states last month compared with 22 in September, the Labor Department said today in Washington. Michigan had the highest jobless rate at 15.1 percent, followed by Nevada at 13 percent and Rhode Island at 12.9 percent.
The national rate last month reached a 26-year high of 10.2 percent, weighing on consumer spending that accounts for about 70 percent of the economy. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said Nov. 17 that joblessness “likely will decline only slowly,” a reason policy makers will keep interest rates near zero to ensure growth is sustained.
“We’ve had a surprisingly sharp jump in the jobless rate,” said Richard DeKaser, president of Woodley Park Research in Washington. “Businesses have truly been doing an extraordinary job of wringing out productivity from the labor force.”
Stocks fell for a third day, with the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index declining 0.3 percent to 1,091.38 at 4:03 p.m. in New York. Dell Inc., the third-largest maker of personal computers, dropped 10 percent after reporting a 54 percent drop in profit.
Declines in 13 States
The unemployment rate fell in 13 states, including Massachusetts, where it declined to 8.9 percent from 9.3 percent; New Hampshire, with a drop to 6.8 percent from 7.2 percent; and West Virginia, which fell to 8.5 percent from 8.9 percent.
The number of states with at least 10 percent unemployment held at 14 last month, the Labor Department’s report showed. The states reporting a record jobless rate were California at 12.5 percent, South Carolina at 12.1 percent, Florida at 11.2 percent and Delaware at 8.7 percent. The District of Columbia also set a high with an 11.9 percent rate.
“Virtually every sector aside from the health-care sector is losing jobs,” said Sean Snaith, University of Central Florida economist in Orlando. “Housing has been central to Florida’s economic story throughout the entire cycle. Unfortunately, it has spread well beyond the sectors directly involved in the housing market.”
President Barack Obama on Nov. 6 signed into law a plan to extend jobless benefits, expand a tax credit for first-time homebuyers and provide tax refunds to money-losing companies. The measure gives jobless people as many as 20 additional weeks of unemployment assistance.
The president has also announced plans to convene a jobs summit at the White House next month.
State Payrolls
Payrolls declined last month in 21 states, today’s report showed. New York showed the biggest drop, with a loss of 15,300. Florida had 8,500 job losses, followed by Georgia with 7,500 and Virginia with 7,100.
“When you apply for a job, because there are so many other people looking for jobs, you have to be the absolute perfect candidate and lucky, or be someone’s brother-in-law, to get a job,” said Mary Kough of Tellico Plains, Tennessee. “In this economy there are very few jobs for which to even apply.”
Kough has been looking for work for four months, applying for as many as 25 positions. She’s been interviewed once. The 47-year-old said she has about 20 years of experience, including jobs as a customer service manager, supervisor and purchasing agent. Tennessee’s unemployment rate held at 10.5 percent in October, the Labor Department’s report showed.
Taking Comfort
“I try not to get discouraged,” Kough said. “I know that you will get a certain percentage of what you apply for, and since there are less jobs to apply for, I know it will just take a little longer. I take comfort in knowing that. I have faith.”
Applied Materials Inc. is among companies still planning to cut jobs. The world’s biggest maker of chip equipment, based in Santa Clara, California, said Nov. 11 it plans to eliminate as many as 1,500 positions within 18 months.
Over the last year, California showed the biggest loss of jobs, with payrolls falling by 687,700 workers, today’s report showed.
Nationally, payrolls fell by 190,000 in October, the Labor Department said Nov. 6. The U.S. has lost 7.3 million jobs since the start of the recession in December 2007, the most of any downturn since the Great Depression.
Other measures corroborate that while firms are firing fewer workers, it is harder for the unemployed to find work. The number of people getting extended payments jumped in the week ended Oct. 31 even as the number of Americans filing first-time claims for unemployment benefits held at a 10-month low last week, according to government data released yesterday.
California, Delaware, South Carolina and Florida registered record rates of unemployment in October as weakness in the labor market stretches from coast to coast and limits the economic recovery.
Joblessness rose in 29 U.S. states last month compared with 22 in September, the Labor Department said today in Washington. Michigan had the highest jobless rate at 15.1 percent, followed by Nevada at 13 percent and Rhode Island at 12.9 percent.
The national rate last month reached a 26-year high of 10.2 percent, weighing on consumer spending that accounts for about 70 percent of the economy. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said Nov. 17 that joblessness “likely will decline only slowly,” a reason policy makers will keep interest rates near zero to ensure growth is sustained.
“We’ve had a surprisingly sharp jump in the jobless rate,” said Richard DeKaser, president of Woodley Park Research in Washington. “Businesses have truly been doing an extraordinary job of wringing out productivity from the labor force.”
Stocks fell for a third day, with the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index declining 0.3 percent to 1,091.38 at 4:03 p.m. in New York. Dell Inc., the third-largest maker of personal computers, dropped 10 percent after reporting a 54 percent drop in profit.
Declines in 13 States
The unemployment rate fell in 13 states, including Massachusetts, where it declined to 8.9 percent from 9.3 percent; New Hampshire, with a drop to 6.8 percent from 7.2 percent; and West Virginia, which fell to 8.5 percent from 8.9 percent.
The number of states with at least 10 percent unemployment held at 14 last month, the Labor Department’s report showed. The states reporting a record jobless rate were California at 12.5 percent, South Carolina at 12.1 percent, Florida at 11.2 percent and Delaware at 8.7 percent. The District of Columbia also set a high with an 11.9 percent rate.
“Virtually every sector aside from the health-care sector is losing jobs,” said Sean Snaith, University of Central Florida economist in Orlando. “Housing has been central to Florida’s economic story throughout the entire cycle. Unfortunately, it has spread well beyond the sectors directly involved in the housing market.”
President Barack Obama on Nov. 6 signed into law a plan to extend jobless benefits, expand a tax credit for first-time homebuyers and provide tax refunds to money-losing companies. The measure gives jobless people as many as 20 additional weeks of unemployment assistance.
The president has also announced plans to convene a jobs summit at the White House next month.
State Payrolls
Payrolls declined last month in 21 states, today’s report showed. New York showed the biggest drop, with a loss of 15,300. Florida had 8,500 job losses, followed by Georgia with 7,500 and Virginia with 7,100.
“When you apply for a job, because there are so many other people looking for jobs, you have to be the absolute perfect candidate and lucky, or be someone’s brother-in-law, to get a job,” said Mary Kough of Tellico Plains, Tennessee. “In this economy there are very few jobs for which to even apply.”
Kough has been looking for work for four months, applying for as many as 25 positions. She’s been interviewed once. The 47-year-old said she has about 20 years of experience, including jobs as a customer service manager, supervisor and purchasing agent. Tennessee’s unemployment rate held at 10.5 percent in October, the Labor Department’s report showed.
Taking Comfort
“I try not to get discouraged,” Kough said. “I know that you will get a certain percentage of what you apply for, and since there are less jobs to apply for, I know it will just take a little longer. I take comfort in knowing that. I have faith.”
Applied Materials Inc. is among companies still planning to cut jobs. The world’s biggest maker of chip equipment, based in Santa Clara, California, said Nov. 11 it plans to eliminate as many as 1,500 positions within 18 months.
Over the last year, California showed the biggest loss of jobs, with payrolls falling by 687,700 workers, today’s report showed.
Nationally, payrolls fell by 190,000 in October, the Labor Department said Nov. 6. The U.S. has lost 7.3 million jobs since the start of the recession in December 2007, the most of any downturn since the Great Depression.
Other measures corroborate that while firms are firing fewer workers, it is harder for the unemployed to find work. The number of people getting extended payments jumped in the week ended Oct. 31 even as the number of Americans filing first-time claims for unemployment benefits held at a 10-month low last week, according to government data released yesterday.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
8 Lessons from Real-Life Career Switchers
by Kerry Hannon | Nov 11, 2009 |
When Lisa Eaves decided to make a mid-career switch from working as a tech specialist for Fannie Mae to opening her own acupuncture practice five years ago, it was a risky move, but not a rash one.
During treatment for melanoma several years earlier, Eaves, 51, had become fascinated with Chinese medicine. And she also began realizing that technology work, while financially rewarding, was not something she was passionate about. “I felt it was time to explore other lines of work, and my health scare gave me that push,” Eaves says. So she enrolled in night and weekend classes while she worked and eventually got a Master's degree in acupuncture before starting her practice part-time.
Eaves had time on her side, and ideally, so will you. But if a layoff or a shrinking industry has left you little choice but to find another line of work, there’s still plenty you can do to prepare and make that transition as smooth and successful as possible. According to a recent CareerBuilder.com survey, one-third of American workers are interested in changing careers right now. Here are eight rules for doing it right.
1. Dig Inside for an Honest Appraisal
While it’s obviously crucial to match your next job or career to your interests,that can be easier said than done. You may have been working in the same field for years — or even decades — making it hard to get a good idea of what else you’re suited for.
To help you get started, check out free self-assessment quizzes at Careerpath.com and Monster.com. You can find more detailed personality tests — such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, the Strong Interest Inventory, and the Work-Personality Index — for a fee at What’s Next.
Beverly Jones, a 53-year-old corporate lawyer and vice president of external affairs and policy at Consolidated Natural Gas, accepted a modest early-retirement package. Her second-act plan was to get involved in landscape design, since gardening was one of her passions.
But she soon found that it didn’t make sense as a career choice. As a hobby, gardening was the perfect antidote to a busy career, but the solitary nature of the work made it a lousy full-time gig. She thrived on social contact. The good news: Jones had another skill — mentoring — that met all her requirements for a rewarding second career.
While remaining loosely associated with a law firm and lobbying for a nonprofit, she studied and obtained a Leadership Coaching Certificate from Georgetown University. She also attended career workshops, hired her own career coach, and read extensively about the field. Roughly six months later, she launched her own coaching/consulting practice in Washington. “In time, I began to find my own voice as a coach and felt confident I was doing what I was meant to do,” Jones says.
2. Get the Skills You Need Before You Leave Your Job
If at all possible, keep your current job while you add the education you need for your new pursuit so that you can reduce your financial burden. Under federal law, employers can offer up to $5,250 a year in tax-free education-assistance benefits for undergraduate or graduate courses. You don’t even need to be working toward a degree. Your employer, however, may require you to receive a minimum grade or to complete a program to be eligible for reimbursement. You may also need to stay employed by your company for a period of time after completing the course of study. And some employers even offer these benefits to laid-off former employees.
When mortgage banker Cliff Stevenson, 55, decided to become a high-school social-studies teacher a few years ago, he took night courses for two years to get a master’s degree in education before he resigned from his firm. Since he had an undergraduate degree in history, all he needed were seven additional courses in education to be certified as a social-studies teacher in Pennsylvania. “I started planning years before I switched careers,” Stevenson says. “My wife and I thought carefully about the financial aspects, and I set a target date that I would leave the mortgage-banking business, which allowed me to go to school and stuff away as much money as I could.” Unplanned bonus: He got out of mortgage banking just before the industry fell off a cliff.
3. Take Advantage of Education Tax Breaks
If you need to ramp up your skills with a degree or additional classwork, the tuition tab can be onerous. Stevenson’s total cost for a master’s degree in education, for instance, was $35,000. Depending on your income, though, you might qualify for various tax credits, such as the lifetime learning credit, worth up to $2,000 each year for an unlimited number of years that can be used for tuition and fees. The credit has an income phaseout for 2009 incomes from $50,000 to $60,000 (single filer) or $100,000 to $120,000 (married filing jointly). These phaseouts are indexed for inflation.
4. Apply for Student Aid
Financial aid isn’t just for undergrads — anyone can get low-cost student loans from the government, even if you’re only attending part-time. Acupuncturist Eaves was able to borrow $10,500 to help with her $26,000 tuition using low-interest Stafford loans, the main federal loan for students. Graduate Stafford loans currently charge a fixed rate of 6.8 percent, compared with about 8 percent for a home-equity loan.
The good news is that the federal aid formulas that determine how much you can borrow don’t take into account your home-equity or retirement accounts. Also, a certain amount of your savings — about $20,000 to over $60,000, depending on your age and marital status — are not calculated into your aid formula. And your student-loan interest may even be tax deductible, depending on your income level. You can get more information on what’s deductible from IRS Publication 970, as well as from the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators’ Tax Benefits Guide.
In addition, there are a number of research scholarships and grants available specifically for older students that are offered by different associations and foundations. Check out sites such as FastWeb and FinAid to find what’s available.
5. Consider Moving to Reduce Costs
The reality is that you will probably have to take a salary cut when you move into a new career, so it might make sense to look for work in an area where the cost of living is lower.
Tim Sheerer, 48, moved from an expensive northern New Jersey suburb, where he had commuted to work on Wall Street as an investment banker, to Pittsburgh, when he decided to enter the restaurant business and open an Italian bistro. The cost of living there — about one-third lower — allowed him the cushion to get his restaurant up and running without undue financial pressure.
Of course, that sort of uprooting is a little more complicated if you have a family to consider. For Sheerer, he couldn’t have done it without getting the green light from his wife, Colleen, and four children, who all pitch in at the restaurant.
6. Train While You Work
When Seattle human resources pro Arlene Carter lost her job, a friend told her about an executive fundraising job at a local assisted-living community. The job duties combined fundraising, public relations, and marketing. Carter figured she didn’t have quite the right skills for the job, but she went for the interview anyway. As it turned out, the hiring manager for the nonprofit foundation liked her and offered to shell out a few grand to help her to earn a certificate in fundraising from Indiana University-Purdue University.
It may be hard to believe, but there are some fields, particularly in the health care sector, where there’s a shortage of workers, so employers are willing to help train employees who have the overall skill set and personality to do a job but need to bone up on the nuts and bolts. “The kind of work I did in human resources and what you do in public relations is actually pretty close,” says Carter. “And because it was a hybrid job, it was a little easier to make the stretch.”
Fields such as nursing, eldercare, and home health services are particularly amenable to on-the-job training, says Ellen Freudenheim, author of The Boomers’ Guide to Good Work.
7. Downsize Your Lifestyle
When you’re new to a profession, you usually can’t expect to pull in the big bucks until you ramp up your skills and gain experience. So get a clear handle on your finances, and start to look for places to cut spending. Ask what luxuries you can do without, from dining out to dry cleaning. And set aside a cushion of up to six months of living expenses to ease transition costs, as well as for unexpected emergencies. Before she left Fannie Mae, Eaves, for instance, refinanced her condo to lower her monthly mortgage payment and paid off her car loan.
Arlene Carter had to take a 15 percent pay cut for her new position, but she’s taken it in stride. For starters, she now commutes just one mile to work as opposed to 30 minutes to her ex-employer’s office, which helps her save on gas and wear and tear on her car. She and her husband also found ways to trim monthly expenses by cutting channel options for their cable-TV service and reducing the number of minutes available on their cell phones. They make a habit of opting for home-cooked meals, and her new work environment’s casual dress policy means lower wardrobe bills. “I don’t even notice the pay cut,” Carter says.
8. Get Your Foot in the Door
It’s critical to soak up as much as you can about the businesses that appeal to you before you make the plunge. So do informational interviews with people who work in those fields, apply for internships or fellowships, and consider volunteering or moonlighting to get a sense of what the job entails. A potential employer can get a chance to see what you have to offer, and you get a peek inside to see if the job suits you.
Before Steve Brooks, a veteran TV producer based in Atlanta, opened his boutique winery in Walla Walla, Wash., he worked as an apprentice to top-drawer winemakers in the region, in addition to taking classes. “I made a lot of contacts in the business and connected with winemakers who were willing to mentor me,” Brooks says. “I was a cellar rat for three years, and it was the best education I could imagine.”
(Kerry Hannon is the author of the upcoming book, What’s Next: How to Follow Your Passions to a Fantastic and Fulfilling New Career (Chronicle Books).)
When Lisa Eaves decided to make a mid-career switch from working as a tech specialist for Fannie Mae to opening her own acupuncture practice five years ago, it was a risky move, but not a rash one.
During treatment for melanoma several years earlier, Eaves, 51, had become fascinated with Chinese medicine. And she also began realizing that technology work, while financially rewarding, was not something she was passionate about. “I felt it was time to explore other lines of work, and my health scare gave me that push,” Eaves says. So she enrolled in night and weekend classes while she worked and eventually got a Master's degree in acupuncture before starting her practice part-time.
Eaves had time on her side, and ideally, so will you. But if a layoff or a shrinking industry has left you little choice but to find another line of work, there’s still plenty you can do to prepare and make that transition as smooth and successful as possible. According to a recent CareerBuilder.com survey, one-third of American workers are interested in changing careers right now. Here are eight rules for doing it right.
1. Dig Inside for an Honest Appraisal
While it’s obviously crucial to match your next job or career to your interests,that can be easier said than done. You may have been working in the same field for years — or even decades — making it hard to get a good idea of what else you’re suited for.
To help you get started, check out free self-assessment quizzes at Careerpath.com and Monster.com. You can find more detailed personality tests — such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, the Strong Interest Inventory, and the Work-Personality Index — for a fee at What’s Next.
Beverly Jones, a 53-year-old corporate lawyer and vice president of external affairs and policy at Consolidated Natural Gas, accepted a modest early-retirement package. Her second-act plan was to get involved in landscape design, since gardening was one of her passions.
But she soon found that it didn’t make sense as a career choice. As a hobby, gardening was the perfect antidote to a busy career, but the solitary nature of the work made it a lousy full-time gig. She thrived on social contact. The good news: Jones had another skill — mentoring — that met all her requirements for a rewarding second career.
While remaining loosely associated with a law firm and lobbying for a nonprofit, she studied and obtained a Leadership Coaching Certificate from Georgetown University. She also attended career workshops, hired her own career coach, and read extensively about the field. Roughly six months later, she launched her own coaching/consulting practice in Washington. “In time, I began to find my own voice as a coach and felt confident I was doing what I was meant to do,” Jones says.
2. Get the Skills You Need Before You Leave Your Job
If at all possible, keep your current job while you add the education you need for your new pursuit so that you can reduce your financial burden. Under federal law, employers can offer up to $5,250 a year in tax-free education-assistance benefits for undergraduate or graduate courses. You don’t even need to be working toward a degree. Your employer, however, may require you to receive a minimum grade or to complete a program to be eligible for reimbursement. You may also need to stay employed by your company for a period of time after completing the course of study. And some employers even offer these benefits to laid-off former employees.
When mortgage banker Cliff Stevenson, 55, decided to become a high-school social-studies teacher a few years ago, he took night courses for two years to get a master’s degree in education before he resigned from his firm. Since he had an undergraduate degree in history, all he needed were seven additional courses in education to be certified as a social-studies teacher in Pennsylvania. “I started planning years before I switched careers,” Stevenson says. “My wife and I thought carefully about the financial aspects, and I set a target date that I would leave the mortgage-banking business, which allowed me to go to school and stuff away as much money as I could.” Unplanned bonus: He got out of mortgage banking just before the industry fell off a cliff.
3. Take Advantage of Education Tax Breaks
If you need to ramp up your skills with a degree or additional classwork, the tuition tab can be onerous. Stevenson’s total cost for a master’s degree in education, for instance, was $35,000. Depending on your income, though, you might qualify for various tax credits, such as the lifetime learning credit, worth up to $2,000 each year for an unlimited number of years that can be used for tuition and fees. The credit has an income phaseout for 2009 incomes from $50,000 to $60,000 (single filer) or $100,000 to $120,000 (married filing jointly). These phaseouts are indexed for inflation.
4. Apply for Student Aid
Financial aid isn’t just for undergrads — anyone can get low-cost student loans from the government, even if you’re only attending part-time. Acupuncturist Eaves was able to borrow $10,500 to help with her $26,000 tuition using low-interest Stafford loans, the main federal loan for students. Graduate Stafford loans currently charge a fixed rate of 6.8 percent, compared with about 8 percent for a home-equity loan.
The good news is that the federal aid formulas that determine how much you can borrow don’t take into account your home-equity or retirement accounts. Also, a certain amount of your savings — about $20,000 to over $60,000, depending on your age and marital status — are not calculated into your aid formula. And your student-loan interest may even be tax deductible, depending on your income level. You can get more information on what’s deductible from IRS Publication 970, as well as from the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators’ Tax Benefits Guide.
In addition, there are a number of research scholarships and grants available specifically for older students that are offered by different associations and foundations. Check out sites such as FastWeb and FinAid to find what’s available.
5. Consider Moving to Reduce Costs
The reality is that you will probably have to take a salary cut when you move into a new career, so it might make sense to look for work in an area where the cost of living is lower.
Tim Sheerer, 48, moved from an expensive northern New Jersey suburb, where he had commuted to work on Wall Street as an investment banker, to Pittsburgh, when he decided to enter the restaurant business and open an Italian bistro. The cost of living there — about one-third lower — allowed him the cushion to get his restaurant up and running without undue financial pressure.
Of course, that sort of uprooting is a little more complicated if you have a family to consider. For Sheerer, he couldn’t have done it without getting the green light from his wife, Colleen, and four children, who all pitch in at the restaurant.
6. Train While You Work
When Seattle human resources pro Arlene Carter lost her job, a friend told her about an executive fundraising job at a local assisted-living community. The job duties combined fundraising, public relations, and marketing. Carter figured she didn’t have quite the right skills for the job, but she went for the interview anyway. As it turned out, the hiring manager for the nonprofit foundation liked her and offered to shell out a few grand to help her to earn a certificate in fundraising from Indiana University-Purdue University.
It may be hard to believe, but there are some fields, particularly in the health care sector, where there’s a shortage of workers, so employers are willing to help train employees who have the overall skill set and personality to do a job but need to bone up on the nuts and bolts. “The kind of work I did in human resources and what you do in public relations is actually pretty close,” says Carter. “And because it was a hybrid job, it was a little easier to make the stretch.”
Fields such as nursing, eldercare, and home health services are particularly amenable to on-the-job training, says Ellen Freudenheim, author of The Boomers’ Guide to Good Work.
7. Downsize Your Lifestyle
When you’re new to a profession, you usually can’t expect to pull in the big bucks until you ramp up your skills and gain experience. So get a clear handle on your finances, and start to look for places to cut spending. Ask what luxuries you can do without, from dining out to dry cleaning. And set aside a cushion of up to six months of living expenses to ease transition costs, as well as for unexpected emergencies. Before she left Fannie Mae, Eaves, for instance, refinanced her condo to lower her monthly mortgage payment and paid off her car loan.
Arlene Carter had to take a 15 percent pay cut for her new position, but she’s taken it in stride. For starters, she now commutes just one mile to work as opposed to 30 minutes to her ex-employer’s office, which helps her save on gas and wear and tear on her car. She and her husband also found ways to trim monthly expenses by cutting channel options for their cable-TV service and reducing the number of minutes available on their cell phones. They make a habit of opting for home-cooked meals, and her new work environment’s casual dress policy means lower wardrobe bills. “I don’t even notice the pay cut,” Carter says.
8. Get Your Foot in the Door
It’s critical to soak up as much as you can about the businesses that appeal to you before you make the plunge. So do informational interviews with people who work in those fields, apply for internships or fellowships, and consider volunteering or moonlighting to get a sense of what the job entails. A potential employer can get a chance to see what you have to offer, and you get a peek inside to see if the job suits you.
Before Steve Brooks, a veteran TV producer based in Atlanta, opened his boutique winery in Walla Walla, Wash., he worked as an apprentice to top-drawer winemakers in the region, in addition to taking classes. “I made a lot of contacts in the business and connected with winemakers who were willing to mentor me,” Brooks says. “I was a cellar rat for three years, and it was the best education I could imagine.”
(Kerry Hannon is the author of the upcoming book, What’s Next: How to Follow Your Passions to a Fantastic and Fulfilling New Career (Chronicle Books).)
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Are Fellow Employees Getting Ready To "Jump Ship" When Economy Recovers?
Are fellow employees in your company getting ready to jump ship as soon as the economy turns around? How about leaving before the economy turns around?
I had the chance yesterday to speak at a local HR "Lunch & Learn" session. Talked about the coming "Fruitbasket Upset" of employees leaving current employer to go someplace else. Bosses think just because certain employees have kept their jobs during the economic crisis, these same employees will be loyal and stay with the company when things get better.
According to a recent survey by Monster and HCI, those bosses need to do a quick reality check:
“Today’s employers feel that employees are loyal due to the economic times, but the reality is they are not,” said Katherine Jones, HCI Research Fellow. “Because of this, there is a strong likelihood that when the economy turns for the better, employers could find themselves with valued employees jumping ship. This places pressure on them to put retention measures in place now.”
How about you? Is your employer doing any kind of effective workplace retention? How long will you stay?
Post a comment or send an email to jmitton@mittonmedia.com.
- 57% of workers believe employers are exploiting the recession to drive longer hours and lower pay from their workforces;
- Only 26% excuse their employers for conducting layoffs and forcing longer hours .
- 74% believe their employer is using recession for employer’s benefit
- 58% believe employers are less concerned about employee retention, if they were ever even concerned at all
- 50% of workers are more concerned now about top performers leaving than before the recession;
- 53% have a decreased company loyalty
- 79% are more likely to be seeking jobs elsewhere
“Today’s employers feel that employees are loyal due to the economic times, but the reality is they are not,” said Katherine Jones, HCI Research Fellow. “Because of this, there is a strong likelihood that when the economy turns for the better, employers could find themselves with valued employees jumping ship. This places pressure on them to put retention measures in place now.”
How about you? Is your employer doing any kind of effective workplace retention? How long will you stay?
Post a comment or send an email to jmitton@mittonmedia.com.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
"Going Postal": Increased Threat of Workplace Violence
On Friday morning, it was announced that America’s unemployment had unexpectedly climbed to 10.2 percent, the highest it’s been in a quarter-century. The jobless report was released right around the time that a bankrupt, desperate, and unemployed 40-year-old man, Jason Rodriguez, attacked his former employer’s office in Orlando, Florida—one of the worst-hit states in the country.
The Orlando office shooting, which left one dead and five wounded, came close on the heels of the massacre at Fort Hood the day before. The Fort Hood shooting was unusual because rarely has a Muslim “gone postal” in the America workplace. But Judeo-Christian Americans, including Latinos like Jason Rodriguez, have been massacring their co-workers and fellow students in “going postal” shootings for well over two decades now.
In fact, America invented these “going postal” murders, starting with the first post-office massacre in Edmonds, Oklahoma in 1986, which left 14 dead and six wounded. Over the next few years, shootings, rampages and suicides were rampant in the U.S. Postal Service, giving rise to a whole new term for these crimes.
At first, they were dismissed as a Postal Service problem, as if loonies had suddenly been recruited to work there. But the murders and complaints piled up, and by 1989, the co-worker-on-co-worker office massacre had jumped like a virus to the private sector—beginning with the rampage shooting at a printing plant in Louisville, Kentucky, which left nine dead and 12 injured.
Soon, workplace massacres of this sort spread all across the country; the term “disgruntled employee” also entered the lexicon, signifying something akin to “terrorist.” By the mid-1990s, even middle-class all-American schools were experiencing mass killings.
Today, 10 years after Columbine, these episodes come and go with such frequency that most Americans hardly notice; they’ve become cable news wallpaper.
Why did these killing sprees begin cropping up in the mid-1980s? When I studied these murders for my book, Going Postal, I traced the roots to Reagan-era economic policies that changed the postwar relationship between employees and companies, and between the middle class and the super-rich.
Government regulation of business was reduced, unions were decimated, and a radical new brand of capitalism became a kind of state religion. The trouble began in the U.S. Postal Service, a major government entity suddenly subjected to market forces under President Richard Nixon. He signed a law banning strikes, opening up the USPS to private-sector competition, and mandating that it become profitable by 1983. Not coincidentally, 1983 was the year of the first postal employee-on-employee shooting in South Carolina. A once-comfy government job had transformed into the sort of stressful workplace that the rest of America would soon experience, too.
Back in 2005, when the book was first published, it wasn’t easy getting Americans to accept this thesis. Now that the entire Reagan model has crashed and most Americans have woken up to the fact that they’ve been taken for a ride, it seems almost self-evident. Average American wages haven’t grown since 1979, while the super-wealthy have seen their share of income soar to the point where the wealth gap in the U.S. is on a par with Mexico and Turkey. Americans today work more hours with less security, fewer health and pension benefits, and even shorter lunch breaks and sick-day leaves, than they had before the Reagan Revolution stripped those protections away. CEOs earned on average 30 times the wages of their workers in 1978; by this decade, they were earning more than 500 times their workers’ average salaries. They did it, in the words of GE’s “Neutron Jack” Welch, by squeezing “unlimited juice” from their employees (Welch famously downsized more than 100,000 GE employees during his reign, while making himself a billionaire).
As the disparities mounted, so, too, did the frustrations in the work force. And Florida has been the site of some particularly horrific outbursts. In 1993, a fired employee of Fireman’s Fund Insurance burst into the Tampa office building, killing three and wounded two; three years earlier, in the largest mass shooting in state history, a 42-year-old man whose Pontiac was repossessed by GMAC entered their Jacksonville office and killed nine employees, wounded six more, then turned the gun on himself.
And those incidents took place during Florida’s boom years. Today, the state is suffering record unemployment, record foreclosures, and one of the hardest-hit real-estate markets in the nation. To make matters worse, a U.S. attorney labeled Florida “ground zero for mortgage fraud;” recently, 105 people involved in a massive mortgage scam were arrested.
This week, the annual “Happiness Index” was released, and Florida, its citizens plagued by high debt, unemployment above the national average, and the third-highest foreclosure rate in the country, came in dead last among all 50 states.
We don’t yet know the full story of what happened with 40-year-old Jason Rodriguez. But against that backdrop, his tale of financial and personal ruin is depressingly familiar.
When he was arrested at his mother’s a few hours after the shooting, he told reporters why he attacked his ex-employer, Reynolds, Smith & Hills: “They left me to rot.” When reporters asked Rodriguez if “they” meant his former employer, he answered: “No. No. I’m angry.”
RS&H fired Rodriguez in 2007. Two months ago, he filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. He listed his income as $812.67, with $90,000 in debts, and just $4,675 in assets—$4,000 of which came from his Nissan Xterra SUV, the vehicle he fled in after the shooting (and which is described in the filing as in “poor condition”). He owed about $40,000 to Sallie Mae and Wachovia for loans he took out to earn a master’s degree in business administration from a university in Puerto Rico, which he signed up for right around the time when his wife moved there after divorcing him.
Rodriguez does not appear to have had a violent history or a criminal record. In that regard, he’s like most of the others who have “gone postal.” Instead, he seems to be a man ground down by the kind of dreary, familiar pain that more and more Americans experience as jobs disappear and despair takes hold. Until there is a radical rethinking of the way America treats its workers, there are tragically going to be many more like Jason Rodriguez to come.
.
(Source: Mark Ames, November 7, 2009, TheDailyBeast.com)
The Orlando office shooting, which left one dead and five wounded, came close on the heels of the massacre at Fort Hood the day before. The Fort Hood shooting was unusual because rarely has a Muslim “gone postal” in the America workplace. But Judeo-Christian Americans, including Latinos like Jason Rodriguez, have been massacring their co-workers and fellow students in “going postal” shootings for well over two decades now.
In fact, America invented these “going postal” murders, starting with the first post-office massacre in Edmonds, Oklahoma in 1986, which left 14 dead and six wounded. Over the next few years, shootings, rampages and suicides were rampant in the U.S. Postal Service, giving rise to a whole new term for these crimes.
At first, they were dismissed as a Postal Service problem, as if loonies had suddenly been recruited to work there. But the murders and complaints piled up, and by 1989, the co-worker-on-co-worker office massacre had jumped like a virus to the private sector—beginning with the rampage shooting at a printing plant in Louisville, Kentucky, which left nine dead and 12 injured.
Soon, workplace massacres of this sort spread all across the country; the term “disgruntled employee” also entered the lexicon, signifying something akin to “terrorist.” By the mid-1990s, even middle-class all-American schools were experiencing mass killings.
Today, 10 years after Columbine, these episodes come and go with such frequency that most Americans hardly notice; they’ve become cable news wallpaper.
Why did these killing sprees begin cropping up in the mid-1980s? When I studied these murders for my book, Going Postal, I traced the roots to Reagan-era economic policies that changed the postwar relationship between employees and companies, and between the middle class and the super-rich.
Government regulation of business was reduced, unions were decimated, and a radical new brand of capitalism became a kind of state religion. The trouble began in the U.S. Postal Service, a major government entity suddenly subjected to market forces under President Richard Nixon. He signed a law banning strikes, opening up the USPS to private-sector competition, and mandating that it become profitable by 1983. Not coincidentally, 1983 was the year of the first postal employee-on-employee shooting in South Carolina. A once-comfy government job had transformed into the sort of stressful workplace that the rest of America would soon experience, too.
Back in 2005, when the book was first published, it wasn’t easy getting Americans to accept this thesis. Now that the entire Reagan model has crashed and most Americans have woken up to the fact that they’ve been taken for a ride, it seems almost self-evident. Average American wages haven’t grown since 1979, while the super-wealthy have seen their share of income soar to the point where the wealth gap in the U.S. is on a par with Mexico and Turkey. Americans today work more hours with less security, fewer health and pension benefits, and even shorter lunch breaks and sick-day leaves, than they had before the Reagan Revolution stripped those protections away. CEOs earned on average 30 times the wages of their workers in 1978; by this decade, they were earning more than 500 times their workers’ average salaries. They did it, in the words of GE’s “Neutron Jack” Welch, by squeezing “unlimited juice” from their employees (Welch famously downsized more than 100,000 GE employees during his reign, while making himself a billionaire).
As the disparities mounted, so, too, did the frustrations in the work force. And Florida has been the site of some particularly horrific outbursts. In 1993, a fired employee of Fireman’s Fund Insurance burst into the Tampa office building, killing three and wounded two; three years earlier, in the largest mass shooting in state history, a 42-year-old man whose Pontiac was repossessed by GMAC entered their Jacksonville office and killed nine employees, wounded six more, then turned the gun on himself.
And those incidents took place during Florida’s boom years. Today, the state is suffering record unemployment, record foreclosures, and one of the hardest-hit real-estate markets in the nation. To make matters worse, a U.S. attorney labeled Florida “ground zero for mortgage fraud;” recently, 105 people involved in a massive mortgage scam were arrested.
This week, the annual “Happiness Index” was released, and Florida, its citizens plagued by high debt, unemployment above the national average, and the third-highest foreclosure rate in the country, came in dead last among all 50 states.
We don’t yet know the full story of what happened with 40-year-old Jason Rodriguez. But against that backdrop, his tale of financial and personal ruin is depressingly familiar.
When he was arrested at his mother’s a few hours after the shooting, he told reporters why he attacked his ex-employer, Reynolds, Smith & Hills: “They left me to rot.” When reporters asked Rodriguez if “they” meant his former employer, he answered: “No. No. I’m angry.”
RS&H fired Rodriguez in 2007. Two months ago, he filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. He listed his income as $812.67, with $90,000 in debts, and just $4,675 in assets—$4,000 of which came from his Nissan Xterra SUV, the vehicle he fled in after the shooting (and which is described in the filing as in “poor condition”). He owed about $40,000 to Sallie Mae and Wachovia for loans he took out to earn a master’s degree in business administration from a university in Puerto Rico, which he signed up for right around the time when his wife moved there after divorcing him.
Rodriguez does not appear to have had a violent history or a criminal record. In that regard, he’s like most of the others who have “gone postal.” Instead, he seems to be a man ground down by the kind of dreary, familiar pain that more and more Americans experience as jobs disappear and despair takes hold. Until there is a radical rethinking of the way America treats its workers, there are tragically going to be many more like Jason Rodriguez to come.
.
(Source: Mark Ames, November 7, 2009, TheDailyBeast.com)
Friday, November 6, 2009
From CNN: Landing a job like getting into Harvard
By Samuel Sherraden, Special to CNN
Editor's note: Samuel Sherraden is a policy analyst for the Economic Growth Program at the New America Foundation, a Washington-based think tank that promotes innovative thought across the ideological spectrum.
Washington, D.C. (CNN) -- The 650,000 jobs created or saved by the stimulus package so far make up only a small step toward correcting the gap between the tens of millions of unemployed people and the few openings that those people are fighting over.
Even the administration's goal of creating 3.5 million jobs is far below what the economy really needs. With an official unemployment rate of 10.2 percent, the gap between the number of full-time job openings and the number of people who are unemployed has widened.
Since the beginning of the recession in December 2007, job openings declined from 4.4 million to 2.4 million and the number of officially unemployed persons grew from 7.5 million to 15.7 million, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
If the 15.7 million officially unemployed workers were to apply for those 2.4 million jobs, the chance of any one of them finding a job are about 15 percent, or roughly the same odds as being accepted to the University of Pennsylvania.
The official figure only counts workers as unemployed if they have searched for a job within the past four weeks. But, does it make sense to exclude people who have not looked for work in the past month? Probably not, given that statistics show workers are trying harder than ever to find a job and only give up looking after prolonged periods of unemployment.
The average duration of official unemployment -- which, by definition, requires that people be actively searching for a job -- has increased to 26.9 weeks, or just over a half a year.
But after many months of unsuccessful job hunting, some people do give up hope. And after four weeks of not looking for a job, they are dropped from official unemployment. It is primarily for this reason that since May, the official labor force has shrunk by 1.1 million people.
The exclusion of these so-called "discouraged" workers from statistics means that the official number of unemployed severely understates the weakness in the labor market. If you include these workers, the unemployment rate would rise to 13 percent, or 21.3 million.
If these workers were to apply for the 2.4 million jobs available, the odds of securing a job would be 11.2 percent, or roughly the same as getting into the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
It gets worse. Another group excluded from the official unemployment report is the growing number of part-time workers who would prefer to have a full-time job. These workers are forced into part-time jobs or are forced to take part-time hours because no full-time work is available.
During the current recession, workers who are "part time for economic reasons" have grown from 4.6 million to 9.3million.
Adding part-time workers to the number of officially unemployed and the discouraged workers, as labor market expert Leo Hindery, Jr., has observed, results in a rise in the real unemployment rate to 19.2 percent, or 30.6 million people.
The odds of any one of these 30 million securing one of the 2.4 million full-time jobs available is 8 percent, the same as the admissions rate of the Ivy League gold standard, Harvard University.
The 3.5 million jobs the stimulus package aims to provide are insufficient. To get the job growth the country needs, the White House should push for sustained infrastructure investment, cutting corporate taxes, and increasing access to credit for small businesses.
We still have thirty million workers in the United States who are unemployed, underemployed or discouraged and they face the same odds of finding a job as a high school senior applying to the world's most elite university.
Editor's note: Samuel Sherraden is a policy analyst for the Economic Growth Program at the New America Foundation, a Washington-based think tank that promotes innovative thought across the ideological spectrum.
Washington, D.C. (CNN) -- The 650,000 jobs created or saved by the stimulus package so far make up only a small step toward correcting the gap between the tens of millions of unemployed people and the few openings that those people are fighting over.
Even the administration's goal of creating 3.5 million jobs is far below what the economy really needs. With an official unemployment rate of 10.2 percent, the gap between the number of full-time job openings and the number of people who are unemployed has widened.
Since the beginning of the recession in December 2007, job openings declined from 4.4 million to 2.4 million and the number of officially unemployed persons grew from 7.5 million to 15.7 million, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
If the 15.7 million officially unemployed workers were to apply for those 2.4 million jobs, the chance of any one of them finding a job are about 15 percent, or roughly the same odds as being accepted to the University of Pennsylvania.
The official figure only counts workers as unemployed if they have searched for a job within the past four weeks. But, does it make sense to exclude people who have not looked for work in the past month? Probably not, given that statistics show workers are trying harder than ever to find a job and only give up looking after prolonged periods of unemployment.
The average duration of official unemployment -- which, by definition, requires that people be actively searching for a job -- has increased to 26.9 weeks, or just over a half a year.
But after many months of unsuccessful job hunting, some people do give up hope. And after four weeks of not looking for a job, they are dropped from official unemployment. It is primarily for this reason that since May, the official labor force has shrunk by 1.1 million people.
The exclusion of these so-called "discouraged" workers from statistics means that the official number of unemployed severely understates the weakness in the labor market. If you include these workers, the unemployment rate would rise to 13 percent, or 21.3 million.
If these workers were to apply for the 2.4 million jobs available, the odds of securing a job would be 11.2 percent, or roughly the same as getting into the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
It gets worse. Another group excluded from the official unemployment report is the growing number of part-time workers who would prefer to have a full-time job. These workers are forced into part-time jobs or are forced to take part-time hours because no full-time work is available.
During the current recession, workers who are "part time for economic reasons" have grown from 4.6 million to 9.3million.
Adding part-time workers to the number of officially unemployed and the discouraged workers, as labor market expert Leo Hindery, Jr., has observed, results in a rise in the real unemployment rate to 19.2 percent, or 30.6 million people.
The odds of any one of these 30 million securing one of the 2.4 million full-time jobs available is 8 percent, the same as the admissions rate of the Ivy League gold standard, Harvard University.
The 3.5 million jobs the stimulus package aims to provide are insufficient. To get the job growth the country needs, the White House should push for sustained infrastructure investment, cutting corporate taxes, and increasing access to credit for small businesses.
We still have thirty million workers in the United States who are unemployed, underemployed or discouraged and they face the same odds of finding a job as a high school senior applying to the world's most elite university.
Watch Your Back Elmo: Layoffs Hit Sesame Street
OK, you know it's time for the politicians to move jobs and the economy to the top of the priority list when things like this start to happen:
"Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit producer of "Sesame Street" and other kids' programs, is cutting about one-fifth of its work force because of the economic downturn.
The crisis on Wall Street is plaguing Sesame Street.
Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit producer of "Sesame Street" and other kids' programs, is cutting about one-fifth of its work force because of the economic downturn.
The New York-based company said Wednesday that it's eliminating 67 of 355 staff positions.
Declaring it is "not immune to the unprecedented challenges of today's economic environment," the company pronounced a need "to operate with fewer resources in order to achieve our strategic priorities."
The statement reiterated the organization's mission "of helping children reach their highest potential here and around the globe."
Best known as the home of such Muppet characters as Big Bird and Elmo, Sesame Workshop was founded in 1968 as Children's Television Workshop, then unveiled the groundbreaking "Sesame Street" as a literacy-building initiative a year later. That show, which remains a worldwide hit, was the first step toward a media empire that encompasses television, books, toys and online programming.
Among the company's early TV efforts is "The Electric Company," which aired during the 1970s and was revived with new episodes on PBS in January.
Sesame Workshop gets revenue from product licensing and the sale of its programs to PBS and syndication. The company is also funded by government agencies, foundations and corporations.
Total revenue was $145 million in 2008, with operating expenses totaling $141 million, according to the company's Web site."
(Source: AP, New York)
"Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit producer of "Sesame Street" and other kids' programs, is cutting about one-fifth of its work force because of the economic downturn.
The crisis on Wall Street is plaguing Sesame Street.
Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit producer of "Sesame Street" and other kids' programs, is cutting about one-fifth of its work force because of the economic downturn.
The New York-based company said Wednesday that it's eliminating 67 of 355 staff positions.
Declaring it is "not immune to the unprecedented challenges of today's economic environment," the company pronounced a need "to operate with fewer resources in order to achieve our strategic priorities."
The statement reiterated the organization's mission "of helping children reach their highest potential here and around the globe."
Best known as the home of such Muppet characters as Big Bird and Elmo, Sesame Workshop was founded in 1968 as Children's Television Workshop, then unveiled the groundbreaking "Sesame Street" as a literacy-building initiative a year later. That show, which remains a worldwide hit, was the first step toward a media empire that encompasses television, books, toys and online programming.
Among the company's early TV efforts is "The Electric Company," which aired during the 1970s and was revived with new episodes on PBS in January.
Sesame Workshop gets revenue from product licensing and the sale of its programs to PBS and syndication. The company is also funded by government agencies, foundations and corporations.
Total revenue was $145 million in 2008, with operating expenses totaling $141 million, according to the company's Web site."
(Source: AP, New York)
Unemployment Tops 10 Percent
By: Victoria McGrane November 6, 2009 08:40 AM EST
Democrats – headed into an historic health care vote this weekend — got smacked in the face with a 10.2 percent unemployment rate in October, the government reported Friday.
The jobless rate is well above the 9.9 percent that economists expected and breaks the psychological barrier of 10 percent, topping double digits for the first time in 26 years. It's the last headline the Obama administration wanted to see going into the House healthcare vote, and White House officials were already heading to the airwaves Friday morning to talk up the economy.
In all, employers shed 190,000 non-farm jobs last month.
The tough numbers arm House Republicans with fresh political ammo against the trillion-dollar House health care bill, which could come to a vote as early as Saturday. The GOP has been relentlessly pushing the narrative that Democrats are obsessed with creating ever-bigger government at the expense of the economy, and Democratic response to the bad employment news was thin on Friday morning while Republicans pounced.
“Democrats Job-Killing Agenda Must Cease,” declared a press release from Republican Study Committee Chairman Tom Price (R-Ga.).
"As unemployment tops 10 percent this holiday season, Republicans have put jobs and the economy first, and are focused on developing real solutions that will put Americans back to work," House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said. "Increasing taxes on small business, as Democrats will do to pay for government run health care, is the wrong approach."
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele slammed the Obama for pushing a “phony” message on economic recovery that GOP election wins Tuesday prove voters aren’t buying anyway.
“With so many families looking for work, it is time the Obama administration stop spreading their phony ‘saved or created' talking points and start creating the dependable jobs America needs,” Steele said in a statement. “President Obama promised jobs during his campaign for president, and the elections in Virginia and New Jersey on Tuesday were a clear referendum on his failure to deliver on this promise.”
Democrats are in a defensive crouch on the unemployment figures, and still blame Republicans for blocking critical economic measures.
“These are crocodile tears from politicians who had to be dragged kicking and screaming just to extend unemployment benefits to the long-term unemployed,” Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, told POLITICO, referring to Senate Republicans’ repeated objections to passing legislation extending jobless benefits. “Only Washington Republicans would argue that the way to create jobs is to allow insurance companies to fix prices and deny insurance to sick people.”
Even though it was higher than expected, the upward trend in unemployment comes as no surprise to economists and administration officials alike. Nonetheless, the increase is an uncomfortable reminder for the Obama administration that they’re facing a long string of bad headlines on the economy, despite other evidence that the economy is shaking off the recession.
Anticipating the numbers heading upward, the White House had scheduled Obama to sign legislation extending jobless benefits Friday – a bill Congress cleared just under the wire Thursday and which would also expand and extend the $8,000 homebuyer tax credit.
The signing ceremony was to be closed to the press, but the president is now expected to appear on camera in late morning.
Obama aides nevertheless were dismayed by the worse-than-expected figure. The White House activated a plan calling for the president’s economic advisers to hit the cable channels at 9:30 a.m. A written presidential statement is also planned.
Congressional Democrats also seemed caught flat-footed, lagging well behind their Republican critics in responding to the exceptionally bad jobs numbers. Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), chairwoman of the joint economic committee, beat out leadership in both chambers, sending out a statement at 9:14 a.m.
“Today’s unemployment report puts a harsh number on the suffering felt by Americans nationwide. While the economy has shown signs of life in recent weeks – durable goods orders are rising and initial unemployment claims are at their lowest point in nearly a year – the problem of joblessness is still pervasive; and it will not be solved overnight,” she said.
There’s wide consensus that the jobless rate hovers above10 percent before it starts to head back down, and it could remain above that figure well into 2010. Hiring typically lags behind other signs of economic recovery in a recession, and this recession has seen deeper job cuts than previous recessions.
The unemployment figures are also sure to up the pressure on Democrats to take steps to boost job creation – all while being careful not to do anything large enough to earn the label of “stimulus,” which would suggest that the first one they did this year didn’t work.
Mike Allen contributed to this story.
© 2009 Capitol News Company, LLC
Democrats – headed into an historic health care vote this weekend — got smacked in the face with a 10.2 percent unemployment rate in October, the government reported Friday.
The jobless rate is well above the 9.9 percent that economists expected and breaks the psychological barrier of 10 percent, topping double digits for the first time in 26 years. It's the last headline the Obama administration wanted to see going into the House healthcare vote, and White House officials were already heading to the airwaves Friday morning to talk up the economy.
In all, employers shed 190,000 non-farm jobs last month.
The tough numbers arm House Republicans with fresh political ammo against the trillion-dollar House health care bill, which could come to a vote as early as Saturday. The GOP has been relentlessly pushing the narrative that Democrats are obsessed with creating ever-bigger government at the expense of the economy, and Democratic response to the bad employment news was thin on Friday morning while Republicans pounced.
“Democrats Job-Killing Agenda Must Cease,” declared a press release from Republican Study Committee Chairman Tom Price (R-Ga.).
"As unemployment tops 10 percent this holiday season, Republicans have put jobs and the economy first, and are focused on developing real solutions that will put Americans back to work," House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said. "Increasing taxes on small business, as Democrats will do to pay for government run health care, is the wrong approach."
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele slammed the Obama for pushing a “phony” message on economic recovery that GOP election wins Tuesday prove voters aren’t buying anyway.
“With so many families looking for work, it is time the Obama administration stop spreading their phony ‘saved or created' talking points and start creating the dependable jobs America needs,” Steele said in a statement. “President Obama promised jobs during his campaign for president, and the elections in Virginia and New Jersey on Tuesday were a clear referendum on his failure to deliver on this promise.”
Democrats are in a defensive crouch on the unemployment figures, and still blame Republicans for blocking critical economic measures.
“These are crocodile tears from politicians who had to be dragged kicking and screaming just to extend unemployment benefits to the long-term unemployed,” Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, told POLITICO, referring to Senate Republicans’ repeated objections to passing legislation extending jobless benefits. “Only Washington Republicans would argue that the way to create jobs is to allow insurance companies to fix prices and deny insurance to sick people.”
Even though it was higher than expected, the upward trend in unemployment comes as no surprise to economists and administration officials alike. Nonetheless, the increase is an uncomfortable reminder for the Obama administration that they’re facing a long string of bad headlines on the economy, despite other evidence that the economy is shaking off the recession.
Anticipating the numbers heading upward, the White House had scheduled Obama to sign legislation extending jobless benefits Friday – a bill Congress cleared just under the wire Thursday and which would also expand and extend the $8,000 homebuyer tax credit.
The signing ceremony was to be closed to the press, but the president is now expected to appear on camera in late morning.
Obama aides nevertheless were dismayed by the worse-than-expected figure. The White House activated a plan calling for the president’s economic advisers to hit the cable channels at 9:30 a.m. A written presidential statement is also planned.
Congressional Democrats also seemed caught flat-footed, lagging well behind their Republican critics in responding to the exceptionally bad jobs numbers. Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), chairwoman of the joint economic committee, beat out leadership in both chambers, sending out a statement at 9:14 a.m.
“Today’s unemployment report puts a harsh number on the suffering felt by Americans nationwide. While the economy has shown signs of life in recent weeks – durable goods orders are rising and initial unemployment claims are at their lowest point in nearly a year – the problem of joblessness is still pervasive; and it will not be solved overnight,” she said.
There’s wide consensus that the jobless rate hovers above10 percent before it starts to head back down, and it could remain above that figure well into 2010. Hiring typically lags behind other signs of economic recovery in a recession, and this recession has seen deeper job cuts than previous recessions.
The unemployment figures are also sure to up the pressure on Democrats to take steps to boost job creation – all while being careful not to do anything large enough to earn the label of “stimulus,” which would suggest that the first one they did this year didn’t work.
Mike Allen contributed to this story.
© 2009 Capitol News Company, LLC
Thursday, November 5, 2009
140 Google Interview Questions
Lewis Lin, an Interview Coach in the Seattle area, recently posted these 140 Google Interview Questions on his blog at http://blog.seattleinterviewcoach.com/2009/02/140-google-interview-questions.html.
20 More Weeks of Unemployment Aid
The Senate unanimously passed a bill Wednesday that would extend unemployment benefits for up to 20 weeks in states with rates of joblessness above 8.5 percent, which means the jobless in those areas could get up to 99 weeks of benefits. (States with lower rates would get 14 weeks.) This is the "second stimulus" some have buzzed about (though Democratic leadership has avoided the term); it contains other measures to boost the economy as well, all of which were in the original $787 billion stimulus package but were set to expire. This includes an extension of a first-time homebuyer tax credits, credits for homeowners who lived in the same place for at least five years, and would allow businesses who suffered operating losses in 2008-2009 to seek refunds on taxes paid over the past five years. The legislation will likely pass the House Thursday and be quickly signed by President Obama.
(Source: The Daily Beast, November 5, 2009)
(Source: The Daily Beast, November 5, 2009)
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