According to Heather Boushey, an economist with the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, women with children "earn from 3 to 10 percent less per child compared to employed women without children."

Boushey adds that when the figures are further broken down, "there is a bigger penalty for women with children for their second child than for their first."

The numbers: For the first child a woman has, the wage differential in comparison to nonmothers is from 2 to 10 percent less.

For the second child, the gap is from 4 to 16 percent less than for women with no children.

Laid off two years ago at age 62 from a bank vice president's job, he took the $7.50-an-hour job because his health insurance was running out. He felt lucky to find it.

"I'm getting good benefits," he said.

Spolec is one of hundreds of thousands of professionals who lost their jobs during the 2001 recession and its aftermath, a long jobless recovery.

They were caught in an unusual economic downdraft, a period marked less by the sheer number of people thrown out of work - 2.7 million in all, or about 2 percent of the workforce - as by unrelentingly high rates of long-term unemployment, economists say.

These are the stories of Spolec and other professionals for whom weeks of unemployment stretched into months, then years.

They are largely overlooked in an economy where unemployment is trending down and things are looking up for many job seekers.

Like others in their predicament, they are no longer unemployed. They work "survival" jobs while trying to climb back into their fields.

You're not being appreciated:
- If your boss is gradually giving you fewer and fewer responsibilities
- You're kept out of the loop - i.e. not invited to meetings, not told what's going on until the last minute (or not at all)

You've simply outgrown your position:
- Maybe you started at a low level position and have been passed over for promotions even though you’re qualified
- You're not being challenged enough

Job stress is affecting your everyday life
- You have chronic headaches or backaches
- You have developed an anxiety, sleep or other disorder as a result of your job stress

Men who have difficulties balancing career and home life scored highest in a study of their wives' or girlfriends' sexual satisfaction, unveiled last week at the annual gathering of the American Psychological Association.

The research challenges the popular notion that spouses of busy men are typically desperate housewives living lonely, unfulfilled lives. They may not see their husbands as much as they would like, but when they do, sparks fly.

Psychology professor Jonathan Schwartz said his team of researchers were taken aback by the results of their analysis of almost 100 sexually active couples who over a year recorded the most intimate details of their love lives.

"We are surprised because previous research indicated that wives of men who worked every hour in the day complained about the quality of their relationship," Dr Schwartz said.

There were 5,139 work-related injuries and illnesses in the 110,236 U.S. job records Dembe analyzed. More than half of these were in jobs with extended working hours or overtime.

Working longer hours, such as at least 12 hours a day, was associated with a 37 percent increase in illness or injury, while working at least 60 hours a week was associated with a 23 percent increase. Long commuting had no impact on the rate, the researcher found.

Although workers may dream of days surfing the Internet with nothing to do, the busiest employees are the happiest, according to a survey by Sirota Consulting LLC. Of more than 800,000 employees at 61 organizations worldwide, those with "too little work" gave an overall job satisfaction rating of 49 out of 100, while those with "too much work" had a rating of 57.

"Those who are saying their workload is heavier rather than lighter are more positive," said Jeffrey M. Saltzman, chief executive of Sirota. "When you say you have too much work to do, other things are happening in your head: 'I'm valued by the organization. They're giving me responsibility.' That's better than being in the other place where you say I'm not of value in this place."

"After I experienced a very public firing, many people reached out to me with their stories about losing their job," said Jen. "Most of us are embarrassed about being let go, but it happens all the time-often in very interesting ways. And once you start that conversation, everyone wants to listen in and share their stories. SimplyFired.com is a great way to help start this dialogue online."

Grand Prize "Loser" to Win Big The Simply Fired Contest will challenge site visitors to submit their funniest, saddest, most outrageous stories about getting fired or laid off. The judging panel includes Guy Kawasaki from Garage Technology Ventures, Chris Pirillo from Lockergnome, and Phil Kaplan from AdBrite and founder of F**ked Company, among others. The judges will select a Grand Prize "Loser" who will win a trip for two on The Apprentice Legend Cruise with other cast members fired by Donald Trump on the award-winning reality TV show.

5. You have plastered your cubicle with photos of yourself taken with famous people.

6. It is your trademark to recite rhyming or other cutesy messages as your voice mail greeting.

18. You often give others assignments as they're walking out the door for lunch or to catch the train home.

19. You borrow staplers, scissors and tape from others' desks and forget to return them.

"These results are a warning to employers of taking too much at face value when hiring people," TRAG deputy director Richard Prior said.

"Clearly any candidate could make a mistake when preparing a CV, but three mistakes are unlikely and effectively mean that these CVs are bogus."

On the other hand, computer professionals face the threat of increased automation and the prospect of their jobs being shifted offshore. The average number of unemployed workers in nine high-tech categories fell by 64,000 last year but remained close to 150,000, according to the Labor Department. And in the first three months of this year, technology companies slashed nearly 60,000 U.S. jobs -- twice the number trimmed in the same period last year.