The June jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows the country lost 125,000 jobs. The Labor Department says the losses were because 225,000 temporary census workers were no longer needed. These census workers helped the May jobs report look better than it really was.
The private sector created 83,000 jobs in June, which is more than the double the 33,000 added in May. The unemployment fell from 9.7 to 9.5%.
It is good to see the private sector jobs headed in the right direction, but the numbers are still not healthy. The economy should really be adding about 300,000 jobs each month.
You can read more about the June jobs report here, here and here.
The numbers look good in the May jobs report, but looks can be deceiving. 431,000 new jobs were created but the vast majority of them were created by the government hiring temporary census workers. The unemployment rate dipped to 9.7 percent.
President Obama said, "We're moving in the right direction. The economic policies that we put in place are working."
Economists disagree. It was the fifth straight month of jobs gains, but the private sector is still struggling. The weak jobs report raises the possibility of a double dip recession. Take a look:
Susan Morem, author of How to Get a Job and Keep It, talks about how to stay happy in the workplace. Susan Morem says to try and avoid the office gossip and the negativity in the workplace. She also says to liven things up with creativity. Take a look:
Internet Retailer reports that a poll from TopGrading Solutions has found that word-of-mouth is the best way to find a job.
The poll, conducted by search firm TopGrading Solutions found that 38% of employees found their last job through word-of-mouth or referrals, 20% found their jobs online and 24% via recruiting firms. 7% found their last position by walking in and applying, and 2% found their job through a newspaper or print advertisement. TopGrading Solutions is part of MRINetwork, which recruits for retail and other industries,
TopGrading Solutions surveyed unemployed and employed adults over four months for the poll.
Since all careers and all people are different it won't be the same techniques that work in each industry. However, hearing about job openings from friends and networking are certainly great ways to learn of a new job opportunity.
The AFP reports that a new study indicates swearing at work might boost employee spirit.
Regular swearing at work can help boost team spirit among staff, allowing them to express better their feelings as well as develop social relationships, according to a study by researchers.
Yehuda Baruch, a professor of management at the University of East Anglia, and graduate Stuart Jenkins studied the use of profanity in the workplace and assessed its implications for managers.
They assessed that swearing would become more common as traditional taboos are broken down, but the key appeared to be knowing when such language was appropriate and when to turn to blind eye.
The pair said swearing in front of senior staff or customers should be seriously discouraged or banned, but in other circumstances it helped foster solidarity among employees and express frustration, stress or other feelings.
"Employees use swearing on a continuous basis, but not necessarily in a negative, abusive manner," said Baruch, who works in the university's business school in Norwich.
It sounds it is the regular everday use of swear words that people might say while still cranking out their work anyway that might be morale boosting among workers. It doesn't mean it would be helpful for managers to swear at employees. Obviously, the abusive "You're a ___" kind of swearing is as mean and unhelpful as it sounds.
An article in the Columbian says engineering, architecture and veterinarian are some of the hottest career fields in the state of Washington.
Engineers, architects and animal lovers are in high demand across Washington, according to a recently released look at the state's 25 hottest jobs.
The state ranked the occupations that will have the highest annual growth rates between now and 2014, based on occupational projections and a job vacancy survey.
The findings: Most high-demand jobs require at least a four-year college degree, or an equivalent amount of on-the job training.
Certain fields are especially hot. Take animal care. Veterinary technologists, veterinary assistants and veterinarians will be in high demand in the coming years, according to the rankings. So will architects, landscape architects and architectural drafters.
Vet careers are likely on the rise across the country as pets have become more and more likely family members these days. If you are interested in a vat career this page provided by NetVet has a good collection of veterinary career resources.
A NorthJersey.com article says that telecommuting may make things easier but it is unlikely to help your career. In fact, telecommuters are less likely to get a promotion than commuters.
You may be surprised to learn that most executives say those who work from home for an employer are less likely to get promoted than their desk-tethered counterparts.
But Julie Kampf isn't. Kampf, the president of Englewood-based executive search firm JBK Associates Inc., knows first-hand how tough on a career telecommuting can be. She tried it and suffered, and she has seen qualified job candidates get overlooked because they dared to inquire about working from home – even for one day a week.
"For me, working at home was detrimental,'' says Kampf, who declined to name the employer. She says that when she worked from home in 1993, she put in about 15 hours each workday, and still couldn't please the boss. "Even though I was extremely productive, I was pretty much told 'I need to see your face here' by my boss at the time,'' she said. "It was miserable.''
The NorthJersey.com article cites a Korn/Ferry International survey of 1,300 exeuctives that found 61% said telecommuters were less likely to get a promotion than people that regularly came into the office.
A Network World article about the study explains how it flys in the face of what more and more workers are doing -- telecommuting.
The study's results fly in the face though of a growing movement. Since 1990, the number of teleworkers has grown to more than 45 million from about 4 million says the Telework Coalition. Even President Bush and other top administrators have championed telework as a vital part of business-continuity plans. Gas prices, traffic congestion and housing costs are also factors driving telecommuting.
If the study is correct there may be a simple out of sight out of mind explanation. The executives see the cubicle and desk workers much more frequently and get to know them better making it more likely they will get a promotion. Meanwhile the telecommuters stay out of sight and may be less familiar to some of the executives and managers that give the promotions.
New Law Requires Companies To Keep Better Digital Records
An Associated Press article says a new law that went into effect on December 1st requires companies to keep better track of employee emails, IMs and digital files.
The new rules, which took effect Friday, require U.S. companies to keep better track of their employees' e-mails, instant messages and other electronic documents in the event the companies are sued, legal experts say. They are part of amendments to federal rules governing civil litigation and were approved by the Supreme Court's administrative arm in April after a five-year review.
Companies and other parties involved in federal litigation must now produce "electronically stored information" as part of discovery, the process by which both sides share evidence before a trial. Federal and state courts have increasingly been requiring the production of such evidence in individual cases, and the new rules clarify that the data will be required in federal lawsuits.
Under the new rules, an information technology employee who routinely copies over a backup computer tape could be committing "virtual shredding" once a lawsuit has been filed, said Alvin F. Lindsay, a partner at Hogan & Hartson LLP and expert on technology and litigation.
It all sounds pretty invasive from an employee perspective. One of the biggest problems is trying to seperate corporate email, IMs, photos and files from the personal ones. The problem is farther complicated by cell phones that might store more data that is both personal and work-related.
Large companies are likely to face higher costs from organizing their data, said James Wright, director of electronic discovery at Halliburton Co. Besides e-mail, he said, companies also will need to know about things more difficult to track, like digital photos of work sites on employee cell phones and information on removable memory cards.
There are hundreds of "e-discovery vendors" and these businesses raked in approximately $1.6 billion in 2006, Wright said. That figure could double in 2007, he added.
Lawyers may have to spend time reviewing electronic documents before turning them over, Lindsay said. Although electronic searches can help narrow the amount of data, some high-paid lawyers will still have to sift through casual e-mails about subjects like "office birthday parties in the pantry" to find the relevant information, he added.
It was much easier to seperate the two before the digital age. If you are concerned about privacy at work you should be aware that more and more companies are monitoring emails and IMs and this new law should only increase digital monitoring of employees.
The Associated Press reports that a study conducted by Harris Interactive for the CCH has found that absenteeism in the U.S. are higher than they have been since 1999.
Skipping work without good reason? You have lots of company.
Unscheduled absenteeism at U.S. companies and organizations has climbed to its highest level since 1999, according to results of a recent nationwide survey of human resource executives in U.S. companies and organizations.
The survey, conducted for CCH by the Harris Interactive consulting firm, put the U.S. absenteeism rate at 2.5 percent in 2006, up from 2.3 percent a year ago and the highest since seven years ago when it was 2.7 percent.
It found that personal illness accounts for only 35 percent of unscheduled absences, with the rest due to family issues (24 percent), personal needs (18 percent), stress (12 percent) and entitlement mentality (11 percent).
It isn't just workers sneaking off for fun. The study found that companies with the worst morale also had higher rates of unscheduled absenteeism so there could be a job dissatisfaction element to the unscheduled absenteeism.
The Courier Postreports that 4 million people now work from home and more people are driving longer distance because they want to live in the suburbs.
The Commuting in America study by the Transportation Research Board also found that more commuters are traveling from suburb to suburb -- rather than the traditional commute from suburb to city.
"As more employers move out of cities to be closer to skilled suburban workers, the suburbs now account for the majority of job destinations," the report noted.
The board, part of the National Academies, has analyzed commuting trends since 1986, largely using census data.
According to the latest analysis, the number of new solo drivers grew by almost 13 million from 1990 to 2000. The number of workers with commutes lasting more than 60 minutes grew by almost 50 percent over that period. And, compared with the previous decade, more Americans are leaving for work between 5 a.m. and 6:30 a.m.
You can read a 12 page list of facts from the study in this PDF file.
USA Today has a terrific article about the growing number of people who spend a good portion of their day working at a cafe or tea room that offers a wireless connection. In the article USA Today refers to these teleworkers as the "rootless army."
This rootless army is growing 10% annually, according to Gartner Dataquest research. The reason? Corporations are increasingly supportive of teleworking for reasons that range from saving money on office space to needing a backup in the event of a natural disaster or terror attack.
"With technology what it is, it's far easier to bring the work to the people than the people to the work," says Jim Ware of the Future of Work, a Bay Area enterprise that helps large companies such as Boeing anticipate workplace trends.
Ware says working out of a "third place" — neither home nor office, it's anything from Starbucks to the local library — does raise "a host of human resources issues related to keeping track of people you don't see much."
But in the end, "employers are realizing that it's about the work, not about the hours in an office."
You've surely seen this crowd while popping in for that morning macchiato. They claim prime tabletops and battle for electrical outlets, all with the zombie-like gaze of people who physically are there but mentally are engaged with phantoms at the other end of a wireless signal.
The spots where teleworkers sit and work in the Starbucks or local tea room are known as touchdown spots. The article also lists some of the unspoken teleworker etiquette that includes don't be a hog, tip big and often and bring quarters for the parking meters.
ABC News reports that RadioShack has fired 400 employees by email. The email message was how the workers were informed they had been fired.
Employees at the Fort Worth headquarters received an e-mail Tuesday morning telling them they were being dismissed immediately.
"The work force reduction notification is currently in progress," the notice stated. "Unfortunately your position is one that has been eliminated."
Company officials had told employees in a series of meetings that layoff notices would be delivered electronically, spokeswoman Kay Jackson said. She said employees were invited to ask questions before Tuesday's notification on a company intranet site.
Management experts expressed surprise at RadioShack's use of electronic notification instead of face-to-face meetings with supervisors.
Derrick D'Souza, a management professor at the University of North Texas, said he had never heard of such a large number of terminated employees being notified electronically. He said it could be seen as dehumanizing to employees.
RadioShack really should have found a better way to do this. You can read more blogs discussing this in a roundup on BloggersBlog.com.
Gen Y Confusing Workplace With Geekspeak and Chatty IMs
MSNBC.com has an article that should be of great interest to today's text-messaging youth. The article says that some employers are concerned by the fact that young new employees never come and talk to them.
Nor should they. Those skills are big assets when it comes to multi-tasking and productivity. But they're also a nightmare for many of their bosses, those over 35 who understand that while technology is a useful tool, it doesn't replace relationship building as a primary means for doing business. Today's bosses can't understand why their young recruits, for all their brains and technical acumen, hardly ever come over and actually talk to them.
"I hear from clients that [young professionals'] first instinct is to IM rather than walk over to their boss's office. That can be OK for a quick question, but when you're planning something, you need to talk face-to-face," says Steven Rothberg, founder of Collegerecruiter.com, who places recent graduates into corporate jobs.
The tech disparity between 20-somethings and 40-somethings is far greater today than it was 20 years ago, when today's 40-somethings were the young turks. Over 17 percent of today's workforce is between the ages of 25 and 34, while another 28 percent is made up of employees 55 and over, Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers show.
That breakdown is not much different than in many past years. But what is different is the speed of technological progress since the mid-1990s, from the Internet and e-mail to cell phones and instant messaging. A recent survey by outplacement firm Lee Hecht Harrison shows that 60 percent of U.S. corporations acknowledge having workplace tensions among generations.
The generational gap is real. Many adults have not immersed themselves in the latest Web 2.0 technology. Many of them only recently became comfortable with email.
Ruth Sherman, a Greenwich, Connecticut-based communications consultant whose client roster includes Deloitte, Pfizer and Bank of America, says common complaints about younger workers range from lame handshakes and poor conversational skills to super-casual attire and personal use of company e-mail. Some show up at job interviews in tee shirts. What the Gen Yers don't see, she says, is the meaning and value of gestures and other non-verbal skills that don't come through in a text message.
"My clients are frustrated; a lot of them are throwing up their hands because they can't persuade young people to get it," Sherman says.
Carl Tyler, a veteran of Lotus and IBM who now runs Instant Technologies, an enterprise IM software group, thinks one of the biggest etiquette breaches by Gen Y recruits involves newbies typing paragraph upon paragraph of chat.
"It's a new medium, don't treat it like e-mail," Tyler says.”
If you are the new Gen Y recruit try and put yourself in the shoes of your elders. Go visit the boss for something important occasionally instead of sending him an IM full of geekspeak he won't understand.
An CBS News article on AOL discusses a Lansing, Michigan insurance called Weyco that actually fired some workers for being smokers.
Anita and Cara were considered model employees at Weyco, an insurance consulting firm outside of Lansing, Mich., both having worked at the company for years. The women sat side-by-side, sharing workloads – and after work – sharing the occasional cigarette.
But at a company benefits meeting two years ago, the company president announced, "As of January 1st, 2005, anyone that has nicotine in their body will be fired," Anita remembers. "And we sat there in awe. And I spoke out at that time. 'You can't do that to us.' And then he said, 'Yes, I can.' I said, 'That's not legal.' And he came back with, 'Yes, it is.'"
And it was legal: in Michigan, there's no law that prevents a boss from firing people virtually at will. At Weyco, that meant no smoking at work, no smoking at home, no smoking period.
Weyco gave employees 15 months to quit, before subjecting them to random nicotine testing. If you fail, you're out.
In the end the article says 20 workers who were smokers quit the habit while four workers that were unable to quit smoking were fired from Weyco. Several more articles about the Weyco smoking firings can be found here.
A bad boss can drive you nuts! Long hours, low pay. Hard work, no health insurance. The boss gets a golden parachute, you get no pension, no respect. You need a break.
If you don't want to enter another option is to read through the thousands of entries on the site for fun. Those entering should be careful to avoid being found out -- especially if you are discussing your current boss. Fortunately, one of the rules helps avoid this issue.
Do not include the name of the company or any personal names or other personal identifiers with the story. For legal reasons, stories including this information will not be posted.
The contest will pick a new semifinalist each week until a final voting period begins on Wednesday, July 26. The prizes include a week-long condo vacation. (via Tech Space)
A new contest called 