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:
SHRM Online reports on the findings of a study that show workers have vastly different needs when it comes to rewards and recognition. The findings show that rewarding employees can be complicated. One example is that what is considered enjoyable by one worker may be embarrassing for another.
"For some, being honored in front of one’s peers is a great award. For others, the thought of being put on display in front of their peers embarrasses them," he said in a press release. "It depends on the culture and preference of your particular employee base."
Here are some of the findings from the survey.
70 percent receive verbal praise, but only 49 percent want it. Then there's the 21 percent of workers who want verbal praise but aren’t hearing it.
40 percent who want written praise receive it.
30 percent who want to be singled out through a special event are recognized that way.
29 percent who want a cash bonus as recognition for their work receive it.
27 percent who want incentives such as award merchandise, gift cards or trips receive them.
27 percent who want an award such as a trophy or plaque receive it.
The article says that the widely varrying employee needs means that managers need to understood workers better to figure out what they want. Employees also need to try and indicate their wants and needs to employers. The article said only 10% are completely happy with their company's reward program so clearly there is a great deal of miscommunication going on. The 10% could also mean that employees have been unhappy with bonuses or the rate of salary increase because of the overall slow economy.
Several blogs are discussing the AdAge.com article about workers wasting "551,000 years" of work time by reading blogs.
Blog this: U.S. workers in 2005 will waste the equivalent of 551,000 years reading blogs.
About 35 million workers -- one in four people in the labor force -- visit blogs and on average spend 3.5 hours, or 9%, of the work week engaged with them, according to Advertising Age’s analysis. Time spent in the office on non-work blogs this year will take up the equivalent of 2.3 million jobs. Forget lunch breaks -- blog readers essentially take a daily 40-minute blog break.
As you can imagine the reaction from blogs about this article is not positive. Our BloggersBlog.com blog filed the article in the Blog Pessimism category.
Hopefully employers won't use this article as an excuse to try and deny workers access to blogs.
