New Offering from Career Builder and The Work Buzz

April 5, 2009 Leave a comment

I haven’t done so recently, but in the past I’ve checked out resume writing books. I never quite found them useful. I’m not sure if I consider my work experiences completely unique or what, but I didn’t find a template that fit me. I consider it a waste of money.

However, I like to keep an open mind and I checked out a new offering from the people over to Career Builder. I’ve highlighted their writings in the past and like their straight forward style. They have a new book out called Career Building: Your Total Handbook for Finding a Job and Making It Work. Now for full disclosure, I haven’t read the book, I checked out the snippets online through their search inside the book feature. But what I saw was encouraging. The authors put many different situations into their offerings. And it isn’t just about finding a job. It runs the gamut of your 1st day, to email mishaps, to performance reviews, to changing careers.

I’m going to pick up the book and offer some feedback at some point. Good resources for work and jobs are so valuable right now.

Working Thoughts 4/5/08
Philosophy Education Beneficial in Today’s Fast Pace World

Filed under Admin, compensation, Education, Off Target, Training

March 2009 Jobs Report and Wages

April 4, 2009 Leave a comment

Here are the job market and compensation numbers for March 2009 (based on the job report):

Net loss of 663,000 jobs in the month  (revised to a final loss of 753,000)

  • Analysts expected a loss of 660,000
  • Fifteen straight months of job losses
    • 5.1 million jobs lost since December, 2007
      • 3.3 Millions in the last 5 months alone
  • January was revised to loss of 741,000 jobs (revised to a final loss of 779,000)
  • February was revised to a loss of 651,000 jobs (revised to a final loss of 726,000)
  • Long term unemployed increased 3.2 million persons
  • The first quarter of 2009 alone would account for the fourth worst year of job losses since 1939

Unemployment rate rose to 8.5%

  • Analysts predicted a rise to 8.5%
  • Over the last 12 months the rate has risen 3.4%
  • Highest since 1983
  • Underemployment is now at 15.6%
  • From 13.9% in January (an increase of 1.7% in two months!)

Specific Segment Job numbers:

  • Manufacturing lost 161,000 jobs
  • Construction lost 126,000 jobs
  • Retailers lost 48,000
  • Temporary Work lost 72,000 jobs
  • Leisure and Hospitality Services lost 40,000 jobs
  • Government sector loss 5,000
  • Health care grew by 14,000 jobs
    • Averaged 17,000 jobs in Q1 of 2009
    • The average in Q1 of 2008 was 30,000

Wage:

  • The average weekly paycheck is $614.20
    • A decrease of $0.85
  • The average hourly work week dropped 0.1 to 33.2

Bureau of Labor Statistics

Job Report Stats Summary

Filed under Big Business, compensation, Gov, World

Down Economies Don’t Automatically Mean an Increase in Entrepreneurship

April 3, 2009 Leave a comment

There were several positive economic indicators over the last few days, ranging from factory orders being up to spending being up. This has many media members calling for the bottom of the recession. I even saw one guy say it was March 9th. He was that specific. Anyway, to toot my own horn, I wrote an entry on February 25th, 2009 called The Economy is on the Mend.

Today’s post is about something I pulled from the NY Times the other day. The idea that entrepreneurship rises in recessions is a common thought. But according to their blog entry titled Recessions and the ‘Entrepreneurial Spirit’ it isn’t a direct correlation. Here are a couple of charts I pulled:

Data source: Robert W. Fairlie


Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Population Survey (3-month moving average)
One
caveat, for those interested in the data: Unlike Professor Fairlie’s
numbers — which covered only people who worked at least 15 hours a week
in their “self-employed” job — these data could include people who may
just spend a few hours on the weekend selling tchotchkes at a flea
market.

Working Thoughts 4/02/08
Life Avalanche For Lisa

Filed under Entrepreneur

It is Good to Keep Perspective

April 2, 2009 Leave a comment

We live in a 24 hour news cycle. It is almost absurd to think the newspaper could exist, I mean, news provided one time a day, c’mon? But a byproduct of 24 hour news is a distorted view of time. Time frames get compacted unrealistically. To keep from getting frenzied, I listen to a song by the Cloud Cult called 6 Days. Here are the lyrics:

Compare
the 6 days of the book of Genesis,
to the 4 billion years of geologic time
on this scale, 1 day equals about 666 billion years

all day Monday, until Tuesday noon
creation was busy getting the earth going
life began on Tuesday noon
and the beautiful organic wholeness of it
developed over the next 4 days.

at 4 P.M. Saturday, the big reptiles came
5 hours later, when the redwoods appeared
there were no longer big reptiles

at 3 minutes before midnight, man appeared
one-fourth of a second before midnight, Christ revolted
one-fortieth of a second before midnight, the industrial revolution began

we are surrounded by people who think
that what we have been doing for
one-fortieth of a second can go on indefinitely
they are considered normal,
but they are stark, raving, mad.

Filed under Admin, Off Target

Newer posts →