-
Google to Employees: More Trick, Less Treat
Tweet Share on Facebook October 31, 2008 CommentGoogle employees--long envied for their perk-riddled workplaces--are now, like the rest of us, facing the fallout of the economic slowdown, and the future looks a little less perky.
The company’s stock is now trading around $359, down from $741 last November, and management wrote in a memo to employees that they are looking to “find areas where efficiency can be improved,” reports the New York Post.
The details of the efficiency effort suggest employees will not likely find the changes a major hardship, nor solicit much sympathy from the rest of the working world.
-
Jobless Claims and the Employment Picture
Tweet Share on Facebook October 30, 2008 Comment (3)Here's a look at today's job-related data:
Initial jobless claims (the number of Americans filing for unemployment insurance the first time) last week were 479,000—the same as the week before, the Labor Department reported. Claims in the comparable period last year were 332,000.
Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics, says: "There can be no question that the labor market is deteriorating; the only issue is the speed of the decline and the eventual peak in unemployment."
So, last month, the country lost 159,000—the biggest monthly loss since companies started shedding jobs in January. (You can check out the chart yourself here.) Shepherdson thinks we're headed for a monthly loss of 200,000 jobs. He also thinks we'll see the unemployment rate, now at 6.1 percent, top out at 8.5 percent, which is still considerably lower than the 10.8 percent rate seen in 1983.
-
Former Dell Execs Claim Sex Discrimination
Tweet Share on Facebook October 30, 2008 Comment (4)Four female former human resources executives have filed suit against Dell for gender and age discrimination. The lawsuit claims Dell has targeted women and older workers for layoffs, and the plaintiffs are seeking class-action status, opening the door for other claimants.
Some details from Reuters:
"We believe the claims of this suit are without merit," Dell spokesman David Frink told Reuters.
"Dell does not tolerate discrimination in any aspect of employment and we'll vigorously defend any claims that we are not acting in accordance with the law or our policies," he said, declining to give additional details.
-
Older Workers May Find Open Arms at Nonprofits
Tweet Share on Facebook October 29, 2008 Comment (10)A recent survey from MetLife and Civic Ventures suggests the nonprofit world offers some hope for older workers with corporate experience.
From the Chronicle of Philanthropy's Philanthropy.com:
Half of nonprofit employers say people who decide they want to work for charities late in their careers or after they have retired are highly appealing job candidates, while 39 percent say they are somewhat appealing, according to a new survey.
-
Patrick Swayze: Working Man, Hero
Tweet Share on Facebook October 29, 2008 Comment (11)Any woman worth her salt knows Patrick Swayze's golden moment was his gruff line in Dirty Dancing: "Nobody puts Baby in a corner."
But that's past tense—stick it back in the cupboard next to the issues of Sassy and the patterned hair scrunchies. Patrick Swayze's golden moment is now. The actor who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in January is working 12-hour days on the Chicago set of his new cop drama, The Beast, reports the New York Times. Says Swayze: "I just love to work hard." Swayze, along with his producers, anticipates a second season as well. From the NYTimes:
-
Gen Y Millennials: Meet Hard Times
Tweet Share on Facebook October 28, 2008 Comment (4)An adaptation of Ron Alsop's new book on generation Y millennials (those born between 1980 and 2001), The Trophy Kids Grow Up , ran recently in the pages of the Wall Street Journal . In response to Alsop's portrayal of the generation as entitled and fairly swollen with a sense of superiority, millennial Whitney Seaman Watson wrote this letter to the editor. From the WSJ:
I take offense at Ron Alsop's patronizing profile of the millennial generation in "The 'Trophy Kids' Go to Work" (Personal Journal, Oct. 21). The so-called "negative" traits he describes are the very traits that will help millennials succeed. I was born in 1981, and I happily acknowledge that I possess many of the traits. The desire to "know how [I'm] doing weekly, even daily." Check. Placing "a high premium on success, filling resumes with not only academic accolades but also sports and other extracurricular activities." Check. The confidence to "brashly fire off emails to everyone from the CEO on down, trying to get an inside track to a job." Check. Don't those sound like good traits in this economy?
-
Seth Godin Fails, Too
Tweet Share on Facebook October 28, 2008 CommentEven the remarkably sage Seth Godin has had his share of failures, and he was kind enough to list them in his blog today. Here are a couple to help you unwind from your fetal position (see, everybody fails sometimes!):
The Boston Bar Exam. My two partners and I spent a lot of time and money building this our last year of college. It was a coupon book filled with free drinks from various bars in Cambridge and Boston. The booklet would be sold at the bars, encouraging, I dunno, drunk driving. Lessons: Don't spend a lot on startup costs, don't sell to bar owners and don't have three equal partners, since once person always feels outvoted.
The Internet White Pages. This was a 700 page book filled with nearly a million email addresses. It took months to create and IDG, the publisher, printed 80,000 copies. They shredded 79,000 of them. Lesson: If the Internet Yellow Pages is a huge hit (it was), that doesn't mean the obvious counterpart will be. A directory that's incomplete is almost always worthless.
-
GM/Chrysler: Tax Dollars to Fund Layoffs?
Tweet Share on Facebook October 27, 2008 Comment (9)It's a strange world. The next place the government might spend our tax dollars: funding layoffs in Detroit. The Clusterstock blog helpfully finds this gem in a recent Wall Street Journal story about merger talks between General Motors and Chrysler. Both companies are "locked out of the credit markets and burning cash rapidly," which adds considerable pressure to the merger prospect and to the potential "assist from the federal government."
That assist would help the companies reorganize, including implementing layoffs and plant closings, but would most likely head off much deeper payroll cuts. From the WSJ:
-
Job Title Inflation to Rise
Tweet Share on Facebook October 27, 2008 Comment (2)"Title inflation" isn't a new idea. The term has been around for a few decades and the idea has been around since the beginning of time, but it picks up serious momentum in economic downturns like this one. Companies can't boost salaries, so they offer up bigger and better titles to reward top performers. The New York Times reports:
Another round of title inflation may be at hand, because managers often dole out chiefdoms, directorships and vice presidencies in times of economic weakness as a substitute for raises and bonuses.
This year, Mr. Gross said, "employers will use the recognition value of a title" in lieu of pay increases.
If you get an inflated title rather than a salary increase, think of it like a promotion—it's nice for the resume and a boon when introducing yourself at cocktail parties.
-
The American Dream Is Now About Security
Tweet Share on Facebook October 24, 2008 Comment (1)The term "American dream" was coined by James Truslow Adams in 1931. Adams wrote: "The American Dream" is "that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement."
He also detailed what the dream was not: "It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position."
