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Help Wanted: $100,000 to Be Island Caretaker
Tweet Share on Facebook January 13, 2009 Comment (101)Looking for work? How about six months of island caretaking (i.e. tourism promoting) on Hamilton Island in the Great Barrier Reef--and a six-figure paycheck?
Yes, it's real. And yes, it's got everything to do with publicity. The "Best Job in the World" campaign is meant to "highlight the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef and showcase Australia's own unique Island experience to the global market," according to Tourism Queensland CEO Anthony Hayes.
The site is here, but it seems to be inundated at the moment. This is Tourism Queensland's site.
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Monster.com Relaunches Website
Tweet Share on Facebook January 12, 2009 Comment (54)Monster.com's new ads are funny. While a recession marked by deteriorating employment conditions may seem a strange time to market a sense of humor to job seekers--it could very well be the time they really want a laugh.
Monster's redesigned website is a little more serious--along with improving the ease of resume uploading (it says by 70 percent), Monster offers tools intended to help users evaluate careers, rather than merely find jobs. These tools--"Career Mapping," "Career Benchmarking" and "Career Snapshots"--let people explore logical possible routes from their existing job onward; compare elements of their job (such as salary) with their peers; and explore the specifics of a particular career with a "snapshot" of the job, including pay and outlook.
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Why Wages Aren't Flexible
Tweet Share on Facebook January 12, 2009 Comment (2)I wrote recently about the value of implementing workforce-wide pay cuts in lieu of layoffs, as there is some research indicating the pay cuts would shorten the duration of a recession. We don't however, see companies use them very often.
Here's an excerpt from the Becker-Posner blog on why wages tend to be inflexible:
Unfortunately, not all prices are flexible; wages especially are not. This is not primarily because of union or other employment contracts. Few private-sector employers in the United States are unionized and as a result few workers (other than federal judges!) have a guaranteed wage. The reasons that employers generally prefer to lay off workers than to reduce wages when demand drops are first that by picking the least productive workers to lay off an employer can increase the productivity of its work force; second that workers may respond to a reduction in their wages by working less hard, and, conversely, may work harder if they think that by doing so they are reducing the likelihood of their being laid off; and third that when all workers in a plant or office have their wages cut, all are unhappy, whereas with lay offs the unhappy workers are off the premises and so do not incite unhappiness among the ones who remain.
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Obama's 4 Million Jobs: A Guide
Tweet Share on Facebook January 12, 2009 Comment (3)If you heard the President-elect's announcement over the weekend that his economic recovery plan would create or save an estimated 3 million to 4 million jobs, you may be interested in a better look at the research behind those numbers.
First of all, here is a transcript of Obama's radio address, where he lays out some basics on the jobs plan: 90 percent of jobs will be created in the private sector; nearly a half-million jobs in alternative energy production (solar panels, wind turbines, fuel-efficient cars); lots of healthcare; lots of education; nearly 400,000 jobs from building roads, bridges, schools and broadband lines.
Obama took his jobs estimate from a commissioned study you'll find here. The study's authors-- Dr. Christina Romer, Council of Economic Advisers chair, and Biden's chief economic adviser, Dr. Jared Bernstein (formerly of Economic Policy Institute)--looked at jobs created/saved over the next two years.
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Jobs Report: The Good, Bad and Ugly
Tweet Share on Facebook January 9, 2009 CommentThis morning's jobs report shows a major leap in the unemployment rate--from a revised 6.8 percent to 7.2 percent. That increase is huge, particularly given that we spent a month believing November's unemployment rate was 6.7 percent.
Employers shed 524,000 jobs in the last month of the year, the Labor Department reported. December's job losses were still not as large as those in November--when employers cut 584,000 jobs, according to revised data. Today's numbers are a little worse than economists had expected, but probably not as bad as the market had feared, Morgan Stanley economists Ted Wieseman and David Greenlaw said in a morning note.
Market expectations took a dive on Wednesday when the ADP employment report showed 693,000 private-sector jobs lost in December. Those with sound minds did, however, note that ADP had revised its methodology before the report, so a wait-and-see approach was probably wisest.
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Journalists Tell Dan Abrams They Fell Short on Crisis Coverage
Tweet Share on Facebook January 8, 2009 Comment (1)While executives on Wall Street and in Detroit have pointed fingers in plenty of directions since the financial crisis began crippling business--journalists are apparently willing to point fingers at themselves (as well as at executives).
According to a new survey from Abrams Research--founded by Dan Abrams, formerly of MSNBC--62 out of 100 journalists from the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, CNBC and elsewhere, are critical of the job media has done--"suggesting there was an over-exuberance about the economy and a failure to connect the dots as troubles began," the AP reports.
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Economic Headlines Stretch Limits of Imagination
Tweet Share on Facebook January 8, 2009 Comment (85)I know the economic headlines have gotten pretty ugly, but this one really takes the cake.
The real headline—to be read with a sigh of relief.
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Joe the Plumber's New Job: War Correspondent
Tweet Share on Facebook January 7, 2009 Comment (3)Joe the Plumber is soon headed from Ohio to Israel--to report on the conflict. It sounds like an Internet rumor, but there is, in fact, a report from the AP:
TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) — Joe The Plumber is putting down his wrenches and picking up a reporter's notebook.
The Ohio man who became a household name during the presidential campaign says he is heading to Israel as a war correspondent for the conservative Web site pjtv.com.
Samuel J. Wurzelbacher says he'll spend 10 days covering the fighting.
He tells WNWO-TV in Toledo that he wants to let Israel's "'Average Joes' share their story."
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The Jobs We Lost in 2008
Tweet Share on Facebook January 7, 2009 Comment (4)It was difficult to keep track of job losses last year, other than to grasp their breadth and frequency. This interactive chart tracks the percent change by sector.
It's interesting to note that the finance/insurance industry employment drop was roughly on par with the total nonfarm drop.
Check out the sector performance graph—but perhaps only if you have a strong stomach.
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What Makes a "Best" Job?
Tweet Share on Facebook January 7, 2009 Comment (2)The most popular story at the WSJ right now is about the "best" and "worst" jobs in the U.S. The jobs list covered in the story is from CareerCast.com, a new job search site (from Adicio which is part-owned by the Journal).
It's an interesting list because it favors the office work environment. "According to our empirical data, many of the nation's worst jobs involve physical labor and time outdoors," CareerCast reports. The site finds that the very best job is mathematician and the very worst is lumberjack. Actuaries and statisticians also score among the top jobs, while dairy farmers and taxi drivers are among the lowest.
"Lumberjacks perform backbreaking physical labor in an unpleasant environment," according to CareerCast. While that's probably true, I've known some pretty happy dairy farmers. I do, indeed, also know an actuary and a mathematician who seem to be quite happy with their work. But those are just anecdotes. ...
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