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How to Ask For a Raise After the Recession
Tweet Share on Facebook June 23, 2009 Comment (1)Most economists expect the economy to begin a turnaround in the second half of this year. If you've managed to hang on to your job through the downturn and its accompanying tornado of layoffs, pay cuts, pay freezes, benefit cuts, and so forth--you're no doubt anxious for better compensation in the recovery. I was on Good Day LA recently to discuss the best approach to the raise conversation. It's hard to give general advice on this topic, as every employee and every employer is different. Really, the key wisdom from the experts I interviewed seems to be: show tact and an awareness of the economy (so, don't ask for more money shortly after your company has had layoffs) and know that if you haven't been integral to the company's recovery, you can probably save your breath.
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In Bozeman, Giving Up Privacy For a Chance at a Paycheck
Tweet Share on Facebook June 19, 2009 Comment (8)As if job seekers needed further proof that employers have the upper hand in this economy--city officials in Bozeman, Montana are asking applicants to list the various elements comprising their web presence (blogs, chat groups, Facebook or MySpace accounts, etc.) along with the passwords they use to access the sites.
The policy invites all sorts of privacy questions--the American Civil Liberties Union is no fan--but it also speaks to the challenges facing the unemployed in this market. A piece in the WSJ earlier this month--aptly titled "What Won't You Do For a Job?"--told how a Connecticut toymaker asks applicants to bring three years worth of W-2 forms to interviews, where they are put through a battery of simulated work tasks and surveys. The company describes its process as a bit "rough around the edges." This screening process seems pretty mild, however, compared with some of the other requests job seekers faced--such as supplying 12 references, or giving a business presentation half a dozen times in a day.
However painful for those looking to join a payroll, the fact is that employers can apparently afford to put these kinds of requirements on applicants when they're facing down piles of resumes for fewer openings--they're desperate for new methods to filter the potential hires. I recently wrote about the increased use of psychologists in job interviews--not just increased use of psychological tests but actual face time or telephone conversations with psychologists. It's not a new practice, but it's experiencing something of a revival.
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Should Employers Prepare For Mass Exodus?
Tweet Share on Facebook June 18, 2009 Comment (6)It's kind of a Yogi Berra thing to say: "Everyone's going to lose their employees when the recession's over." But the results of a survey released today show the majority of working Americans are planning to launch a job hunt when the economy turns around.
According to Adecco's latest workplace survey, 54 percent are getting ready to start looking elsewhere. No surprise really that the itch to move on is highest among the youngest workers. Adecco reports 71 percent of 18-to-29 year olds plan to look for a new job in the recovery.
There are likely a couple of things at work here. American workers have displayed a growing proclivity for job-hopping in recent decades, and the recession has forced most to take a break from their otherwise unending search for new/better/different work. Job-hopping is greatest among younger workers, whose career plans have been rather upended by the economic downturn, and will likely jump at opportunities in the recovery with a vengeance.
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Common Misconceptions About Unemployment
Tweet Share on Facebook June 16, 2009 Comment (2)It's not like this stuff comes up in casual conversation. "So, Chuck, how do they calculate the unemployment rate each month? And, hey, pass the bottle of wine while you're thinking about it." But in the past 18 months, we've all started paying more attention to the Labor Department's monthly jobs report, so it's worth understanding what it represents. Here are a few common misconceptions:
Misconception: The unemployment rate is based on unemployment benefits data. Unemployment benefits are indeed collected by the unemployed, but the data for each month's much-quoted unemployment rate does not come from the same source as the data on benefits. After all, not all people out of work are collecting benefits. The unemployment rate is drawn from a monthly survey of about 60,000 households called the Current Population Survey.Misconception: The unemployment rate and the monthly jobs numbers are based on the same data. You might think that the data used to calculate that 345,000 jobs were lost in May would be the same data used to calculate the unemployment rate, but you'd be wrong. The Labor Department uses two different surveys for the monthly employment situation report. The Household Survey is used to calculate the unemployment rate. The Establishment Survey is used to calculate the monthly change in payrolls.
Misconception: The unemployment rate is the percentage of Americans who are unemployed. Well, for one thing, the unemployment rate is just a portion of Americans age 16 and older who are in the labor force. Also, it doesn't measure the merely unemployed, it measures those individuals who are unemployed and have recently looked for work. Part-timers and unemployed workers who haven't searched for work within the previous four weeks are not included among the official unemployed. This is a rather contentious point. Some economists believe that the unemployment rate should be expanded to include people who are out of work but have given up looking for a job because they don't think they'll find one, as well as people who want full-time work but are working part-time. -
How $25 Extra in Unemployment Benefits is Hurting Some
Tweet Share on Facebook June 15, 2009 Comment (19)This is an ugly example of the law of unintended consequences. Georgia resident Mark Milota was laid off in November and began collecting unemployment benefits. After the stimulus was passed, he started to receive an extra $25 a week--or about $100 extra each month--in benefits. Sounds good. But Milota last month discovered that the extra income made him ineligible for the $300 a month in food stamps he was previously receiving--his monthly income is now $21 over the limit for food stamp eligibility. Essentially, Milota's getting $200 less in assistance than before the stimulus.
As is always the case with these kinds of stories, Milota is not alone. In fact, lawmakers were apparently aware of this possible outcome, but the necessity of a swiftly passed stimulus was overwhelming, the AP reports:
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Conflicting News About the Job Market
Tweet Share on Facebook June 12, 2009 Comment (1)It's no secret that the average workweek has been shrinking over the course of this recession. Well, it's no secret to people who enjoy reading Labor Department news releases. There are plenty of workers who probably feel like they're working extra hours. But, the average work week dropped from 33.7 hours in May 2008 to 33.1 hours in May 2009.
The number of workers employed in part-time jobs has risen by more than 2 million in the past year, while the number who are working part-time involuntarily (meaning they'd rather be working full-time but had their hours cut or can't find full-time work) has jumped by 4.4 million over the course of the recession. (Is it fair to figure that some workers--older workers in particular--who would have been satisfied previously with part-time pay now need more income? Or, is this largely driven by employers cutting part-time jobs, then cutting full-time jobs down to part-time?)
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How to Write The Resume That Gets The Job
Tweet Share on Facebook June 10, 2009 Comment (1)U.S.News contributing editor and career whiz Marty Nemko shares his tips on nailing one of the most-anxiety ridden elements of the job search--the resume.
(This is the first in a series of insightful--and aesthetically awesome--careers videos featuring Nemko, and I'll be sure to post more of them. You can also find the start of the series here.)
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Stimulus Jobs: 3 Things to Know
Tweet Share on Facebook June 8, 2009 Comment (4)If you've been waiting with bated breath for the flood of stimulus-related job openings, you've been waiting a while. Might be time to breathe, actually. Here are three things to know about those stimulus jobs:
Shovel ready projects really weren't: So far, the government agency that has spent the most in stimulus funds is the Department of Health and Human Services. The Transportation Department has spent only about $150 million of its total $15 billion allotment.
The pace is going to be picked up: The White House said today that stimulus spending will be accelerated over the next three months. The administration anticipates job creation or preservation of 600,000 in that period--roughly four-times the jobs created/preserved in the previous three-month period.
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The End of the Ultra-Rich?
Tweet Share on Facebook June 3, 2009 Comment (82)Whoever imagined we'd need a term like über-rich? But it was certainly necessary to describe the vast wealth creation of a select group over the last two and a half decades. Thomas Cooley, dean at NYU Stern School of Business, writes in a recent Forbes column that "the share of income earned by the top 10 percent declined from a peak of nearly 50 percent in 1928, the height of the Roaring '20s, to a plateau of around 35 percent until about 1982. After that the share of the top 10 percent took off, reaching nearly 50 percent by 2006." But, Cooley notes, blaming the top 10 percent is a bit misleading--it's really "the top 1 percent where all the action [took] place."
Pimco's Bill Gross writes today about the role of leverage in these recent decades of imbalanced wealth generation.
Because our economy was still in a relatively early stage of leveraging, those who borrowed money and used it to invest in higher-risk yet higher-return financial or real assets didn’t require a lot of skill, they just needed to be able to convince a bank or an insurance company to lend them some money. After that, the secular wave of leverage would be enough to multiply their meager equity many times over and carry them to a beach where a fortune awaited them much like a pirate’s buried treasure.
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One Employer Asks: Where Are All the Job Seekers?
Tweet Share on Facebook June 2, 2009 Comment (18)I caught this bit of a story in the Philadelphia Inquirer recently (bold is mine):
"Although we have a long way to go before we can put this recession behind us, the gears of our economic engine do seem to be slowly turning once again," President Obama said yesterday.
That's how Judith Krupnick sees it at her Cherry Hill Volvo dealership. "We're getting busier, and the economy is beginning to open," she said. Krupnick said she wanted to hire salespeople and body technicians, five in total, but said she could not find them.
"Where are these folks who have been laid off?" she wrote in an e-mail. "We have openings. We are hiring. However we can't seem to find applicants."
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