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More Employers Are Slashing or Freezing Pay
Tweet Share on Facebook June 1, 2009 Comment (4)While the percentage of companies cutting jobs has dropped off a bit in the last few months, more employers are now slashing their labor costs by cutting salaries, worker hours, perks (such as tuition reimbursement), and using furlough or forced vacations, according to a survey released today by Challenger, Gray and Christmas.
More than 52 percent of executives surveyed in May said their companies had slashed or frozen pay, nearly double the 27 percent of companies using those cost-cutting techniques in January, according to the report. Companies surveyed said they were using as many as 13 measures to cut expenses, but not necessarily in lieu of layoffs. In fact, companies who laid off workers were likely to use more cost cutting methods than companies that did not go through layoffs.
Slashing benefits, pay, and perks allows companies to lower their labor costs without cutting workers. Layoffs can create a major challenge when the economy begins to recover and employers are short on trained workers. "It is a lot easier to restore compensation and benefits that it is to rehire and retrain workers when the economy improves," says John Challenger, chief executive of Challenger, Gray and Christmas.
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Will the Recession Make Workers Healthier?
Tweet Share on Facebook May 28, 2009 Comment (6)Very often it seems that stories of successful change begin at rock bottom. Experiencing an extreme low prompts transformation. Is it possible that Americans--bloated by years of consumption (of all kinds)--are altering their health habits in the wake of the Great Recession?
A recent survey by the National Business Group on Health suggests some changes are afoot. The survey of 1,500 workers ages 22 to 69 found a majority said that a healthy lifestyle is more important now than it was a year ago. A full third say they are exercising more, and nearly half are eating healthier. (Similarly, 44 percent say they are eating fast-food less often).
Survey answers that indicate workers are more concerned about health care costs--even foregoing prescription drugs or treatments to save money on copays or coinsurance--may be relevant. If you're skipping the doctor's office, you may be trying to compensate by making healthier lifestyle choices.
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Jobs Data Not All Bad
Tweet Share on Facebook May 22, 2009 Comment (1)While most news reports yesterday focused on the Congressional Budget Office's forecast for the unemployment rate--namely, that it's likely to peak above 10 percent--there's some better news a little deeper in the report.
However, small signs of potential improvement in the labor market have emerged.
The four-week moving average of initial claims for unemployment insurance has
eased slightly, from 659,500 in the week ending April 3 to 630,050 in the week ending
May 8. Initial claims for unemployment insurance may be useful as
a leading indicator because, in the past five recessions, that number has typically
started to decline at about the time the recession was ending. The number of claims
responds more quickly than other employment indicators to changes in labor market
conditions because the data pick up changes in flows into unemployment, rather than
increases in employment. Although the data can be erratic, other information on the
labor market (such as surveys of hiring plans, layoff announcements, and perceptions
of the availability of jobs) also indicate some improvement in employment conditions. -
Google Using Algorithm to Identify Employees Who Might Leave
Tweet Share on Facebook May 19, 2009 Comment (2)It turns out that a mathematical calculation can help Internet giant Google hang on to talented employees who might be likely to leave.
The WSJ reports Google has created an algorithm from data of "employee reviews and promotion and pay histories" to help the company win the war in talent retention:
The inputs include information from surveys and peer reviews, and Google says the algorithm already has identified employees who felt underused, a key complaint among those who contemplate leaving.
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Huffington Post Offers Paid Internship: The Intern Pays
Tweet Share on Facebook May 14, 2009 Comment (2)The headline: Jumpstart Your Career in the Blogsphere With An Eye Opening Internship at The Huffington Post in New York or Washington
But for this position, no applications necessary. Just $15,500--that is, to top the last bid of $13,000. The internship is part of a charity auction for the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights. If you're interested, you've still got two weeks to bid. As long as you're at least 18 years old, you'll get two to three months interning in the Huffington Post offices in Washington or New York--your choice for your generous contribution.
There's plenty of Internet chatter about the significance of the auction and the sad state of journalism and falling value of journalists--that people have to pay their way to an internship. But I'm not sure that's quite the takeaway here. The fact is that media still holds a kind of cultural allure (there have been 10 bids so far, after all). Back in the 1970s' heyday of journalism, I suspect the Washington Post could have auctioned off an internship without it seeming a commentary on a journalist's worth.
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Making the Best of a Double Job Loss
Tweet Share on Facebook May 12, 2009 Comment (3)It's hard to imagine a more nightmarish recession scenario than losing your job after your spouse has lost his or hers. It would seem to be the kind of scenario with no apparent upside. The financial burden is huge--and there's no rest for the weary job hunter.
But a WSJ story today argues that there are actually some positives to a dual job search--you've got a partner to assist your search:
Practical assistance ranges from sharing networking introductions and outplacement services to interview role-playing. Even the idea of relocating may be easier to manage when one partner doesn't have to quit a job to follow the other.
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Byline Strike After Baltimore Sun Layoffs
Tweet Share on Facebook May 7, 2009 Comment (1)David Simon, creator of The Wire and former Baltimore Sun reporter, testified before Congress yesterday about the desparate state of the journalism business.
Back in the Baltimore Sun newsroom, about 50 newsroom staffers launched a one-day byline strike to protest "layoffs and heavy-handed tactics by owner Tribune Co." Those "heavy-handed tactics" would include the newspaper's laying off of three sportswriters and a photographer in the middle of covering a Baltimore Orioles games. Also on Wednesday, David Steele, one of those laid-off sportswriters, offered an account of the firing on RealClearSports.
Here's an excerpt:
I went back to my seat and saw that there was a message on my cell from the office. I hadn’t turned the ringer back up after the manager’s pre-game press conference, so I hadn’t heard it. The message: call back as soon as you get this. Good, I thought, we’ll straighten out this business of who is writing for the next day. Which, technically, is what happened. Still, apparently, I was either completely clueless or in total denial, I’m still not sure which.
It didn’t matter. I called back and got the voice mail. At 2:34 p.m. (that time-stamp is kind of stuck in my head for the time being), the office called back. I went into a hallway behind the press box and answered it with something like, “Hey, what’s up?’’ Or “What’s going on?’’ Along those lines.
My editor greeted me, paused, took a deep breath. “David, I’m sorry you have to be told this way …"
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How to Prepare For a Layoff
Tweet Share on Facebook May 5, 2009 Comment (3)What employed person hasn't reluctantly settled into bed on a Sunday night, the economy's woes sparking up the amygdala, and thought: Why not me? There were 700 applications for one janitorial position at an Ohio middle school in March, for heaven's sake. Why not me?
Larry Hughes lost his job in February. His was just one of the 651,000 positions wiped from the payrolls that month. It's a little strange experiencing personal tragedy en masse: your paycheck, livelihood, and nameplate eliminated along with a group roughly equal to the population of Memphis.
It's also incredibly frustrating because, during a recession, layoff notices rain down on the competent and incompetent alike. Hughes had just gotten his five-year service award at HarperCollins, where he drummed up publicity for such suddenly ironic titles as Bulletproof Your Job and Executricks: Or How to Retire While You're Still Working. His anger was real--but brief, as he realized the scale of the losses put him in good company.
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Cali Lewis Contends For The Best Job in the World
Tweet Share on Facebook May 4, 2009 Comment (1)Remember that hugely successful promotion for Queensland's "Best Job in the World" island caretaker position? Tourism Queensland has narrowed its search to 16 candidates from 15 countries (there are two from Australia) and they're all checking out the Great Barrier Reef today. (That can't possibly be as nice as the gray drizzly-ness of Washington, DC. I do not envy them at all.)
The American candidate is Cali Lewis, host of GeekBrief.tv. Lewis is blogging about the process here. She's also sharing photos here.
Tourism Queensland says it will announce the winner of the contest/new hire on Wednesday. If you can bear to share in someone else's joy, then check out all the candidates and follow along at IslandReefJob.com.
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Warren Buffett on Executive Compensation
Tweet Share on Facebook May 4, 2009 CommentThe Atlantic's Megan McArdle was liveblogging the annual Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting in Omaha over the weekend and she shared some of Warren Buffett's remarks on executive compensation. He was responding to a question on setting compensation for managers at capital-intensive subsidiaries.
An excerpt:
Your question implies that the board sets these things. In the recent forty years, basically the board has had little effect on these things. The CEO has had an important role determining their compensation. These people pick their own compensation committee. I've been on one compensation committee out of nineteen boards because these people aren't looking for Dobermans; they're looking for cocker spaniels. It's been a system that the CEO has dominated. In my experience, boards have done little in the way of thinking through as an owner what they ought to pay these people.
It makes sense--no human being is going to choose a roster of Dobermans to set his or her compensation. But I'd encourage you to rest of McArdle's post on why loyalist comp committees don't explain everything.
