Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Mass layoffs of 50 or more employees receded in June to 2,763 events, down 170 from May’s record high. In all, the June layoffs resulted in 279,231 new filings for unemployment insurance, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced on July 23. Thus, over the year so far, the number of mass layoff events has [...]

We can be grateful to Twitter for bringing us the truth out of Iran in the ongoing civil unrest, but at least one unspecified firm has seen fit to warn against using Twitter–if the fire alarm goes off:

Sources tell Personnel Concepts that the much-feared-by-business Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) will be introduced in the House of Representatives today. Well, nothing new here. EFCA made it through the House’s 435 members once before and passed with flying colors, but its fate in the Senate may be another matter altogether. Just today, the Wall [...]

A week ago, I warned you about the skyscraper index: As more cloud-hugging buildings are built, the economy goes the other direction, down, in other words. Now, here are a couple of more useful, or maybe useless, indices. The first one is the cardboard box index, reportedly a favorite of ex-Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, creator [...]

A lot is being written, human resources- and management-wise, about so-called millennials in the workplace, millennials being those born between 1980 and 2000. One respected HR authority whom I routinely read, Susan Heathfield, even offers “Eleven Tips for Managing Millennials.” First, however, she describes the traits of working millennials: “Millennials have a ‘can-do’ attitude about [...]

Okay, forget the official figure of 7.2 percent that the media quote for U.S. unemployment. As the accompanying graphic from Shadow Stats shows, what the media report is called the U3 unemployment rate–the officially unemployed shown on the bottom red line. When you add in “discouraged” and “marginally attached” workers, you get the middle line [...]

I found this interesting. It was on some far-left (the author called himself progressive, but he was way off the spectrum) blog, and it’s a list of who’s received the most in campaign donations from the insurance industry, to wit: John McCain (R-AZ) $2,799,156 Barack Obama (D-IL) $2,184,670 Chris Dodd (D-CT) $2,138,446 Earl Pomeroy (Blue [...]