WebProNews

Tag: Unemployment

  • Will Code 4 Latte: Homeless Woman Looks for IT Work

    A “Will Code 4 Latte” sign is sure to draw some attention, both good and bad. Which, of course, is to be expected, particularly when someone who claims to be homeless is holding a makeshift shift cardboard sign with an iPhone 4 in his or her pocket. Such is the case of unemployed Australian IT professional Adelle Hartley, who, despite not having a home to hang her hat, still owns a laptop computer. According to her, staying connected is much more important than having a place to safely rest her head at night.

    Hartley, who studied mathematics and computer science in Tasmania, had been working in Sydney for the past 10 years, that is, until she lost her job six months ago. Unable to make ends meet, she is now counted amongst the city’s homeless, albeit one with laptop and smartphone.

    “It’s not that expensive to have a mobile these days. I’ve held onto it because people who know me sometimes get in touch with work,” she explained. In order to stay connected, Hartley plunks down $10 a day to plug in at a local Internet cafe.

    Although a lot of folks are sympathetic towards Hartley — one man even offered her use of his vacant office, complete with WiFi — a few people do take issue with the fact that she’s essentially begging for money on the street while doing business on her iPhone.

    “I don’t think people usually look close enough to see my mobile, when I use it, but one guy came up and yelled at me the other day,” she explained. To be fair, the thought of a homeless person owning both a laptop and a mobile device is a little hard to swallow, especially when so many people are struggling just to get by.

    Given the amount of coverage this story has received as of late, I’d say it won’t be too long before Hartley finds a full-time job with a steady paycheck once again.

    Image provided courtesy of NineMSN

  • Stock Market Plunge: Dow Drops 200 on Jobs Report

    Stock market plunges as U.S. employers add fewer jobs than analysts had anticipated, according to the Associated Press. The report ultimately caused the Dow Jones industrial average to drop 200 points, which puts it down for the year. This also marks the steepest one-day drop in the past six months. Adding to the stress are the signs of a global economic slowdown, indicated by the 11% unemployment rate for the 17 country that use the euro as currency.

    “The big worry now is that this economic slowdown is widening and accelerating,” explained Sam Stovall, the chief equity strategist for the market research firm S&P Capital IQ.

    Only 69,000 jobs were added in the United States this past May, causing the unemployment rate to rise to 8.2 percent. Ever hopeful, economists had initially hoped that employers would add nearly 158,000 jobs over the course of the month. Even China, which helped keep the global economy afloat during the recent recession, is showing signs of strain. According to reports, manufacturing was down in May.

    In addition to issues with the Dow, the Standard & Poor’s 500 index and Nasdaq composite index were also down two percent. However, these two indexes are currently still up for the year.

  • LinkedIn is Worried U.S. Workers Don’t Have The Skills For Available Jobs

    LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner gave a speech at the recent Bay Area Council 2012 Outlook Conference, where he outlined his suggestions for solving a different kind of unemployment crisis: the gap between worker skills and the skills needed for those few jobs that are available. The theme of the conference was “The Next Human Leap,” and Weiner made the point that in making the next leap, we, as a whole, don’t want to leap so far that humans can’t keep up. Weiner points out that that although the unemployment rate sits at around 8.2%, there are 3.5 million available jobs in the U.S.

    “I would posit that at least one major driving factor here is…the pace with which technology and innovation is now accelerating,” said Weiner. “We are outstripping our ability to educate and train the existing workforce.”

    The Bay Area Council is business-sponsored public policy advocacy organization based in the San Francisco Bay area. The group holds the yearly Outlook Conference that highlights future economic and political trends. This year’s conference featured speeches by former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

    Mario Sundar, senior social media manager and the chief blogger for LinkedIn, outlined the main points of Weiner’s speech in a post on the LinkedIn blog. Weiner has a three-pronged solution to ensure that jobs requiring a high level of skill can be filled. First, improving the U.S. education system. Second, make it easier for highly skilled workers to emigrate to the U.S. and fill jobs. Lastly, greater investment in the country’s digital infrastructure.

    Sounds easy, right? Improving education and investing in infrastructure are causes nearly everyone can get behind, yet are much easier said than done. Has Weiner actually come up with workable solutions? Watch Weiner’s entire speech below and decide for yourself. Then, leave a comment and let us know what you think.

  • Not Even the President Could Get This Man a Job

    Unemployment is bad.

    (How bad is it?)

    I’m glad you asked. Remember back in late January when a woman was on a virtual meeting with President Obama and he told her to send her husband’s résumé to him and he’d “see what he could do”? Well, that guy still ain’t got a job.

    Apparently there was a lot of interest in Darin Wedel, the husband of Jennifer Wedel, the woman who spoke with Obama. For weeks after the Google+ Hangout with President Obama the phone rang off the hook. There were recruiters, headhunters (anyone else think of Gilligan’s Island when they hear that?), media, the Texas Workforce Commission, the White House, and many companies. But nothing was taking.

    Turns out there is a little complication that Mr. Wedel faces that is not uncommon. He has two daughters. Wedel has a custody agreement involving one of them that prevents his moving away. Many offers he received simply were not feasible for him and his family. And this guy lives in the Fort Worth area.

    Wedel’s predicament is all too common. He was a semiconductor engineer at Texas Instruments and lost his job three years ago.

    Unemployment is a hot topic in the upcoming presidential race. It seems like every day you hear something different about what the numbers are and who is to blame or who gets credit. One report tells you the numbers are down, the next says they are up. then another says they are down, but not by as much as expected. The next says the short winter is to blame for the disappointing unemployment numbers. All people like Mr Wedel know is that they can’t get a job.

    So, for those of you sitting at home pounding away at the computer, trying to submit yet another résumé on this Friday the 13th, here’s something to let you know that you’re not alone. Things are tough all over. I know it doesn’t make it any better, but just know you’re not alone. There are a lot of people out there just “trying to get back to zero”.

  • Yahoo Layoffs and Restructuring About To Begin

    According to multiple sources, Yahoo is getting ready for a big restructuring initiative and the first part of those changes will be laying off a significant portion of their workforce. Yahoo currently employs over 13,000 people, but plans to slowly shrink the size of the workforce will be put into place next week.

    Rumors suggest that the first cuts will come from ad technology and the search segments of their staff. There has been no official word on the Yahoo layoffs, but All Things D has published names of some of the key management figures involved in the restructure and downsizing initiatives.

    Apparently, the changes at Yahoo have been the subject of a lot of speculation in Silicon Valley with a few somewhat credible rumors emerging from the buzz. One of those rumors is the emergence of a small innovation-centered work group, and a second is a new global media devision comprised of components from their current search and global sales entities.

    We’ll be watching for an announcement of the changes at Yahoo in the coming weeks though it is possible the changes will take place incrementally throughout 2012 and go relatively unnoticed by those outside the organization.

  • Social Media Posts May Predict Rises In Unemployment

    Social Media Posts May Predict Rises In Unemployment

    Social media use has become a major feature of our culture in recent years. We share virtually everything – often more than we should – with our friends, followers, and whoever else will listen out there on the internet. Trends on Twitter and other social networking sites allow advertisers, politicians, journalists, and a host of others to know what people are thinking about or talking about in real time. Our growing engagement with social media led one research group to wonder: can posts on social media sites like Facebook actually predict certain kinds of events?

    That’s the goal of a recent study by Global Pulse. They, along with software company SAS, examined job-related postings on blogs, discussion forums, and social media in order to gauge whether increases in the discussion of certain kinds of topics could predict a spike in unemployment rates.

    Job-related posts were assigned a mood score to determine how those who were talking about their jobs felt about them. This data was then correlated to unemployment rates in the two countries surveyed – the US and Ireland. In Ireland the study found that an increase in negative mood scores – confusion, anxiety, depression, etc. – warned of a spike in unemployment about three months ahead of time.

    They also examined references to coping mechanisms – tightening budgets, cancelled vacations, foreclosures, etc. The data showed that such references tended to follow an unemployment spike by about two months in the US.

    The purpose of this study was not to develop means of predicting rises in unemployment before they happened. Instead the goal is to add depth to unemployment figures by gauging the way people feel about and cope with their situations.

    Global Pulse is an initiative of the UN Secretary General’s office. It is a research and analytics organization designed to use digital information to provide real-time analytics data to the UN so that the organization can better understand and respond to current events. SAS is a software company specializing in business analytics software.

    The full report is embedded below. Check it out, then let us know what you think in the comments.

    GlobalPulse_SAS_MethodsPaper2011

    View more documents from Global Pulse

  • The Independent Workforce: 2012 Infographic

    A new infographic from Mavenlink.Com reveals the growing trend of outsourcing jobs in big business and breaks down the motivations for doing so. The graphic points out that the temporary workforce is expected to grow over 40% by 2020. Also of interest is that 90% of the firms included in the survey report that they have used contract or temporary workers.

    Over 60% of the same firms say they will likely increase outsourced labor in the years to come. The graphic positions these trends as positive news for unemployment numbers, but if you think that’s true, your not living in the real world.

    Would you give up your current position at your organization for an unstable assignment as a “temp” worker? I think most people would tell you NO! Typically temporary assignments and contract work don’t provide the benefits or incentives that permanent employment at organizations provides. Benefits like healthcare, paid holidays, 401K, or vacation time typically are not available.

    Remember when General Motors said that their decision to outsource production to other countries wouldn’t hurt our (the United States) economy? Ask the people of Flint, Michigan if that was true. What outsourcing truly represents is reduced responsibility and minimal investment to the people who do corporations grunt work. I think it’s unacceptable. Many growing corporations and businesses pride themselves on providing stability and security for their employees and their communities.

    I am shocked at how populations consider this practice acceptable and how we allow the media to paint it in a positive light. We need to demand increased responsibility from the organizations who occupy our neighborhoods and consume our resources. Don’t be fooled by deceptive statistics and boastful PR campaigns, outsourcing is bad for the general population and bad for the economy.

    However, I would be foolish to insist that some professionals can’t benefit from the flexibility and financial freedoms that contract work can provide. Not all professionals lend themselves to being tied down to one organization. It simply doesn’t make sense. However, I fear this growing trend isn’t about catering to these specialized experts, but more a tactic to increase profit margins and minimize obligations.

    I don’t see the corporate giants who destroyed the economy with the housing bubble taking responsibility for their actions. No, as usual it is the taxpayers responsibility to bail out the organizations who have been abusing us and leaching money from our family budgets. I don’t think so, unacceptable! There are a lot of great corporation s and organizations out there, let’s not encourage this trend.

    Anyway, enough of my ranting, take a look at the infographic and the shocking statistics:

    by Column Five Media.

  • IBM Cuts Another 1,000 Jobs, Enjoys a 7% Increase in Profits

    IBM Cuts Another 1,000 Jobs, Enjoys a 7% Increase in Profits

    Over 1,000 U.S. IBM employees were “let go” during the past week.

    This comes as no surprise. IBM has been decreasing American jobs for half a decade.

    IBM has reduced its American workforce by over 21,000 employees since 2007. It is not possible at this time to pinpoint exactly how many IBM employees have been let go over the past two years because “IBM stopped disclosing its specific U.S. head count in 2010, following the practice of many other large technology companies”

    The decision to cut these positions comes at a time when profits are up by 7% with revenue of 106.9 billion and IBM feels no need to discuss details of their staffing plans, at least not in public. A spokesmen for IBM claims shifts in demands as the reason for the corporation is “[…] constantly rebalancing its workforce.” IBM went on to say that “that means reducing in some areas and hiring in others — based on shifts in technology and client demand. This flexibility allows IBM to remain competitive and relevant in an industry that is constantly changing.”

    Do you think that these tech based companies genuinely rebalance their workforce, or do they trend towards radical overhauls? Should America be more conservative in their hiring and firing practices and prepare employees to thrive in new industries? If so, would this result in a more stable U.S. economy?

  • Students Missing Out On Jobs Due To Poor Info

    Students Missing Out On Jobs Due To Poor Info

    With unemployment numbers sitting where they are, you would think that schools and universities would be doing all they can to help place students into jobs upon graduation. But, despite having the skills employers want, nearly half of young people are missing out on career opportunities due to a lack of information from schools and universities.

    New research reveals that 41 percent of students do not feel well-informed about the range of careers open to them. Only 13 percent feel their education institutions have fully equipped them to make career decisions. CompTIA surveyed more than 1,000 students to understand what motivates them.

    The vast majority of respondents showed themselves to have skills employers want. They are hard working (89 percent), quick learners (79 percent), good at solving problems (76 percent), have communication skills (71 percent) and are able to work in a team (78 percent). Furthermore, most students are ambitious with a clear idea of what they expect from their future professions. A good salary (85 percent), variety (66 percent) and ongoing development (62 percent) are the most important considerations.

    Respondents in the CompTIA survey want schools and universities to do a lot more to help them understand career options:

    • 55 percent want information integrated into school lessons about what careers different subjects can lead to

    • 61 percent feel they need more information about careers other than those directly related to their field of study

    • 51 percent want better careers advice at school or university.

    This trend is particularly notable in IT and technology, which is struggling to attract the 110,400 new entrants a year it needs to keep up with the industry’s growth.

    According to Kevin Streater, executive director for IT Intelligence at the Open University:

    “For far too long there has been a false assumption that IT is too technical for most people to get into. The reality is that anyone who is educated, motivated and passionate about technology should consider a career in the industry. At its core, it is very much a career where you can keep learning, keep developing and keep your hands on technology. Contrary to popular opinion there are plenty of unfilled vacancies for young people, and plenty of young people with exactly the right aptitude and ambitions to fill them. The problem is largely one of making young people aware of these opportunities and how to get into them.”