Economy Creates Hiring Hang-Up for Employers

While employers may want to hire more workers, some are uninspired by the current economy. Continue Reading

Retail, Seasonal Hiring Returns to Pre-Recession Levels

Seasonal hiring in retail nearly returned to pre-recession levels in 2011, as employment in the sector experienced a net gain of 718,500 over the final three months of the year, according to an analysis of employment data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That marks a 14.5 percent improvement over the 627,500 seasonal jobs added 2010, and falls just shy of the 720,800 added in 2007, when the economy still relatively strong.

The analysis of non-seasonally adjusted data by global outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. found that while October hiring was down from a year earlier, strong job gains in November and December fueled the surge. November job gains increased 23 percent from 332,700 in 2010 to 409,800 this year. Meanwhile, December job gains were up 20 percent from a year earlier to 188,600, which is the largest number of retail jobs added in the final month of the year since 196,400 jobs were created in 2005. Continue Reading

Survey Shows Job Seekers Far More Optimistic Than a Year Ago

While accelerated job creation failed to materialize in 2011, callers to an annual job-search advice hotline were more optimistic than a year ago, as nearly 30 percent estimated they would find a new job within three months, up from 18 percent who said the same in 2010.

However, even as the percentage of optimistic callers surged from a year, so did the percent of those predicting it would take more than a year to find employment. Ten percent of the job seekers felt the job search would last more than 12 months, compared to four percent who anticipated a prolonged job search last year. Continue Reading

Federal Agencies Cutting Jobs — Even Military, Intelligence Aren’t Safe

Not even the nation’s ranks of spies will be safe from federal budget cuts, according to a recent article at Wired.com.   Major cuts to the intelligence community’s $80 billion annual budget could result in widespread job cuts across the various spy agencies.   With a mandate to cut federal spending by $2.1 trillion over the next decade, every government agency is at risk of job cutting, including the military.

Over the past two months, multiple military branches have announced personnel reductions totaling more than 67,000.  Meanwhile, the United States Postal Service, which is facing financial insolvency resulting from significant declines in mail volume and retiree health benefit prefunding costs imposed by Congress, has proposed a plan that would cut its workforce by 220,000 between now and 2015 (100,000 of which would come from attrition). Continue Reading

Discontent With Economy Spreading to Boardrooms: 108 CEO’s Terminated in September