Optimism By Employers: India Most and Italy Least

Matt Ferguson, CEO of Careerbuilder

A new job forecast for the 10 largest world economies tells a tale of both confidence and caution. Brazil and India are voicing the greatest confidence with more than two-thirds of employers in these markets planning to add full-time, permanent headcount in 2013. Italy is the least optimistic, housing more employers who expect to decrease staff than those who expect to hire.

“The job outlook presents varying degrees of growth and deceleration as governments and businesses strive to rebuild and expand and deal with large deficits,” said Matt Ferguson, CEO of CareerBuilder. “Hiring activity in the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) is projected to be significantly higher than other markets while recruitment in Europe remains sluggish as leaders struggle to resolve a debt crisis that has global implications. The overall hiring picture is improving, but companies will remain watchful as they navigate headwinds and maneuver through somewhat precarious economic terrain.” Continue Reading

1/3 Work in Fields Related to Their Childhood Dream Jobs

Nicole Williams, LinkedIn career expert

CollegeRecruiter.com partner LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional network with more than 187 million members, today released data about the most popular childhood dream jobs and the number of professionals on LinkedIn who have some of these cool careers.

As part of its “Dream Jobs” study, LinkedIn surveyed more than 8,000 professionals globally to find out the most common childhood career aspirations and how many professionals currently have their dream job.

The survey found that the top childhood dream jobs for men in the United States were: Continue Reading

10 Lessons All Employees Can Learn from The Olympics

If you are watching the amazing athletes compete for medals at The 2012 Olympics, they’re not only displaying their talents but also teaching valuable lessons to those in the workplace.

Should employers be worried about workplace productivity during the Olympics?

Steve Siebold, a former professional athlete; mental toughness coach to professional athletes, entrepreneurs, and Fortune 500 corporations; and author of the book 177 Mental Toughness Secrets of The World Class, says let your employees watch the Olympics because it’s good for their work ethic.

Here are 10 reasons why: Continue Reading

Olympic Watching to Have No Measurable Impact on Overall Economy

With the Olympic Games officially underway over the weekend, NBC Television is barely into its 5,535 hours of coverage, including 3,500 hours of live streaming of events online.  The network hopes to match the success of the 2008 Olympic coverage that attracted an average of 27 million American viewers each day over the 17-day event. While most viewers will catch the most popular sports during the network’s prime-time coverage, the five- to eight-hour time difference between London and America’s four time zones (11 hours for those lucky enough to live in Hawaii), means that many fans who want to watch live events will do so from their work desks.

According to workplace expert John Challenger, CEO of global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, it is difficult to pin down a monetary value of the lost productivity that could result from employees watching the Olympics.  “In reality, it will have no measureable impact on the overall economy.  Where it will be most noticeable is the IT department, which is likely to observe a significant slowdown in company Internet speeds, as bandwidth is eaten up by Olympic fans watching streaming videos from their desks,” he noted.  “At the end of the day, productivity will be no worse for wear, as employees who slacked off during the workday, stay later to complete their projects or take work home using their growing arsenal of portable technology that has helped virtually erase the line between our work lives and personal lives.”