IT hiring jumps in January
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Full Story: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9153838/IT_hiring_jumps_in_January
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Monday, February 08, 2010
U.S. Jobless Rate Now 9.7%, but Millions Fear Losing Unemployment Insurance
This is a good story from the AFL-CIO for those seeking information regarding information about the latest action Washington plans to take to tackle unemployment.
The following story is straight from the AFL-CIO:
"The U.S. unemployment rate fell from 10 percent to 9.7 percent in January, with 14.8 million workers now without jobs. Employment continued to decrease in construction and transportation and increase in retail, health care and temp work, according to U.S. Department of Labor data out this morning. Unemployment among black workers continued to worsen.
When both unemployed and underemployed workers are counted, there still are 25.5 million people without jobs or full-time work.
As AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says:
We welcome the news that unemployment dropped to 9.7%, but we shed another 20,000 jobs last month, following a revised 150,000 loss in December. These numbers underscore what we have been saying all along. Working families need bigger and bolder actions—in the short, medium and long term—to create jobs in the immediate future—or we risk permanent scarring of our economy and our workforce.
Among the worst aspects of the nation’s unacceptably high unemployment rate—and there are many—the growing numbers of long-term jobless workers is something that can, and must, be addressed immediately. Long-term U.S. unemployment (those without a job for 27 weeks or longer), with more than 6 million unemployed workers out of a job for more than six months. In January, the number of long-term unemployed workers worsened, to 6.3 million workers.
But the unemployment insurance (UI) extension for millions of workers expires Feb. 28, unless Congress—specifically, the Senate—takes action.
In December, the U.S. House passed a jobs bill that included a long-term UI and Cobra extension, but the U.S. Senate failed to act and Congress was forced to pass a short-term extension of both programs. (Click here to tell your lawmakers it’s time to act.)
According to National Employment Law Project estimates, of the nearly 1.2 million U.S. workers facing a cut off of benefits in March alone:
*
380,000 workers will exhaust their 26 weeks of state benefits without accessing the temporary EUC extension program or the permanent federal program of Extended Benefits.
*
Another 814,000 workers will not be eligible to continue receiving EUC past their current tier of benefits.
A one-year extension of unemployment insurance is part of our AFL-CIO five-point jobs program, and the Obama administration supports a long-term extension. But it’s unclear what shape a Senate jobs bill will take. Senate Republicans say they will oppose any jobs legislation on a scale large enough most economists say will do real good.
After all, why should those senators worry? They have a job. For now"
Source: http://blog.aflcio.org/2010/02/05/us-jobless-rate-now-97-but-millions-fear-losing-unemployment-insurance/
The following story is straight from the AFL-CIO:
"The U.S. unemployment rate fell from 10 percent to 9.7 percent in January, with 14.8 million workers now without jobs. Employment continued to decrease in construction and transportation and increase in retail, health care and temp work, according to U.S. Department of Labor data out this morning. Unemployment among black workers continued to worsen.
When both unemployed and underemployed workers are counted, there still are 25.5 million people without jobs or full-time work.
As AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says:
We welcome the news that unemployment dropped to 9.7%, but we shed another 20,000 jobs last month, following a revised 150,000 loss in December. These numbers underscore what we have been saying all along. Working families need bigger and bolder actions—in the short, medium and long term—to create jobs in the immediate future—or we risk permanent scarring of our economy and our workforce.
Among the worst aspects of the nation’s unacceptably high unemployment rate—and there are many—the growing numbers of long-term jobless workers is something that can, and must, be addressed immediately. Long-term U.S. unemployment (those without a job for 27 weeks or longer), with more than 6 million unemployed workers out of a job for more than six months. In January, the number of long-term unemployed workers worsened, to 6.3 million workers.
But the unemployment insurance (UI) extension for millions of workers expires Feb. 28, unless Congress—specifically, the Senate—takes action.
In December, the U.S. House passed a jobs bill that included a long-term UI and Cobra extension, but the U.S. Senate failed to act and Congress was forced to pass a short-term extension of both programs. (Click here to tell your lawmakers it’s time to act.)
According to National Employment Law Project estimates, of the nearly 1.2 million U.S. workers facing a cut off of benefits in March alone:
*
380,000 workers will exhaust their 26 weeks of state benefits without accessing the temporary EUC extension program or the permanent federal program of Extended Benefits.
*
Another 814,000 workers will not be eligible to continue receiving EUC past their current tier of benefits.
A one-year extension of unemployment insurance is part of our AFL-CIO five-point jobs program, and the Obama administration supports a long-term extension. But it’s unclear what shape a Senate jobs bill will take. Senate Republicans say they will oppose any jobs legislation on a scale large enough most economists say will do real good.
After all, why should those senators worry? They have a job. For now"
Source: http://blog.aflcio.org/2010/02/05/us-jobless-rate-now-97-but-millions-fear-losing-unemployment-insurance/
Thursday, February 04, 2010
Will Tennessee Really Reduce Unemployment Pay After Being Fourth Lowest?
With Tennessee's jobless rate persistently in double digits, the idea of cutting weekly benefits has emerged as one way to keep the state's unemployment compensation fund in the black.
That seems like a smart plan to cash-strapped small-business owners, who are paying higher taxes after an increase to keep the fund solvent last year, and some say another tax increase could push them under.
But laid-off workers say the maximum weekly amount is already too low and shouldn't be tampered with.
"They should be looking at raising it," said Jerry R. Baldwin, a Brentwood man who has drawn unemployment checks for 14 months after the distribution company where he worked closed.
In Tennessee, the most a laid-off worker can get each week in unemployment benefits is $275, the fourth-lowest rate in the nation and a tie with Florida. (The rate has been bumped up temporarily to $300 a week with a $25 federal stimulus add-on.)
Some small-business owners say a cut in workers' benefits would help keep the overall unemployment fund functional.
"I don't see how we could get around it," said Kenneth Gough, president and general manager of Accurate Machine Products Corp.
The state's unemployment compensation fund stood at $630 million before the recession started. But the pool of money has been drawn all the way down to $103 million as about 170,000 unemployment checks are sent out each week.
The fund is expected to go $20 million in the red in April, but a no-interest federal loan is expected to cover the gap until tax revenues start coming in, said Bill Fox, an economist from the University of Tennessee who advises the state on the trust fund that pays jobless benefits.
However, another shortfall — this one even larger — is expected once again in 2011.
That uncertainty has everyone preparing for a whole slew of what-ifs.
"This is a problem that is not going away," said state House Speaker Kent Williams, R-Elizabethton. "Further taxation is not the answer."
Source Link: http://www.tennessean.com/article/20100203/BUSINESS01/2030364/2047/BUSINESS/Tennessee+considers+reducing+unemployment+pay
That seems like a smart plan to cash-strapped small-business owners, who are paying higher taxes after an increase to keep the fund solvent last year, and some say another tax increase could push them under.
But laid-off workers say the maximum weekly amount is already too low and shouldn't be tampered with.
"They should be looking at raising it," said Jerry R. Baldwin, a Brentwood man who has drawn unemployment checks for 14 months after the distribution company where he worked closed.
In Tennessee, the most a laid-off worker can get each week in unemployment benefits is $275, the fourth-lowest rate in the nation and a tie with Florida. (The rate has been bumped up temporarily to $300 a week with a $25 federal stimulus add-on.)
Some small-business owners say a cut in workers' benefits would help keep the overall unemployment fund functional.
"I don't see how we could get around it," said Kenneth Gough, president and general manager of Accurate Machine Products Corp.
The state's unemployment compensation fund stood at $630 million before the recession started. But the pool of money has been drawn all the way down to $103 million as about 170,000 unemployment checks are sent out each week.
The fund is expected to go $20 million in the red in April, but a no-interest federal loan is expected to cover the gap until tax revenues start coming in, said Bill Fox, an economist from the University of Tennessee who advises the state on the trust fund that pays jobless benefits.
However, another shortfall — this one even larger — is expected once again in 2011.
That uncertainty has everyone preparing for a whole slew of what-ifs.
"This is a problem that is not going away," said state House Speaker Kent Williams, R-Elizabethton. "Further taxation is not the answer."
Source Link: http://www.tennessean.com/article/20100203/BUSINESS01/2030364/2047/BUSINESS/Tennessee+considers+reducing+unemployment+pay
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
Obama Budget Includes 7-Month Extension of Unemployment Benefits
The Obama administration’s budget blueprint for fiscal year 2011, unveiled yesterday, includes $49 billion to expand federal unemployment benefits, which otherwise expire at the end of the month. That’s more than the $41 billion the House passed in December to extend the benefits for six months, but wouldn’t be enough to satisfy that long list of Senate Democrats urging a 10-month extension.
“This would allow for some near-term extension of expanded unemployment benefits,” analysts at the Economic Policy Institute wrote today. “However, with costs of around $7 billion per month, this funding level would not be sufficient to extend the current benefit structure through the end of the year.”
It’s hardly set in stone. A spokesperson for the Labor Department said this week that the $49 billion is just a “placeholder,” included to recognize that the administration intends to work with Congress later to hash out the details of the unemployment insurance extension. “The Administration will propose legislation for later transmittal,” the budget declares.
They’re running out of time. Under current law, unemployed workers who exhaust their current tier of federal benefits after Feb. 28 won’t be eligible for the next. A Senate Democratic aide said Tuesday that the upper chamber, while expected to release the details of its jobs bill later this week, also intends to offer the UI and COBRA proposals as separate legislation. No word yet when that bill will surface.
“This would allow for some near-term extension of expanded unemployment benefits,” analysts at the Economic Policy Institute wrote today. “However, with costs of around $7 billion per month, this funding level would not be sufficient to extend the current benefit structure through the end of the year.”
It’s hardly set in stone. A spokesperson for the Labor Department said this week that the $49 billion is just a “placeholder,” included to recognize that the administration intends to work with Congress later to hash out the details of the unemployment insurance extension. “The Administration will propose legislation for later transmittal,” the budget declares.
They’re running out of time. Under current law, unemployed workers who exhaust their current tier of federal benefits after Feb. 28 won’t be eligible for the next. A Senate Democratic aide said Tuesday that the upper chamber, while expected to release the details of its jobs bill later this week, also intends to offer the UI and COBRA proposals as separate legislation. No word yet when that bill will surface.
Monday, February 01, 2010
Beware Online Job Scams - Scams Rise With Unemployment Rate!
Even though online job scams have become more convincing as criminals have honed their skills, sometimes victims don't fall for them — they jump into them.
“Even when they know it's a scam, I've had people say, ‘Well yeah, but what if I can make a thousand dollars out of it?'” said Tabatha Marshall, founder of PhishBucket.org and a crusader against these schemes. “People are hurting, and so many are willing to take the risk.”
Job scams have plagued the Internet for years, but their numbers have skyrocketed and their victims multiplied along with the economic downturn and a 10 percent unemployment rate. Criminals, always striking where people are the most vulnerable and emboldened by law enforcement's troubles in tracking them, went after job seekers with redoubled efforts.
The numbers of scams recorded by PhishBucket.org soared at the beginning of the financial meltdown in the fall of 2008 — a year when the number of scams more than tripled from the year before — and remained at new heights for most of 2009, Marshall said.
So-called money mule schemes represent the majority of the scams. By the end of 2009, Dutch risk management firm E-Secure-IT identified 626 money mule scams, an increase from the 406 detected in 2008.
In those ploys, victims often become unwitting accomplices to international crime by wiring money stolen mostly through computer exploits to scammers overseas. More than just losing their private information and their own assets, victims often are left facing criminal charges.
“People are being charged with fraud and theft even if they didn't know what they were doing. (Authorities) don't know if they can believe that. All they know is that you deposited a check, and it looks like it was all you,” Marshall said.
Online job scams can come in the form of work-at-home schemes, false offers with the logo and product description of a legitimate employer slapped in the body of an e-mail, or fake company Web sites with professional graphics, stock images of smiling executives and even news releases and legal disclaimers.
British nonprofit BobBear.co.uk, which documents online job scams, identified more than 550 fake company Web sites in 2009 — most of them reported from the United States — more than a 50 percent increase from the previous year.
Fake company Web sites often can be recognized because of their spotty grammar or disproportional compensations for easy tasks. But in some cases, scammers have taken the entire design of legitimate organizations, using Web domains with variations of the original company's name.
In others, scammers will imitate a small or medium-size business with a solid reputation and an Internet trail that job seekers doing research can find to assuage any concerns.
Criminals “know people will do research and actually want them to find something,” said Pam Dixon, executive director of the World Privacy Forum.
Fraudulent job postings also have become a headache for legitimate job sites such as Monster.com, CareerBuilder.com and Craigslist. While some consumer advocates question the effectiveness of their methods, in recent years they have taken a range of actions to police their sites.
Craigslist spokeswoman Susan MacTavish Best said the site employs “a wide array of technological and staff measures to suppress scam attempts” and that those that reach the site “are generally quickly identified and removed by user flagging.”
Patrick Manzo, head of Monster.com's fraud-detection department, said the company screens all new customers before allowing them to place job ads and uses automated content monitors to inspect the site for inappropriate content.
Online job scams were also on federal authorities' radar last year. In Operation Short Change last summer, the Federal Trade Commission cracked down on several mail, phone and online job scams, including Google Money Tree, a work-at-home ploy unrelated to the Internet search company that tricked victims into paying for a startup kit and later began draining $72.21 a month from their accounts.
Often, authorities can do little other than document incidents. Finding culprits can be next to impossible when criminals hide behind a maze of proxy networks and domains across the globe, causing all kinds of jurisdictional complications.
Researchers, law enforcers and advocates alike seem to agree that educating the public to recognize these scams is essential.
Some red flags to look out for are e-mail addresses from free e-mail providers such as Gmail or Hotmail instead of a corporate domain contact, requests for upfront fees or scans of driver's licenses and passports, or offers that do not match the job seeker's skills.
“One of my favorite ones: If a company tells you it's 100 percent legal, it's probably not,” Marshall said. “Some common sense will work in your favor, too.”
“Even when they know it's a scam, I've had people say, ‘Well yeah, but what if I can make a thousand dollars out of it?'” said Tabatha Marshall, founder of PhishBucket.org and a crusader against these schemes. “People are hurting, and so many are willing to take the risk.”
Job scams have plagued the Internet for years, but their numbers have skyrocketed and their victims multiplied along with the economic downturn and a 10 percent unemployment rate. Criminals, always striking where people are the most vulnerable and emboldened by law enforcement's troubles in tracking them, went after job seekers with redoubled efforts.
The numbers of scams recorded by PhishBucket.org soared at the beginning of the financial meltdown in the fall of 2008 — a year when the number of scams more than tripled from the year before — and remained at new heights for most of 2009, Marshall said.
So-called money mule schemes represent the majority of the scams. By the end of 2009, Dutch risk management firm E-Secure-IT identified 626 money mule scams, an increase from the 406 detected in 2008.
In those ploys, victims often become unwitting accomplices to international crime by wiring money stolen mostly through computer exploits to scammers overseas. More than just losing their private information and their own assets, victims often are left facing criminal charges.
“People are being charged with fraud and theft even if they didn't know what they were doing. (Authorities) don't know if they can believe that. All they know is that you deposited a check, and it looks like it was all you,” Marshall said.
Online job scams can come in the form of work-at-home schemes, false offers with the logo and product description of a legitimate employer slapped in the body of an e-mail, or fake company Web sites with professional graphics, stock images of smiling executives and even news releases and legal disclaimers.
British nonprofit BobBear.co.uk, which documents online job scams, identified more than 550 fake company Web sites in 2009 — most of them reported from the United States — more than a 50 percent increase from the previous year.
Fake company Web sites often can be recognized because of their spotty grammar or disproportional compensations for easy tasks. But in some cases, scammers have taken the entire design of legitimate organizations, using Web domains with variations of the original company's name.
In others, scammers will imitate a small or medium-size business with a solid reputation and an Internet trail that job seekers doing research can find to assuage any concerns.
Criminals “know people will do research and actually want them to find something,” said Pam Dixon, executive director of the World Privacy Forum.
Fraudulent job postings also have become a headache for legitimate job sites such as Monster.com, CareerBuilder.com and Craigslist. While some consumer advocates question the effectiveness of their methods, in recent years they have taken a range of actions to police their sites.
Craigslist spokeswoman Susan MacTavish Best said the site employs “a wide array of technological and staff measures to suppress scam attempts” and that those that reach the site “are generally quickly identified and removed by user flagging.”
Patrick Manzo, head of Monster.com's fraud-detection department, said the company screens all new customers before allowing them to place job ads and uses automated content monitors to inspect the site for inappropriate content.
Online job scams were also on federal authorities' radar last year. In Operation Short Change last summer, the Federal Trade Commission cracked down on several mail, phone and online job scams, including Google Money Tree, a work-at-home ploy unrelated to the Internet search company that tricked victims into paying for a startup kit and later began draining $72.21 a month from their accounts.
Often, authorities can do little other than document incidents. Finding culprits can be next to impossible when criminals hide behind a maze of proxy networks and domains across the globe, causing all kinds of jurisdictional complications.
Researchers, law enforcers and advocates alike seem to agree that educating the public to recognize these scams is essential.
Some red flags to look out for are e-mail addresses from free e-mail providers such as Gmail or Hotmail instead of a corporate domain contact, requests for upfront fees or scans of driver's licenses and passports, or offers that do not match the job seeker's skills.
“One of my favorite ones: If a company tells you it's 100 percent legal, it's probably not,” Marshall said. “Some common sense will work in your favor, too.”
Saturday, January 30, 2010
11.5 Million Americans Are Receiving Jobless Benefits
First-time claims for state unemployment benefits remained elevated in the latest week, the Labor Department reported Thursday. The number of initial claims in the week ending Jan. 23 fell 8,000 to 470,000. The consensus forecast of Wall Street economists was for claims to drop below 450,000. Claims in the previous week were revised to an increase of 34,000 to 478,000 compared with the initial estimate of a increase of 36,000 to 482,000. the highest level since November. The four-week average of initial claims rose 9,500 to 456,250. A Labor Department official said there were no reports of backlogs at state offices. Meanwhile, the number of Americans receiving state jobless benefits held steady fell 57,000 to 4.60 million in the week ending Jan 16. The four-week moving average of continuing claims fell 94,250 to 4.7 million. Overall, 11.5 million Americans received federal and state unemployment benefits on an unadjusted basis in the week ended Jan. 9, the latest period for which the data is available. This is down from 12.0 million in the prior week.
Congress, Extend Unemployment Benefits Now!
The National Employment Law Project is urging Congress to continue the extended unemployment benefits program, including full federal funding of Extended Benefits, the $25 per week in Federal Additional Compensation, and the 65% 15-month COBRA subsidy through the end of 2010. Action is needed now because the current unemployment extensions are set to expire at the end of February. Here's how to send a message to Congress ask them to extend benefits for workers who are going to run out: http://www.nelp.org/page/speakout/FederalUI2010
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