Jobs

3 Steps to Deal With a Pay Cut at Work

At the height of the Great Recession, I received word at my work that everyone in the company would be getting a 10% pay cut. It wasn’t fun. Senior management wasn’t happy that they needed to cut everyone’s salaries. Clearly, everyone who worked with me wasn’t happy either (though they were happy to still have a […]

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The Easiest Money is Free Money From Your Employer

Do you have a job? Does your employer offer a 401(k) or other retirement savings plan with a company match? Are you eligible for other employee benefits, like tuition discounts, profit sharing or loan contributions? If you said yes, you need to make sure you’re getting all the free money from your employer that you […]

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Inflation and the Buying Power of the Minimum Wage

President Obama has proposed an increase in the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour that may or may not be considered and passed by Congress. The last increase in the minimum wage was July 24, 2009, when it went up to $7.25 an hour. Even though inflation rates are low, a wage fixed for almost […]

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Low Wages and Minimum Wages

A recent article in The Washington Post (“For low-wage workers, unprecedented anxiety“) interviewed people with low wage jobs. It was not a surprise to find them anxious since today’s low wage jobs come and go and do not buy more than basic necessities anyway. One of those interviewed had a new job working at an airport helping […]

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Words of Advice on Job Experience

Many job seekers know the phrase “We’re looking for someone with more experience.” It might be true, but there are reasons to be suspicious it’s just an excuse in order to have an easy way to end an interview. A few years ago, the Bureau of Labor Statistics expanded their classification of occupational education and training […]

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Inflation and Wages from 2006 to 2012

News of college graduates struggling to pay student loans draws attention to wages. College graduates who cannot find jobs using their college degree skills add to the pool of labor looking for already low wage jobs, potentially lowering wages and buying power even more. Wages need to keep up with inflation to assure Americans can […]

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Is There A Manufacturing Skills Gap?

President Carter’s domestic policy advisor, Stuart Eizenstat, and Robert Lerman, an Urban Institute Fellow, claim there is a skills gap in manufacturing that threatens America’s manufacturing comeback (“Bring back the apprentice”, Washington Post, May 5, 2013). Readers are asked to accept a citation from an unnamed survey that claims 600,000 jobs go unfilled because the […]

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The Final Stats on Jobs in 2012

The Bureau of Labor Statistics published its January report showing a seasonally adjusted December increase of 155,000 jobs. The increase for the 12 months ending December 2012 is 1.836 million jobs, a respectable – but hardly spectacular – increase for the year. The job totals for 2012 will be subject to review and possible revision […]

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Performance, Job Pay and Teachers

Growing opinion from outside of teaching expects teachers to produce a quality product measured by student test scores. The use of test scores in teacher evaluation and the use of test scores was the primary contention for teachers in the Chicago teacher strike. Manufactured products fail as a result of defective materials and workmanship, and […]

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How Can You Find True Happiness from Work?

I don’t normally post about work-related issues – columnist Fred Siegmund tackles this issue – but I saw a video on the issue that I wanted to share. During a TEDx event (click here for more on what TED and TEDx events are), Shawn Achor, CEO of Good Think Inc., gave a presentation about finding happiness […]

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Where Will You Work?

President Lyndon Johnson noticed the long-term decline of manufacturing jobs back in 1964, when he predicted that the nation would be capable of maintaining its present levels of production in 1975 with 20 million fewer workers*. He made the prediction during a period when automation was getting lots of attention. Calculating inflation adjusted GDP dollars […]

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Who Should Be Entitled to Overtime Pay?

The New York Post recently ran a story about a Port Authority Police Department (PAPD) Sergeant named Edwin Rivera who reportedly earned more than $166,000 last year in overtime pay – more than double his base salary. They made a few comparisons of salaries that included the New York governor with a salary of $179,000. […]

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How Much are Replacement Jobs Helping the Economy?

America?s high unemployment rate will come down as total spending picks up and the economy recovers. Some of the unemployment is the result of the recession, but some is the result of long-term trends. Since 2000, manufacturing jobs have fallen by 5.4 million, and when the economy comes back, manufacturing will not recover much ? […]

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