On Wednesday, the International Comparison Program, a statistical project coordinated by the World Bank, announced new data on the size of economies by purchasing power parity that suggests China’s economy is bigger than previously thought. But the latest news is anything but surprising. Regular GDP power rankings are compiled by converting a country’s gross domestic product into … Continue reading
Harsh rules to drive the long-term unemployed into work come into force today, which state they will only receive their benefits if they either show up at a jobcentre every day or commit to six months of voluntary work. Those who fail to comply with the rules, which also offer signing up to a training … Continue reading
We ask a lot of our armed forces. They serve our country in some of the most dangerous environments and difficult situations faced by any American. Yet having endured those experiences, too many veterans returning to civilian jobs find themselves in work that barely pays enough to live on. In fact, of the roughly 10 … Continue reading
The high school graduation rate has topped 80 percent for the first time in U.S. history — and if states can keep up their rapid pace of improvement, the rate could hit 90 percent by 2020, according to federal data released Monday. The improvement has been driven by steep gains among African-American and Hispanic students … Continue reading
Odds remain low that Congress will raise the $7.25 federal minimum wage anytime soon. But the issue will be revisited in coming days as the Senate takes up a bill to increase it to $10.10 an hour. And President Obama and congressional Democrats plan to push the issue on the campaign trail ahead of the … Continue reading
The average age at which U.S. retirees report retiring is 62, the highest Gallup has found since first asking Americans this question in 1991. This age has increased in recent years, while the average age at which non-retired Americans expect to retire, 66, has largely stayed the same. However, this age too has slowly increased … Continue reading
The Great Recession appears to have solidified trends that took hold in the early 2000s. During the 1990s, 16 percent of total private-sector employment per quarter was typically accounted for by job churn—expanding companies’ hiring new workers and shrinking ones’ handing out pink slips. Since the turn of the century, the rates of new hirings … Continue reading
Social media manager/strategist/marketer This occupation may not have its own BLS designation yet, but there’s no denying its emergence in the age of Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram. “Anything that has to do with social media, companies having a social media strategist—that was a job that never existed, because there was no social media,” Barrington … Continue reading
Spain’s unemployment rate edged higher in the first quarter, data showed on Tuesday, as a slow economic recovery failed to offset a traditionally bad three months for job creation in the tourism-dependent country. The rate rose to 25.9 percent, according to the National Statistics Institute, up from a revised 25.7 percent in the previous quarter. … Continue reading
The number of young Australians who are unemployed for longer than a year – referred to as long-term unemployment – has more than tripled since 2008. The alarming new analysis of Australian Bureau of Statistics data released today by welfare group the Brotherhood of St Laurence reveals more than 50,000 people aged between 15 and … Continue reading
Despite the rebound in the U.S. economy and an improving job market, nearly 1 in 4 workers say they don’t trust their employer and only about half believe their employer is open and upfront with them, according to the American Psychological Association’s 2014 Work and Well-Being Survey released today. While almost two-thirds (64 percent) of … Continue reading
Apprenticeships can offer a precise match between the skills employers want and the training workers receive, says Robert Lerman, an economics professor at American University. “It’s a great model for transferring skills from one generation to the next,” says John Ladd, director of the Department of Labor’s Office of Apprenticeship. Nevertheless, according to the Labor … Continue reading
Toyota is consolidating much of its U.S. operations and moving them to a new headquarters in Plano, Texas. That will affect operations at its North American Manufacturing headquarters in Erlanger. Toyota’s new headquarters in Texas will house 4,000 people and serve as the hub for North American marketing, manufacturing and finance operations. One thousand Erlanger … Continue reading
With the cost of tuition at four-year colleges and universities growing out of control, it is no surprise people are more interested in two-year degrees. Let’s take a look at how popular associate degrees are and how they are paying off. Source: DegreeQuery.com Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story at Associate Degrees: Bang … Continue reading
America has a retirement crisis, but it’s not what some people want you to believe it is. It’s not the defined benefit pension plans that public employees pay into over a lifetime of work, which provide retirees an average of $23,400 annually (although some public officials fail to make their required contributions to these and … Continue reading