In the News

Canada Skills Gap in Pictures / 25 occupations desperately needing workers

Undermatching: academically capable low-income and minority students who do graduate from high school and are well prepared for college who do not succeed

“It has become a truism and a rare example of political consensus: Educators, researchers, and policymakers across the political spectrum agree that America must send more of its young people to college and must find ways to help them graduate” writes Jay Sherwin in Make Me a Match: Helping Low-Income and First-Generation Students Make Good College Choices … Continue reading →

India / A million graduating engineers struggling

Somewhere between a fifth to a third of the million students graduating out of India’s engineering colleges run the risk of being unemployed. Others will take jobs well below their technical qualifications in a market where there are few jobs for India’s overflowing technical talent pool. Beset by a flood of institutes (offering a varying … Continue reading →

China / The official unemployment rate is only official

In good times and bad, China’s official unemployment rate has barely budged. It’s now at 4.1% where it has been since the third quarter of 2010. It has hovered around the 4% level since 2002 (though it plummeted all the way down to 3.6% in 2001). It’s not much use to anybody, particularly those who … Continue reading →

British Army / Redundancy notices send to 4,480 soldiers as campaign for 10,000 new recruits is launched

More than 4,000 soldiers have been axed in the latest round of defence job cuts. The Ministry of Defence today announced 4,480 redundancy letters have been sent to troops under plans to cut the number of regulars to 82,000 by 2018. But the government was accused of a ‘failed strategy’ as it launched a recruitment … Continue reading →

OneWest / To lay off 725 in Austin

Pasadena, California-based OneWest Bank will lay off 725 workers in Austin, according to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act filing with the Texas Workforce Commission. The layoffs will take place through August 31, 2013, and will affect mostly call center workers. The move is the second-largest layoff in Texas this year, according to the … Continue reading →

Commerzbank / To cut thousands of jobs worldwide

Germany’s second biggest lender, Commerzbank, has struck a deal with the staff council about planned layoffs. The cuts are to lay the ground for a profitable retail banking business. Germany’s partly state-owned Commerzbank has reached a deal with its staff council to cut 5,000 jobs globally, the business newspaper “Handelsblatt” reported Tuesday. The lender warned … Continue reading →

Older workers / Half of a Boston company’s workforce is part-time senior citizens

Half of a Boston company’s workforce is part-time senior citizens, countering myths about value of older workers. No Freedom 55 here. When a special order comes in that calls for a steady hand and a sure eye, the work at Vita Needle often goes to a machine operator called Bill Ferson. For the past 25 … Continue reading →

India / Poorer states creating most jobs

Most of the poorer, less industrialized states like Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Bihar appear to have done well in increasing their work force in the past decade according to recently released Census 2011 data. Surprisingly, richer or more urbanized states like Punjab, Haryana and Kerala have lagged far behind in job creation. But if you take … Continue reading →

India / Will the world’s most populous country by 2028 reap a ‘demographic dividend’ ?

Given the one-child policy’s lock on China’s fertility, nobody expected it to remain the world’s most populous country forever. India had been projected to grab this title by 2045 or even 2035. But a new UN report notes that we are hurtling towards this ‘takeover’ faster than anticipated and will become the world’s most populous … Continue reading →

American Association of Retired Persons’ 50 best employers for boomer workers

For the 22 million people who are currently unemployed, underemployed or have given up on finding work, the perks offered by the 50 companies on AARP’s list of best employers may seem like a sort of mirage. Telecommuting and flexible work schedules. Phased retirement programs. Free health-care benefits. Retirement-planning seminars. Emergency eldercare services. Those are … Continue reading →

Symantec / Cutting Up to 1,700 Jobs

Security software company Symantec may lay off as many as 1,700 employees as early as today, sources familiar with the company’s plans tell AllThingsD. The cuts are part of a company-wide reorganization first announced in January as part of a turnaround plan instituted by Steve Bennett, Symantec’s new CEO, who joined the company 11 months … Continue reading →

India / Post-millennial generation closing Digital Divide

India’s ‘post-millennial’ generation seems set to overtake the preceding ‘millennial’ generation or ‘Gen Y’, taking communication over social networks like Facebook and Twitter and instant messaging modes like Whatsapp to newer extremes, according to the findings of the TCS survey 2012-13, which was released today. The findings of India’s largest survey of nearly 17,500 high … Continue reading →

China / 16 percent of the men and women with college degrees unemployed, 4 percent of those with an elementary school education

A national survey released last winter found that in the age bracket of 21- to 25-year-olds, 16 percent of the men and women with college degrees were unemployed. But only 4 percent of those with an elementary school education were unemployed, a sign of voracious corporate demand persisting for blue-collar workers. Wages for workers who … Continue reading →

India / A fact sheet on the economy

J:Jobs. Approximately, 460.22 million Indians are employed. That is only less than 40 per cent of the population. Between 2004 and 2010, India created just 26 lakh jobs. Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor via A to Z of the Indian economy – The New Indian Express.