Job Market Monitor
Employment
Euro zone / A second recession since 2009
The debt crisis dragged the euro zone into its second recession since 2009 in the third quarter despite modest growth in Germany and France, data showed on Thursday. The two leading economies both managed 0.2-per-cent growth in the July-to-September period. But the resilience could not save the austerity-hit 17-nation bloc from overall contraction as the … Continue reading
Sierra Leone / Strategies to promote employment
The current world-wide recession has focused the spotlight, once again, on the need to redouble our efforts to find new and creative ways of boosting employment in Sierra Leone, one of the countries hardest hit by the economic downturn. Party manifestoes have been published ahead of the presidential and parliamentary elections on Saturday November 17. … Continue reading
Michigan / Chrysler / To add 1,250 jobs in
Chrysler Group LLC will announce new investments and jobs Thursday at one of its Detroit facilities. A Chrysler spokeswoman would not comment on the details of the announcement, but the Detroit Free Press reports the Auburn Hills-based automaker invest $238 million in three Michigan plants and add about 1,250 jobs so it can ramp up … Continue reading
Pension Plan / Less than a third of Fortune 100 Companies offer a defined benefit plan to newly hired salaried workers
In 2012, the number of Fortune 100 companies offering new salaried employees only a defined contribution (DC) plan rose, as it has for many years. Today, less than a third of these companies offer any DB plan to newly hired salaried workers, and only 11 still offer a traditional DB plan to new hires. Large … Continue reading
UK / More than 1 in 3 will work past 65 and 35% will work past retirement age
Thirty-five per cent believe they will work past retirement age, but this could have a negative impact on employers. Workers are planning to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the abolition of the default retirement age, according to new research by insurer Canada Life Group. Over a third of employees think they will work … Continue reading
The American Job Gap
We face a 9 million jobs gap between the number of jobs we have and the number we need, and this doesn’t even address the low quality of the jobs being created. The chart below, taken from an Economic Policy Institute blog post, illustrates the gap. As Heidi Shierholz, the author of the post, explains: The … Continue reading
HR / Personality Assessments / Best Performed by Outsiders
Human resource departments often have people complete a self-administered personality profile as a method to match a person to job tasks or to assess job performance. A new study finds that businesses will get more accurate assessments of potential and current employees if they do away with these self-rated tests and find an outside observer … Continue reading
Cover Letters / Tools, Tips and Free Cover Letter Templates for Microsoft Office
Next time you’re preparing to fire off a resume and your cover letter template… don’t. Instead, take 15 minutes to find out who’s on the receiving end of your inquiry.
So, how do you create cover letter that is not tossed? Continue reading
Arab Youth / Lack of soft skills robs of jobs experts say
The gap between what young people are taught and what potential employers require is fuelling regional youth unemployment. About 20 per cent of the most educated in the UAE population have no jobs, and in some countries such as Saudi Arabia the figure is double that. “When we talk about the readiness of graduates for … Continue reading
Skills Gap / No Big Deal writes Businessweek
The much talked-about “skills gap” in the U.S. is more limited than many people think and shouldn’t prevent, or even stall, the U.S. manufacturing renaissance, at least for a while. More severe shortages are likely to develop, however. We need to take steps now to prevent them and make sure that enough new talent enters … Continue reading
Greece / Economy shrinks further: Bad news for jobs
The Greek economy shrank 7.2% in the third quarter compared with the same period a year earlier, statistics agency Elstat has said. That was a deeper contraction than the 6.3% fall seen in the second quarter. Greece has been in recession since late 2008 and has been granted two bailouts from the European Union and … Continue reading
4-Day Workweek / Employees Love It, But Businesses ?
Business owners, do your employees work a four-day workweek? If you answered no, you’re not alone. The business world has evolved in many ways over the past few decades (for proof, just watch any episode of Mad Men), but one tenet of common corporate practice has held true: most workers still punch their digital time … Continue reading
UK / Unemployment rate at 7.8 per cent and employment up 100,000
The employment rate for those aged from 16 to 64 for July to September 2012 was 71.2 per cent, up 0.2 from April to June 2012. There were 29.58 million people in employment aged 16 and over, up 100,000 from April to June 2012. The unemployment rate for July to September 2012 was 7.8 per cent of the … Continue reading
Gender Gap / EU / Quota of 40% of women on boards has been approved
The EU has approved the proposals from justice commissioner Viviane Reding to have 40% of women on company boards by 2020. Reding tweeted the news this morning but an official announcement is expected later. They will still need to be approved by the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers, but Reding said she was … Continue reading
US / Why Is Labor Force Participation Shrinking?
We noted earlier that the recent drop in labor force participation — the percentage of people 16 or older who are working or looking for work — reflects not only the economic downturn and lack of job opportunities, but also the fact that more baby boomers are hitting retirement age. To measure the effect of … Continue reading
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