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Minnesota: Disabled job-seekers gain skills and certification

November 11, 2009 11:27 by jllorens

Chad Creager trained 45-year-old Marc Moorvitch how to safely use a Tennant auto scrubber for cleaning floors.

"He's a fast learner," said the manager of employment services at Opportunity Partners, a Minnetonka-based nonprofit organization that helps people with disabilities live, learn and work as independently as possible.

In the past, Moorvitch's training with the industrial machine wouldn't have gained him a formal job certification.

But in a collaboration between Opportunity Partners and Dunwoody College of Technology, participants like Moorvitch will be trained using Dunwoody curricula and gain certification for jobs at the same time, while ensuring that their skills training meets the specific needs of employers and industry standards.

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Los Angeles uses $10.3 mil in stimulus for worker training

November 11, 2009 10:23 by jllorens

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced Tuesday that the city is making $10.3 million in federal stimulus money available for worker-training programs.

The grants will be issued by the Community Development Department. Of the $10.3 million, $4 million will be used for vocational training for 1,000 workers and $6.3 million will be available to train an estimated 2,000 people for high-wage jobs in healthcare, construction, transportation and other sectors.

Villaraigosa said the city has received $43.7 million in job-training funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act so far, and between $300 million and $400 million in overall stimulus money.

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Categories: The Economy

Categories: The Economy
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Marketing sector appears strong

November 2, 2009 14:02 by jllorens

London, UK (PRWeb UK) 2 November 2009 -- Figures from the Ashdown Group Jobs Index show it is one of the best performing sectors of the month.

Demand has been driven by a number of factors, including a recent upsurge in online and search engine optimisation (SEO) positions. Figures from data analyst firm IT Jobs Watch show the number of SEO vacancies rose by a massive 50% year on year.

John Lynes, director of marketing recruitment agency the Ashdown Group, said, "There has been a scramble for marketers with a strong understanding of online marketing, as businesses of all sizes wake up to the need to be found online."

Online jobs are booming as individuals spend increasing amounts of time on the Internet. Shopping online has become the norm for many people over the last five years as Internet retailers continue to attract more consumers away from the high street. This trend is set to continue, with experts predicting a strong Christmas performance for online retailers. Online retail sales have grown by 14% year to date according to the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index.

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Categories: The Economy

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The costs of underemployment

November 2, 2009 11:48 by jllorens
(From the thesunnews.com) Rich Grogan of Murrells Inlet is working as a sales associate at Sears for about 22 to 24 hours a week on 100 percent commission to help make ends meet for his wife and 2-year-old son.

Grogan, who holds an MBA and an undergraduate degree in finance, has worked for years in management, but his latest job at the United States Bowling Congress was cut in one of the first waves of layoffs last year.

He's now making about one-third of the income he brought in before, but he's happy to have a job.

Grogan is one of thousands of area residents who is considered to be underemployed, which means a person is either working part time when he or she previously worked full time, or that a person is working a full-time job, but using fewer or none of the skills he or she previously used in another career.

Nationwide, about 6 percent of the working population is underemployed, and across the state, about 6 percent, said Don Schunk, a research economist at Coastal Carolina University.

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Categories: The Economy

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Older job seekers often have unrealistic expectations

November 2, 2009 10:44 by jllorens

(From the Salt Lake Tribune) Marta, 59, had hoped to be retired by now. But during a "downsizing" two years ago, she lost her job as a mental-health counselor. Since then, all she has found are "demoralizing" temporary jobs, leaving her with little savings or income.

Carla was laid off two years ago after working more than 30 years in the mortgage industry. Now 62, she can't even get potential employers in other industries to interview her because her experience is all in one area.

Timothy, 56, did find a steady position with an employment-training agency. But he also applied for scores of other jobs and lost out to younger, healthier applicants. Years ago, a major back injury forced Timothy to give up his exterminating business. Now he expects to work until age 70 "or as long as I hold up."

These vignettes -- real stories about real people -- are part of "Buddy, Can You Spare a Job? The New Realities of the Job Market for Aging Baby Boomers," a sobering new study sponsored by the MetLife Mature Market Institute in collaboration with David DeLong and Associates, a research and consulting firm with expertise in workforce issues.

More than 60 percent of Americans 55 to 70 who are working or seeking work have less than $250,000 saved for retirement, the study found. Not surprisingly, half plan to retire later than originally expected, while only 6 percent plan to retire earlier.

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MIT, a new focus on generating ‘people’ skills

October 28, 2009 16:44 by jllorens

(From Boston.com) CAMBRIDGE - The students practice networking and hone “elevator pitches,’’ entrepreneurial ideas summarized in under a minute. They don blindfolds for team-building activities. Failure is met with candid critiques about their leadership styles.

This isn’t business school. It’s a new engineering class at one of the premier engineering universities in the world, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

MIT created the unusual undergraduate program in response to industry pressures to produce engineers who are as skilled at communicating face-to-face as they are at writing complicated computer codes on their own. Business leaders complain that many of today’s engineering graduates, trained as abstract thinkers, have too little grounding in the actual practice of working with others to deliver innovative products amid time and budget constraints.

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Survey: Small Businesses Getting Ready to Hire

October 26, 2009 13:21 by jllorens

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The nation’s unemployment rate may have hit a 26-year high in September but many small business owners are getting ready to hire.

The latest Intuit Payroll survey from Intuit Inc. (Nasdaq:INTU) finds that nearly half of the small business owners surveyed, 44 percent, are planning to hire new employees within the next 12 months. At the same time, many small business owners believe that benefits are key to attracting new hires but are finding them difficult to afford.

“Economists may have declared the recession over, but on Main Street, unemployment figures are what really matter,” said Nora Denzel, senior vice president of Intuit’s Employee Management Solutions Division, which helps more than 1 million small businesses easily and affordably manage their payroll. “There are struggles ahead, nobody is uncorking the champagne bottle quite yet, but we are starting to see small signs of optimism.”

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Categories: The Economy

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Poll: Finding a Job Is Tough, Networking Is Key

October 26, 2009 12:14 by jllorens

Philadelphia, PA (PRWEB) October 26, 2009 – Even in the best of times, finding a new job is a challenge. So it is no surprise that 42% of people polled think it would be "very difficult" to find a new job in today's tough economy, according to a survey of more than 2,500 individuals on LinkedIn® by Right Management. Right Management is the talent and career management expert within Manpower, the global leader in employment services.

Forty-three percent of those responding believe getting a new job would be "somewhat difficult," and 14% would consider it "somewhat" or "very easy."

Men and women have nearly identical opinions on job hunting prospects, while respondents whose job function is in business development or sales are more upbeat than those in finance. The older the respondent, the more likely the individual is to consider the job search difficult, which may be explained in part by their typically higher salary levels.

"Losing a job is one of the top most stressful life events," said Tony Santora, Executive Vice President for Global Solutions at Right Management. "The job search process can be an anxiety-filled experience, even in a healthy economy. So stress typically comes with the territory."

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Report: Michigan workers who finished retraining get, keep jobs

October 26, 2009 11:41 by jllorens

(From Freep.com) Most of those who completed job retraining during the first 18 months of Michigan’s No Worker Left Behind program either kept their jobs or gained new employment, according to a state review.

Of the nearly 34,360 people who finished training between August 2007 and February 2009, about 24,700, or 72%, either retained work or got a new job, while about 9,660, or 28%, were still looking for a job, according to the report being released Monday. It found more than 16,840 kept their jobs and about 7,860 found new employment.

No Worker Left Behind offers up to $10,000 over two years to workers who attend community colleges or other training programs. It’s overseen by the Michigan Department of Energy, Labor and Economic Growth, which compiled the review.

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Categories: The Economy

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Schools helping older alumni hone job-hunting skills

October 26, 2009 11:06 by jllorens

(From boston.bizjournals.com) As unemployment has crept higher, colleges and universities have found themselves working harder to help alumni who have lost their jobs, and the latest wave of former students finding their way back are those who are older.

Bob Wally, assistant director for alumni career services at the College of the Holy Cross, said that when the economy first plummeted, he first was meeting with alumni who had graduated 10 or fewer years ago.

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