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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Tags: economy, jobs, careers, stimulus, government, california

Categories: The Economy

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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Tags: economy, jobs, careers, business news

Categories: The Economy

(From investmentnews.com) Merrill Lynch Global Wealth Management last week unveiled a training program to help its 15,000 financial advisers develop a retirement income program for their clients.

As part of the program, the firm has announced a service that will allow its wealth management clients with at least $250,000 in assets to transfer funds from their Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. cash management account into a Bank of America Corp. deposit account on a periodic basis to facilitate their retirement income stream.

Using the service, clients can access their retirement income at a BofA ATM or office. Merrill Lynch advisers will also be able to track their retiree clients' spending habits.

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Tags: business news, training, financial sector

Categories: The Economy

Tags: economy, jobs, careers, employment

Categories: The Economy

The chief executive of New York-based Deloitte L.L.P., one of the nation’s largest accounting and consulting firms, said Wednesday that following through with plans to build a $300 million training facility during the worst recession in 50 years is actually "a bullish and smart move."

"Make no mistake, when this recession ends the war for talent will resume, and when it does, Deloitte University will be a big differentiator and powerful draw," CEO Barry Salzberg told the group at the groundbreaking for the firm’s training and conference facility in Westlake.

"It’s almost the perfect time for us to do this," he said. "The whole philosophy of building a learning and development facility like we’re doing is to make sure it’s embedded in our culture in good times or bad."

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Tags: training, recession, new economy, learning, development

Categories: News | The Economy

Determined to retain your most talented executives? Well, here's some counterintuitive advice: The best way to keep them from leaving is to prepare them to do just that.

In tough economic times like these, retention becomes less of a priority for many companies as they focus on more-immediate business concerns. But companies that neglect this issue during a downturn may be in for a nasty surprise just as things start looking up: Historically, there is a significant increase in the number of executives leaving their companies as market conditions improve and more job opportunities open up.

That's why it's crucial that companies get serious about retention now. And that means giving executives opportunities to take on greater responsibility, broaden their skills and cultivate a network of relationships with their peers. These are the things that executives we have surveyed consistently say they want most from their jobs.

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Tags: talent management, executive, recession, economic downturn, retention

Categories: News | The Economy

Despite the sluggish economy, the talent management software market has enjoyed an active summer and fall.

Leading vendors Taleo and SuccessFactors sought to broaden their horizons, while other software providers introduced new features as companies continued to purchase the products.

While growth rates are less than what was projected a year ago, the talent management market as a whole is growing by about 15 percent and should reach $2.5 billion this year, says Josh Bersin, head of research firm Bersin & Associates.

Far from shriveling amid the recession, the talent management software field is expanding as business-services giants IBM, Accenture, Mercer and Hewitt build strategies to deliver a combination of talent management software, consulting and outsourcing, Bersin says.

Talent management software refers to applications that help organizations with key HR tasks such as recruiting, employee performance management and compensation.

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Tags: talent management, software, recession, economic downturn

Categories: News | The Economy

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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Tags: economy, jobs, careers, small businesses

Categories: The Economy

(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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Tags: economy, jobs, careers, michigan

Categories: The Economy

CHICAGO, Oct. 21 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Already reeling from its worst unemployment rate in a generation, Illinois is also leaving its workers ill-prepared to benefit from the biggest wave of job openings projected for the state over the next seven years, a new report released today has found.

More than one million "middle-skill" job openings -- those that require more than a high school diploma, but less than a four-year degree -- are projected for the state by 2016, representing the largest portion of jobs in the state's skilled labor market, according to a new study released today by The Workforce Alliance (TWA) and the Skills2Compete-Illinois campaign, an affiliate of the national Skills2Compete campaign. But drastic cuts in state-funded employment training programs threaten to impair efforts to fill future middle-skill jobs.

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Tags: skills, skills gap, economy, careers, jobs, illinois

Categories: The Economy