All Articles Tagged "jobs"
The Jobs Situation Is Critical: Do You Need a College Degree to Wait Tables?
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The answer to this question is no. I’d dare to say you don’t need a college degree to wait tables, deliver pizzas, mop floors or answer phones. However, according to CNN and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, college graduates of various backgrounds are finding themselves working all sorts of gigs just to make ends meet.
Underemployment has plagued the US over the past few years and although the unemployment rate is getting better the underemployment rate seems to be getting worse. We hear about the US unemployment rate of around eight percent (for the end of 2012), and don’t highlight the number of underemployed working jobs that in no way relate to what they have studied in college and have racked up debt for.
To put things in perspective, BLS data says about 15 percent or more taxi drivers have a college degree compared to one percent in the 1970s. They have also documented that 1 in 6 bartenders, 1 in 5 telemarketers, and 1 in 4 retail workers have a college degree in their back pocket.
A study released by The Center for College Affordability and Productivity says that about 37 percent of employed U.S. college graduates are working jobs that require no more than a high school diploma. Yes, you read that correctly!
After, going through undergraduate school and/or graduate school we all walk across the stage on commencement day with thoughts of a bright future and a great job. But given this economy, it might take a little longer to get to the higher rungs on that ladder.
We discussed the issue of colleges meeting the needs of an evolved student body and the modern day jobs landscape. Students should also take time to think about the career path they’d like to take and how best to craft an educational experience that will get them there.
Can´t Find A Job? A New Study Says It May Be The City You Live In
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It may be time to move if you live in one of these cities. Although the unemployment numbers are improving, there are some places where it is extremely difficult to get a job.
According to the latest data, the number of Americans requesting unemployment benefits fell to a five-year low of 330,000, reports financial news and opinion website 24/7 Wall St. The site reviewed the 10 metro areas with the highest unemployment rates in the country by using the latest figures available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Natural disaster played a part in the loss of jobs in two of the cities on the list — Atlantic City and Ocean City, New Jersey — both of which were in the path of Superstorm Sandy. “Unemployment skyrocketed in November in both cities. In Ocean City, the jobless rate jumped from 11.8% in October to 14.5% in November,” writes the website.
Southern and central California, and southern Arizona are other areas that had high unemployment rates. “These areas, unlike the New Jersey cities, have low income populations and extremely high poverty rates. In El Centro, California, which had the second-highest unemployment rate in the country of 27.5% in November, more than one quarter of the population is living below the poverty line,” found 24/7 Wall St.
When determining the 10 metropolitan statistical areas with the highest unemployment rates, 24/7 Wall St. also included U.S. Census Bureau data for poverty, income, high school and college attainment levels, and employment by sector, all from 2011.
Here are the top 5:
1. Yuma, Ariz.
Unemployment: 27.5%
12-month unemployment change: 1.2 percentage points
Percentage of population living below poverty line: 21.8%
More than 10 percent of the metro Yuma labor force works in agriculture, which are mostly seasonal jobs. 24/7 Wall St. found that the median household income was also quite low at $38,390 — more than $12,000 below the national median.
2. El Centro, Calif. (Alexis)
Unemployment: 26.6%
12-month unemployment change: -2.3 percentage points
Percentage below poverty line: 26.8%
Things haven’t gotten much better the El Centro. “In November 2011, El Centro had an unemployment rate of 28.9%, then the highest of any metropolitan area in the U.S. Twelve months later, El Centro’s unemployment rate was still the nation’s second-highest, at 26.6%,” writes 24/7 Wall St. Like Yuma, most of he jobs in this city are seasonal.
3. Yuba City, Calif.
Unemployment: 15.8%
12-month unemployment change: -0.8 percentage points
Pct. below poverty line: 16.3%
Like the top two cities, Yuba City’s economy is very dependent on agriculture. But things seem to be improving here because of an increase in construction work. Employment in this area actually rose 24 percent between August 2011 and August 2012, more than all metro areas in the country, according to the Associated General Contractors of America.
4. Merced, Calif.
Unemployment: 15.7%
12-month unemployment change: -0.7 percentage points
Pct. below poverty line: 27.4%
Despite the high unemployment number, the rate had fallen by 0.7 percentage points over the twelve months ending in November. Seasonal agricultural work along with a lack of formal education are big problems here. “As of 2011, just 65.2% of the area’s residents had at least a high school diploma versus 85.9% for the U.S. as a whole,” says 24/7 Wall St.
5. Atlantic City-Hammonton, N.J.
Unemployment: 14.5% (tied-5th lowest)
12-month unemployment change: 2.2 percentage points
Pct. below poverty line: 13.4%
Things could turn around a bit as construction work increases as they start to rebuild the city. Unfortunately, according to 24/7 Wall St., many of the construction workers will come in from out of the state.
Return To Sender: With Postal Jobs Disappearing, So Could The Black Middle Class
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The U.S. Postal Service has eliminated 168,000 jobs since 2006, and more cuts are expected. This could be significant to the African-American middle class. Why? A higher percentage of black workers have USPS jobs. According to a 2012 U.S. Department of Labor report, nearly one in five African-American workers have government jobs such as mail clerks, firefighters and teachers.
“African Americans make up about 20 percent of U.S. Postal Service workers – and are the majority in some urban centers, representing 75 percent to 80 percent of the 5,000 letter carriers in the Chicago area, according to Mack Julion, president of the Chicago branch of the National Association of Letter Carriers,” reports The Huffington Post.
The drastic cuts at the USPS, the country’s second-largest civilian employer after Wal-Mart with some 536,000 career workers, will directly affect its African-American workers. And as the black unemployment rate remains high — 14 percent, roughly double that of whites — it will be harder for African Americans to continue a middle-class lifestyle.
Historically, the postal service had less racial tension, which attracted many African Americans. According to Philip F. Rubio, author of There’s Always Work at the Post Office: African American Postal Workers and the Fight for Jobs, Justice and Equality, in 1865, the U.S. Post Office opened to black workers. “It became a magnet for African Americans who gravitated to the one place where they could take the test and they knew once they got in and became career employees, they were set,” Rubio told the news site. And by World War I, African Americans made up 10 percent of the postal service’s work force.
A USPS position was considered — and still is — a “good job.” The national average annual salary of career employees who work directly with mail, such as letter carriers, is $53,000 to $55,000, reports HuffPo.
The Internet has caused staggering losses — $15.9 billion in fiscal year 2012 alone — for the postal service as more people are using electronic mail. “[T]he postal service is losing $25 million a day, by some estimates, and could run out of money by October,” writes HuffPo.
Behind The Click: Oracle’s Other Oracle Jennifer Sherman On How To Bring More Women Into the Tech Field
Happy New Year and welcome to the first Behind The Click of 2013! I’m happy to bring you a profile on someone who I’ve just discovered…
Though CEO Larry Ellison usually gets most of the media props as Oracle’s head honcho, Jennifer Sherman should definitely be on your tech radar as well. She is proving that, yes, Virginia, there are women of color at such giants as Oracle and doing great things in the process. Sherman is senior director of applications strategy at the company. We’ll get into more about what all that entails in just a bit. But her international background is just as, if not more, compelling.
Current Occupation: Senior Director, Applications Strategy, Oracle Corporation
Favorite website: I’m remodeling my bathroom right now so Pinterest is my new best friend.
Favorite read: Fiction – Song of Solomon; Nonfiction – The Soul of a New Machine
Recent read: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
2013′s ultimate goal: I want to make this year as fabulous as possible. That probably means ordering champagne on Tuesdays, smiling at strangers, accepting compliments wholeheartedly, and telling people how much I value them.
Quote Governing Your Mission or a Quote that Inspires You:
We can choose to be audacious enough to take responsibility for the entire human family. We can choose to make our love for the world what our lives are really about. Each of us has the opportunity, the privilege, to make a difference in creating a world that works for all of us. It will require courage, audacity and heart. It is much more radical than a revolution – it is the beginning of a transformation in the quality of life on our planet. What we create together is a relationship in which our work can show up as making a difference in people’s lives. I welcome the unprecedented opportunity for us to work globally on that which concerns us all as human beings.
If not you, who?
If not now, when?
If not here, where?
-Werner Erhard
Madame Noire: I love how you have lived in many different places. Your background growing up seems fascinating. How did you end up being raised in India, West Africa, and the Middle East?
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african american, analyst, business, careers, engineering, Google, international, jobs, Oracle, science, STEM, technology, womenJob Market Insight: The Best Careers For Women in 2013
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Planning on looking for a new job in 2013? You are not alone. According to recent surveys, more than over 80 percent of workers said they planned to look for a new job in the New Year, reports Forbes. And 60 percent said they wanted to change career paths. And it appears more women will be making career shifts. “For the last few years, more women than men have pursued MBAs in order to make a mid-career switch,” states the magazine.
So what fields should you look into? Forbes has the answer. They just released the “The 10 Best Jobs For Women In 2013” list. The magazine based the ranking on jobs satisfaction, salary, projected growth as well as annual openings. The data was analyzed by jobs expert Laurence Shatkin, Ph.D., author of Best Jobs For The 21st Century.
Topping the list were jobs in health care, which is one of the fastest-growing sectors of the U.S. economy and dominated by women. What was surprising, writes Forbes is that most of the jobs on the roundup “are high-level professional jobs requiring a major education and time commitment. For example, lawyers and judges and top-level managers and executives — jobs known for long hours and a lot of stress — have some of the highest satisfaction levels among women.”
Also, some of the best jobs for women are ones where women are in the minority of workers, such as actuaries (only 29 percent are women) and petroleum engineers (five percent).
There are more women in the professional ranks these days; they now earn the majority of professional and doctoral degrees, up from just 10 percent in 1961, writes Forbes. The number of women in law school too has increased from four percent in 1963 to 44 percent today. Women in medical school jumped from six percent to 49 percent. But as Forbes points out, women still face significant leadership and wage gaps, earning just 82 percent of what their male counterparts earn with just one year out of college.
Here are the top five best jobs for women in 2013:
No. 1: Diagnosing Doctors (e.g. Dentists, Optometrists, Physicians)
Percentage reporting high satisfaction levels: 60%
Median salary: $121,000
Forecasted growth through 2020: 27%
Average annual openings: 79,000
No. 2: Health Professionals (e.g. Registered Nurses, Pharmacists, Dieticians)
Percentage reporting high satisfaction levels: 52%
Median salary: $70,000
Forecasted growth through 2020: 26%
Average annual openings: 141,000
No. 3: Medical Scientists*
Percentage reporting high satisfaction levels: 56%
Median salary: $76,000
Forecasted growth through 2020: 36%
Average annual openings: 4,000
*Excluding practitioners
No. 4: Lawyers and Judges
Percentage reporting high satisfaction levels: 55%
Median salary: $112,000
Forecasted growth through 2020: 10%
Average annual openings: 23,000
No. 5: Actuaries
Percentage reporting high satisfaction levels: 56%
Median salary: $91,000
Forecasted growth through 2020: 27%
Average annual openings: 2,000
10 Ways to Get the Most Out of Your LinkedIn Account
Whether or not you are currently looking for a new job, having a polished and prepared LinkedIn profile can be a good thing. By having this more professional page on a social network, it allows you to build working and career-focused relationships online as well as off. Then, when you do decide to make the next job move or are looking for your next client, it can be an invaluable resource.
We’ve talked about networking and job transition over the past couple of days. Here are some ways to make the most out of your LinkedIn profile, a vital piece of the career puzzle.
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Fill out all your information.
This is the first step on LinkedIn, but many people often only fill out their basic information. Have a professional photograph, include descriptions of your past work, connect with previous companies, add education and volunteer experience, and mostly just make sure your page looks full and complete.
Labor Department Report Shows Decrease In Unemployment Rate to Four-Year Low, Contradicts ADP Report
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The latest jobs report from the US Labor Department shows a decrease in the unemployment rate, from 7.9 percent to 7.7 percent, with 146,000 jobs added in November. Experts had predicted that 85,000 jobs would be added.
However, the report indicates that 350,000 people have stopped looking for work, and the number of people who said they had a job decreased by 122,000.
“Add it all up, and the conclusion is this: The trend that we thought was underway — of a U.S. economy growing steadily but at an unspectacular pace — remains underway, and was not undone either by the hurricane or by anxiety over looming austerity — the tax hikes and spending cuts scheduled to take effect Jan. 1 if Congress and the White House can’t agree on a deal,” The Washington Post says.
This contradicts Wednesday’s ADP National Report, which fell below forecaster predictions. Sandy was directly tied to the less-then-expected showing. ADP draws on information from its customers to calculate its figures.
The Labor Department says the biggest gains were made in retail (53,000 jobs), professional and business services (43,000), and leisure and hospitality (23,000).
Still, for the black population, the unemployment rate is well above average. Labor Department numbers put the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate at 13.2 percent for African Americans, a decrease from 14.3 percent in November. Not seasonally adjusted, the unemployment rate is 12.7 percent, down from 13.8 percent.
James Glassman, a senior economist at JP Morgan Chase, told Bloomberg that the rate of payroll growth “is too slow to make much of a dent into the pool of unemployed, but it’s steady and persistent.” The newswire says Thanksgiving retail hiring at places like Macy’s and Toys ‘R Us were up.
Sandy Still Taking a Toll: ADP Report Says 118,000 Jobs Added in November, Fewer Than Expected
The scene at a California job fair. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)
Private companies across the mid-Atlantic region put their hiring plans on hold due to Hurricane Sandy, pushing November’s jobs number lower than expected. According to the latest ADP National Report, companies added 118,000 jobs during the month. Bloomberg economists had largely predicted 125,000 jobs. The region hardest hit by Sandy “employs 14 percent” of the nation’s workers, the news wire reports. “The report estimated that Sandy reduced payrolls by about 86,000,” the story continues.
Reuters references Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi, who said “that underlying growth in private sector jobs was around 150,000 in November after the impact of Sandy is discounted as well as about 60,000 to 70,000 jobs that were brought forward due to the start of the holiday season.”
Sandy was also blamed for less-than-stellar jobs numbers from the US Labor Department for the week ending November 17, in which unemployment claims were up 41,000. Public sector jobs like government workers and teachers were hard hit in that report, which has taken a toll on the employment rate for African-American women.
It was reported this morning that President Obama plans to ask for $50 billion in Sandy relief funds, which would help New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. The states had sought more than $30 billion more than that. “The White House is trying to frame its storm-spending request so as not to conflict with its showdown with Republicans in Congress over broader budget issues, hoping to present it as a separate issue that has little to do with the long-term health of the treasury,” The New York Times reports. Small businesses and homeowners would likely benefit from some of that, though it has yet to be determined how exactly it will be spent.
Temp work and retail were among the areas hard hit on the ADP report. No doubt, Sandy put a kink in the beginning of the holiday shopping season, which would affect both of these sectors. Check out our story about finding seasonal work if you’re still in the job market for one of those positions.
On The Root, Kelli Goff proposes that African-American small businesses will also help with the employment crisis in the black community. “According to research, increasing the number of minority entrepreneurs has an automatic net positive effect on minority employment numbers. The reason? Minority employers are statistically more likely to hire other minorities,” she writes.
New numbers from the U.S. Labor Department are coming this Friday.
Nina Simone & Marvin Gaye Biopics Take Notes: First Photos Of Ashton Kutcher As Steve Jobs Drop…And They’re Twins
Can’t say how I feel 100 percent about Ashton Kutcher these days, especially after the whole ugly split between him and Demi Moore and the fact that “Two And A Half Men” is just NOT funny, but I can say that I’m starting to get VERY excited about his starring role in this Steve Jobs biopic. And it will be refreshing to see since I don’t think anyone has watched Kutcher play a serious role since…maybe Butterfly Effect!? Why? To get people excited and the ball rolling on promotion, stills from the movie just dropped with Kutcher dressed like Jobs circa the early ’80s and I must say, these two men look eerily similar.
The photos were put out to also alert people that the movie, jOBS, will premiere at the Sundance Film Festival this January, closing out the very popular annual event. According to the Guardian UK, the movie will cover about three decades of the entrepreneur and tech king’s life, and it definitely sounds captivating, just check out the movie description that was put on the Sundance press release. “The true story of one of the greatest entrepreneurs in American history, jOBS chronicles the defining 30 years of Steve Jobs’ life. jOBS is a candid, inspiring and personal portrait of the one who saw things differently.” And if that’s not enough for you, get excited because the movie also stars Dermot Mulroney, Matthew Modine and more. Don’t know who those people are? It’s okay, I’m not too sure either, but that’s what they made Google for! Anyway, now that you see the stills, are you excited for the biopic? Do you think Kutcher and Jobs look very similar or is this a miss?
New Year, New Job: A Small Company Could Be The Best Option
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As the new year approaches many of you will look to find new jobs. With a new job comes a fresh start. When looking at new job options, seek out companies that have a philosophy of diversity, which usually lends itself not just to a fair workplace, but one that embraces innovation. Also consider smaller companies, which could have benefits that you wouldn’t see with large companies. “In small businesses, a new employee often has a higher profile and is more appreciated than in a large company,” notes Yahoo Business. With a small company there tends to be more responsibility for each position, which means you are able to develop new skills. There are many small businesses that have also adopted diversity as part of their culture.
Recently Great Places to Work, a global research and consulting firm, revealed the 2012 Best Small & Medium Workplaces list, published by Fortune magazine. Each year, for the past nine, the list recognizes the top 50 small- and medium-sized companies in the United States. The list ranks companies on credibility, respect, fairness, pride, and camaraderie. We decided to look at the best places to work that take diversity seriously.
McMurry University, which placed number nine, on the Best Places to Work Small Company list, is also tops in diversity. In fact, the U.S. News and World Report Best Colleges Guide named McMurry University as one of the most racially-diverse universities in its region. And it was not just based on the student body, but the school’s staff as well.
Sunnyvale, Calif-based Akraya, Inc., run by Sonu Ratra, who came to America 15 years ago and has always stressed diversity. The IT staffing and managed solutions firm, which placed number 14 on the list, has revenues of $40 million and 300 employees. In fact writes Ratra in The Diversity Journal, “I have long been involved with workforce diversity and inclusion business… Armed with the first hand knowledge of the difficulties diversity businesses are confronted with, I have been committed to sharing my experiences with other businesses in need of guidance.” According to Ratra, the key to Akraya’s success is its “strong diversity program.”
“In 2012, I plan to grow Akraya’s Diversity Supplier Network while also continuing to educate diverse suppliers about the benefits of the certification. I am committed to workforce diversity and hope that Akraya can serve as a resource and role model for other minority businesses,” she writes.
