Personal Business Advisors

Dead Suit Walking

2011-04-19T13:39:00.002-05:00

If this isn't the Great Depression, it is the Great Humbling. Can manhood survive the lost decade?

Brian Goodell, of Mission Viejo, Calif., won two gold medals in the 1976 Olympics. An all-American, God-fearing golden boy, he segued into a comfortable career in commercial real estate. Until 2008, when he was laid off. As a 17-year-old swimmer, he set two world records. As a 52-year-old job hunter, he’s drowning.

Brock Johnson, of Philadelphia, was groomed at Harvard Business School and McKinsey & Co., and was so sure of his marketability that he resigned in 2009 as CEO of a Fortune 500 company without a new job in hand. Johnson, who asked that his real name not be used, was certain his BlackBerry would be buzzing off its holster with better offers. At 48, he’s still unemployed.

Two coasts. Two men who can’t find jobs. And one defining moment for the men in the gray flannel suits who used to run this country. Or at least manage it.
Capitalism has always been cruel to its castoffs, but those blessed with a college degree and blue-chip résumé have traditionally escaped the worst of it. In recessions past, they’ve kept their jobs or found new ones as easily as they might hail a cab or board the 5:15 to White Plains. But not this time.

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Can Manhood Survive the Recession?

The suits are “doing worse than they have at any time since the Great Depression,” says Heidi Shierholz, a labor economist at the Economic Policy Institute. And while economists don’t have fine-grain data on the number of these men who are jobless—many, being men, would rather not admit to it—by all indications this hitherto privileged demo isn’t just on its knees, it’s flat on its face. Maybe permanently. Once college-educated workers hit 45, notes a post on the professional-finance blog Calculated Risk, “if they lose their job, they are toast.”

The same guys who once drove BMWs, in other words, have now been downsized to BWMs: Beached White Males.

Through the first quarter of 2011, nearly 600,000 college-educated white men ages 35 to 64 were unemployed, according to previously unpublished Labor Department stats. That’s more than 5 percent jobless—double the group’s pre-recession rate. That might not sound bad compared with the plight of younger, less-educated workers and minorities, but it’s a historic change from the last recession, when about half as many lost their oxford shirts. The number of college-educated men unemployed for at least a year is five times higher today than after the dotcom bubble. In New York City, men in the 35-to-54 kill zone have lost jobs faster than any other group, including teenage girls, according to new data from the Fiscal Policy Institute.

As if middle age isn’t bad enough. The moribund metabolism. The purple pill that keeps your food down. The blue pill that keeps another part of your anatomy up. Now you can’t get an effing job? Stuck in your own personal Detroit of the soul, with the grinding stress of enforced idleness. The wife who doesn’t look at you quite the same way. The poignantly forgiving sons. The stain on your masculinity for becoming the bread-loser. The night sweats and dark refuge of Internet porn. The gnawing fear that this may be the beginning of a slow, shaming crawl to early Social Security.

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There’s been little research on the psychic toll of the Mancession. But this month NEWSWEEK conducted an exclusive poll of 250 unemployed (and underemployed) men ages 41 to 59. Most of them are married, white, middle-class, and looking for work. The results (see chart) provide a rare window into the BWM and a characteristically male contradiction between feelings and action. As in: I’m never going to get a job as good as my old one, but I refuse to sell the house! Or: I’m depressed, I can’t sleep, my sex drive is shot, and my wife now has to support the family, but I don’t need marriage counseling! I’ll just give Mommy a back rub, do some housework, and we’ll be fine!

It might be tempting to snark at these former fat cats suffering lean times. But when Beached White Males suffer, so do their wives and children. Lives, marriages, and futures are at stake. Examining who these guys are, and what washed them up, is not an exercise in schadenfreude. It’s a cautionary tale. To quote Arthur Miller on the most famous Beached White Male, “Attention must be paid.”

Consider Brock Johnson, the executive who walked away from a Fortune 500 company two years ago and hasn’t found a job since. On a rainy Friday over lunch near his six-bedroom home, Johnson says his wife and five kids are wondering, “How much money do we really have? How long can we stay in this house?” He sends out 40 emails a day in search of the job that will put him back on top.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. At Harvard, friends joked that Johnson had “the CEO look.” At 6 feet 4, with a full head of close-cropped hair, he not only looks but talks like Alec Baldwin’s Jack Donaghy character from 30 Rock. His résumé lists his strength as “transformational change management.” On his LinkedIn page he describes himself as a CEO, as though it’s an immutable characteristic, like his lake-blue eyes.

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At first, he felt as if he was on vacation, but moved quickly into disbelief and despair. The family dynamic started to fray. “What was he thinking?” his preteen daughter asked her mom one night. “In this economy?” Every couple of weeks his middle-school son comes into Johnson’s home office to check on him. “Dad?” he begins. “Have you found any jobs you might like?”

“It’s humbling,” Johnson says. He started going to networking events, which only brought him lower. “A bunch of people get together, hang out, trade contacts. For me it’s kind of depressing … I’m not trying to be arrogant, but I have better contacts than most people.” At this thought, his cheeks redden. When he was employed, he didn’t do much to help those who weren’t. “I’m embarrassed to admit that.” He vows he’ll treat people differently now. He looks away.

The corporate warrior has begun to cry.

In California, Brian Goodell tells a similar tale of entitlement denied. The Olympic medalist is the kind of Wheaties-box hero whom corporations used to hire just to put on the golf course with clients. Those days are over. “I was one of the most recent hires, so it didn’t surprise me I was laid off, especially since we’d already experienced a round of layoffs. But I was surprised no one was hiring. I’ve always been able to find something within a few months. The negative thoughts,” he says, “can overwhelm you.”

Goodell, who is married to a successful real-estate agent in their Orange County suburb, says his joblessness has added “a lot of stress to the marriage. She feels like she can’t take a breath. She works around the clock, she’s so afraid of my situation. She’s under extreme pressure, and she resents it. So I can’t take a breath. My boys’ll say, ‘Hey, Dad, you wanna go to the beach?’ and I have to think about what she’ll think if I’m at the beach. I have to tell ’em, ‘I don’t think I better do that.’ ”

What whacked guys like him was nothing personal, just business. From the financial meltdown in late 2007 that led to the recession up to now, the rolls of all unemployed white professional men have more than doubled, to a million (not including sales jobs, which add another 300,000). Wall Street and the broader world of business culled the most, laying off more than 300,000 from their trading desks and cubicle farms. Firms that draw on computer skills also thinned about 50,000 men from their ranks. Architects and engineers, the hardest hit by the housing crash, saw almost 90,000 casualties. In each category, the unemployment rate doubled—and then some.

In some ways, it was inevitable. Automation isn’t just a blue-collar problem anymore. Powerful software programs replaced armies of financial officers, accountants, computer-chip designers, even lawyers, who now feed millions of documents into “e-discovery” programs. Job growth in management, technology, and other white-collar professions slowed to nearly zero. The media business has been perhaps hardest hit by technological change. Last year ABC News pink-slipped nearly 400 people—25 percent of its workforce.

Many of these guys may be great on the back nine but totally lack the skill set to get them through anything like this, says Judith Gerberg, a Manhattan-based executive career coach. “If you went to the college of your choice, married the woman of your choice, and bought the house of your choice, you’ve never dealt with rejection. You’ve never had to develop fortitude.” She gives her clients a chart with all the hours of the day, because corporate types are used to having other people color-code their life. If not quite the Great Depression, it is certainly the Great Humbling.

As the clock ticks toward noon, another supplicant shifts in the hot seat, trying to impress an interviewer who has seen it all. It’s day two of a six-day boot camp for unemployed professionals at Brandman University in Irvine, Calif. The atmosphere is a cross between a 12-step meeting and The Apprentice, complete with chest-pumping team names like “The Closers!”
Right now, the focus is one-on-one. John Hall, a 72-year-old silver fox known locally as the “John Wooden of career coaches” (after the legendary UCLA basketball guru), is conducting mock job interviews. It’s only an exercise, but the interviewees get nervous and forget their lines. You can feel throats going dry, shirts moistening with flop sweat.

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MOCK INTERVIEWER: “Did you have any trouble finding us?”

INTERVIEWEE: “Nope, I did a drive-by yesterday, so I knew exactly where to go!”

MOCK INTERVIEWER: “Tell me a little about why you’d be right for this position.”

INTERVIEWEE: “Oh, OK. Well, uh … ” [Awkward pause.]

It’s like a particularly grim night at the Improv. And it might be funny, if it weren’t so painful to watch.

Get them together, and it’s like group therapy. During a half-hour lunch break, some of the men in the class—all in their 40s and 50s—pull out brown paper bags and unpack the anguish that brought them here. “I feel like I’m wearing this neon sign on my car saying, ‘Unemployed Bum,’ ” says Chip LeDoux. At 42, he’s the baby of this luckless group, laid off from a sales job six months ago. Dave Santos, a 56-year-old former telecom salesman, has a longer tale of woe. He’s been unemployed for three years, but only his wife and sons know. When his mother calls, he lies. The hardest part, he says, is “looking in the mirror every day.”

While laid-off Europeans blame the System, Homo americanus blames himself. “It gets turned inward,” says Stephanie Coontz, author of Marriage, a History. “ ‘What’s wrong with me as a man?’ ”

They’re hurting, these men of a certain age. Losing their livelihood isn’t the only “transition” they’re going through. Dr. Jed Diamond, author of Surviving Male Menopause and The Irritable Male Syndrome, calls it a “double whammy.” The first: “a change of life, hormonally based, affecting our psychology and emotions from 40 to 55.” The second: unemployment. “It’s devastating. The extreme reaction is suicide, but before you get there, there’s irritability and anger, fatigue, loss of energy, withdrawal, drinking, more fights with their wives.”

And sex. Or lack thereof. In the NEWSWEEK Poll, 45 percent of men admitted to a diminished interest in sex. It’s a vicious cycle, Diamond says. “You don’t feel as manly because you lost your job. You don’t feel as sexy, so there are more problems with you and your wife.”

Intellectually, women can say, “It’s not his fault, he’s working hard to find a job.” Emotionally, it’s another story. This is a generation caught between two ideas of manhood, says Coontz: “Old enough to have been brought up with a model of male breadwinning. Young enough to feel they shouldn’t be threatened if their wife has a job.”

When downward mobility is being disguised, it’s often by the wife. UCLA sociologist Jennie Brand studies the life trajectories of “socioeconomically disadvantaged populations,” which now includes white males. When people lose jobs, she finds upticks in depression and declines in social participation. Others have found divorce—as well as a transfer to kids, whose report cards suffer. “Everything I’ve done so far suggests that there will be long-term ramifications,” says Brand. “Not only in two or three years, but 10 years from now we’ll be dealing with the effects of this recession.” John Wells, whose acclaimed drama The Company Men is about four BWMs laid off by a Boston manufacturing firm, calls it a “lost decade.”

If the career and life you trained for don’t exist anymore, one might tactfully ask, how about retraining? Companies used to pick up the tab for outplacement of canned personnel. Today those programs are rare. Some states pick up the slack with their own initiatives. But few seem to work. A 2008 Labor Department study found that the largest government retraining program offered “small or nonexistent” benefits. One unspoken reason: age.

Texas A&M economist Joanna Lahey found that 50-year-old white men are less likely to land jobs in states that enforce age-discrimination laws. Why? Firms, it seems, don’t want to get involved with members of a contentious group. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reports that age-discrimination complaints rose by 28 percent in 2008, a year when three quarters of job losers were male, and rose again in 2010, surging past 23,000. No wonder graying men are dyeing their hair.

Many of the newly jobless rebrand themselves as consultants. The number of so-called independent contractors is up by more than 1 million since 2005, according to Jeffrey Eisenach, an economist at George Mason University. More than one in five of them work in management, business, or finance. Boutique employment agencies are springing up to exploit this labor pool, which is attractive to companies that would rather not shell out for benefits or a 401(k). The New York–based Business Talent Group has a deep bench of BWMs (and some BWFs) for hire, many of them M.B.A.s with two decades of experience as managers, directors, or C-level boardroom players. BTG is on track for record growth this year, says Jody Greenstone Miller, an ex–Time Warner executive who founded the company in 2005. “We want people who treat this type of work as a permanent career,” Miller says. It typically takes executives six to nine months of looking for staff jobs, she adds, before they come around to the idea that no matter what you were before, you’re now basically a full-time temp.

Brian Goodell, who finished John Hall’s boot camp a month ago, is trying hard to be resilient. He and his eldest son, who just graduated from college, go to networking events together, as well as to the “job ministry” at Rick Warren’s Saddleback megachurch. And he’s training again with his old Olympic coach. The tough part for this onetime elite athlete is the pity. “Say you have a disease, like cancer, and you’re trying to be real positive and everyone’s like, ‘How are you doing?’ I’m like, ‘Don’t pity me. I’m strong. Don’t pity me.’ ”
He held the phone out to his wife, Vicki, who had just walked in and was running into the shower, taking a work call on her cell.

“Hey, hon!” Goodell called out, following her into the bathroom, laughing. “I think she’s taking her phone into the shower. Wanna talk to NEWSWEEK?”

You could hear her heels kick off onto the tile, the water turning on.

“No!” she shouted.

“She’s way too busy,” Goodell says.

Or she doesn’t want to talk about it.

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2011-03-31T23:34:00.000-05:00

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2011-03-31T23:30:00.001-05:00

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2011-03-31T23:30:00.000-05:00

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Life Expectancy Hits All Time High

2011-03-30T14:17:00.000-05:00

The good news is Baby Boomers can expect to live longer and healthier lives. The United States Center for Disease Prevention announced last week that life expectancy at birth rose to 78.2 in 2009, compared with 78.0 years in 2008. For men, the number hit 75.7 years while women can expect to live 80.6 years. The bad news is many Baby Boomers will have to rely on unemployment benefits or part time jobs to supplement dwindling cash flow from retirement funds, inheritance or Social Security benefits. Fortunately, Personal Business Advisors, LLC can offer Baby Boomers a solution to not only enjoy their golden years, but also supplement their retirement cash flow while creating jobs for other unemployed people across our nation.

Baby Boomers will live the longest of any generation before them in history. Just as a perspective, life expectancy when the Social Security Trust Fund was created was 58 for men and 62 for women. The longer lifespan is going to put a strain on the Social Security Trust Fund. Unfortunately for more and more Baby Boomers, living longer means needing income for a longer part of time. For most, that will mean part time jobs or, with the lack of jobs available across the country, collecting unemployment checks.

For entrepreneurial Baby Boomers, the solution to retirement cash flow won’t be as part time jobs or unemployment benefits. It will come by remaining active in life and the local business community by creating business opportunities. Personal Business Advisors, LLC can help connect Baby Boomers with opportunities such as starting a business, buying an existing business or even purchasing a distributorship to lower the unemployment rate in the nation by creating jobs for others.

Baby Boomers can expect to enjoy an active lifestyle in retirement. After working for years for another company, the opportunity now exists for Baby Boomers to unleash their passion in businesses that they now enjoy. Instead of part time jobs, launch a business. Don’t settle for unemployment when you can create jobs for others by buying and expanding a business. There are thousands of entrepreneurial opportunities all over the nation – from pet care facilities and quick serve restaurants to tax preparation firms or even mailbox stores. The opportunities are endless and firms such as Personal Business Advisors, LLC can help Baby Boomers create jobs by using their skills instead of simply working part time jobs or collecting 99 weeks of unemployment insurance.

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2011-03-28T22:56:00.000-05:00

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2011-03-28T17:38:00.000-05:00

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Cash-Flow Crisis Is Recession's Legacy for Small Biz

2011-03-07T18:44:00.001-06:00

Companies reeling from stalled sales and tightened credit face formidable threats: customers paying more slowly and suppliers seeking to be paid more quickly

Custom cabinet seller M&J Kitchens survived the Great Recession even though its revenue from homeowners and builders dropped by more than half in 2009. Then, last August, with sales tracking 42 percent higher than a year earlier, owner Drew Davies shut the East Greenwich (R.I.) company after 26 years, unable to pay his bills. M&J was a casualty of a cash-flow crisis precipitated by his bank and trading partners who, Davies says, abandoned payment agreements that had been in place for decades.
More than a year into the official recovery, small businesses face what some say has become a permanent legacy of the recession: Their vendors are demanding faster payment even as their customers are taking longer to pay. Companies with the least bargaining power get squeezed the hardest. "The slowdown of currency, of money, the exchange, put us in a very precarious position," says Davies, 50. "We basically had panic from our vendors."
The problem that helped put Davies out of business is growing. The average time private companies took to collect accounts receivable increased to about 27 days in 2010 from about 23 days, the level it had been for the previous four years, according to data from accounting software maker Sageworks, which collects and analyzes financial statements from thousands of private companies. Likewise, average payment times jumped to about 24 days, up from 20 or 21. The largest corporations take even longer to pay. Companies in the S&P 500 paid vendors in 59 days on average in the most recent quarter and collected payments in 46 days, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Delinquent Dollars

Even as companies push for more time to pay their bills, more are falling behind the terms agreed on, data from credit bureau Experian show. In December, 14.3 percent of dollars owed were delinquent, vs. 12.5 percent at the start of 2010. The average time late payers took increased as well, to 6.5 days in December from 5.8 at the start of 2010.
In Davies' case, he had to float his own commercial customers—builders, architects, and home remodelers—who had slowed their payments, typically from 30 days to 60 or 90. At the same time, his own suppliers changed agreements that had been in place for decades by cutting credit lines or requiring deposits, which Davies says could tie up between $60,000 and $120,000 per month.
The late payments rippled through the supply chain. At Wood-Mode, one of the cabinet lines Davies sold, customers that normally pay in 30 days are taking closer to 60, and fewer are taking advantage of discounts for paying in 10 days, says credit manager Nick Yoder. In general, he says, the 1,100-employee Kreamer (Pa.) company has not changed terms and tries to be flexible with its 1,200 dealers, though in some cases Wood-Mode has begun asking for larger deposits or payment on delivery when buyers appear risky. "We have to reassess each individual's credit as different orders are placed with us, and we're reviewing how much we're going to give them as far as a credit line," Yoder says.
Changes in vendors' payment terms can have seismic effects on small businesses, particularly when bank credit is tight. Though Davies says he was current on his bank loans—an $800,000 commercial mortgage on his showroom and a $200,000 credit line—his lender called them in last March, saying he had violated a loan covenant that required a certain ratio of assets to liabilities. M&J Kitchens, which once employed 12 people and grossed $3 million to $4 million a year, went into receivership at the end of August. The business was one of 85,000 commercial bankruptcies in 2010, a figure up 30 percent from 2008, according to bankruptcy data provider AACER.

"New Normal"

Longer terms are part of the "new normal," says Joe Reini, founder of the 28-employee engineering services company Mason-Grey. "It seems to me that 'net 30' is gone," he says, referring to the practice of paying invoices in 30 days. "Customers are now asking for 45, 60, some are even asking for 90 or 120 days." About half the Atlanta company's customers, which include large industrial companies in pharmaceutical, energy, and metals production, have sought longer payment terms, Reini says.
Since 2009, he has been speeding up his cash flow by selling some of his invoices on The Receivables Exchange, an online marketplace where investors pay cash to buy unpaid invoices at a discount. Nic Perkin, co-founder of the New Orleans-based exchange, says larger companies stretching out their payments is a prime reason small businesses choose to sell their receivables. "The large corporations are in a position to drive terms. One of the terms they can drive is the payment cycle of their supply chain," he says.
The longer payment periods clog the pipes of commerce. Mike Mitternight, president of Factory Service Agency in Metarie, La., says about one-third of his revenue "is tied up in longer-than-normal terms." The nine-employee commercial air-conditioning contractor, with sales of $1.5 million to $2.5 million, installs and maintains AC systems in such places as churches, schools, and retailers. "The big chains are holding on to their money longer," he says.
The shift, which he says affects at least 40 percent of his accounts, means he can only buy from certain manufacturers "who will allow a little extra float." Mitternight avoids other suppliers that demand payment in 30 days when he knows his customers won't pay that quickly. Accounts receivable ballooning on his balance sheet makes Factory Service Agency look weaker on paper to potential lenders and insurers who provide the bonding needed for government contracts. "It's hard to expand and grow your business," he says.
Davies, of M&J Kitchens, says his vendors unintentionally helped cause the thing they were trying to prevent: By tightening their credit terms to reduce the risk of him not paying, they pushed him into receivership. "Without the cash flow we were used to and without the terms we were used to, we didn't have great negotiating power with the bank," he says. "We were getting squeezed from both sides."

By John Tozzi

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How the middle class became the underclass

2011-03-07T18:17:00.001-06:00

The average American's income has not changed much, while the richest 5% of Americans have seen their earnings surge.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Are you better off than your parents?

Probably not if you're in the middle class.

Incomes for 90% of Americans have been stuck in neutral, and it's not just because of the Great Recession. Middle-class incomes have been stagnant for at least a generation, while the wealthiest tier has surged ahead at lighting speed.

In 1988, the income of an average American taxpayer was $33,400, adjusted for inflation. Fast forward 20 years, and not much had changed: The average income was still just $33,000 in 2008, according to IRS data.

Meanwhile, the richest 1% of Americans -- those making $380,000 or more -- have seen their incomes grow 33% over the last 20 years, leaving average Americans in the dust.

Experts point to some of the usual suspects -- like technology and globalization -- to explain the widening gap between the haves and have-nots.

But there's more to the story.

A real drag on the middle class
One major pull on the working man was the decline of unions and other labor protections, said Bill Rodgers, a former chief economist for the Labor Department, now a professor at Rutgers University.

Because of deals struck through collective bargaining, union workers have traditionally earned 15% to 20% more than their non-union counterparts, Rodgers said.

But union membership has declined rapidly over the past 30 years. In 1983, union workers made up about 20% of the workforce. In 2010, they represented less than 12%.

"The erosion of collective bargaining is a key factor to explain why low-wage workers and middle income workers have seen their wages not stay up with inflation," Rodgers said.

Without collective bargaining pushing up wages, especially for blue-collar work -- average incomes have stagnated.

International competition is another factor. While globalization has lifted millions out of poverty in developing nations, it hasn't exactly been a win for middle class workers in the U.S.

Factory workers have seen many of their jobs shipped to other countries where labor is cheaper, putting more downward pressure on American wages.

"As we became more connected to China, that poses the question of whether our wages are being set in Beijing," Rodgers said.

Finding it harder to compete with cheaper manufacturing costs abroad, the U.S. has emerged as primarily a services-producing economy. That trend has created a cultural shift in the job skills American employers are looking for.

Whereas 50 years earlier, there were plenty of blue collar opportunities for workers who had only high school diploma, now employers seek "soft skills" that are typically honed in college, Rodgers said.

A boon for the rich
While average folks were losing ground in the economy, the wealthiest were capitalizing on some of those same factors, and driving an even bigger wedge between themselves and the rest of America.

For example, though globalization has been a drag on labor, it's been a major win for corporations who've used new global channels to reduce costs and boost profits. In addition, new markets around the world have created even greater demand for their products.

"With a global economy, people who have extraordinary skills... whether they be in financial services, technology, entertainment or media, have a bigger place to play and be rewarded from," said Alan Johnson, a Wall Street compensation consultant.

As a result, the disparity between the wages for college educated workers versus high school grads has widened significantly since the 1980s.

In 1980, workers with a high school diploma earned about 71% of what college-educated workers made. In 2010, that number fell to 55%.

Another driver of the rich: The stock market.

The S&P 500 has gained more than 1,300% since 1970. While that's helped the American economy grow, the benefits have been disproportionately reaped by the wealthy.

And public policy of the past few decades has only encouraged the trend.

The 1980s was a period of anti-regulation, presided over by President Reagan, who loosened rules governing banks and thrifts.

A major game changer came during the Clinton era, when barriers between commercial and investment banks, enacted during the post-Depression era, were removed.

In 2000, the Commodity Futures Modernization Act also weakened the government's oversight of complex securities, allowing financial innovations to take off, creating unprecedented amounts of wealth both for the overall economy, and for those directly involved in the financial sector.

Tax cuts enacted during the Bush administration and extended under Obama were also a major windfall for the nation's richest.

And as then-Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan brought interest rates down to new lows during the decade, the housing market experienced explosive growth.

"We were all drinking the Kool-aid, Greenspan was tending bar, Bernanke and the academic establishment were supplying the liquor," Deutsche Bank managing director Ajay Kapur wrote in a research report in 2009.

But the story didn't end well. Eventually, it all came crashing down, resulting in the worst economic slump since the Great Depression.

With the unemployment rate still excessively high and the real estate market showing few signs of rebounding, the American middle class is still reeling from the effects of the Great Recession.

Meanwhile, as corporate profits come roaring back and the stock market charges ahead, the wealthiest people continue to eclipse their middle-class counterparts.

"I think it's a terrible dilemma, because what we're obviously heading toward is some kind of class warfare," Johnson said.

By Annalyn Censky

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Gallop Poll Cites Unemployment as Major Problem in United States

2011-02-17T11:09:00.001-06:00

Personal Business Advisors: Article & Insights

A Gallop poll released just last week announced that Americans feel unemployment and the lack of jobs is the biggest problem currently facing the nation. A full 35 percent of Americans said that jobs and unemployment was their biggest concern, the highest percentage since the Great Recession started and the highest rating since the jobless recovery of the late 1980s. It was the second month in a row that unemployment topped the polls with the economy placing second and healthcare third. However the unemployment survey data doesn’t come to a surprise for online senior level career transition websites such as Personal Business Advisors.

Throughout 2009, the economy was the major issue facing most Americans. With the unemployment rate now consistently over 9 percent and the lack of jobs available for unemployed job seekers, unemployment has replaced the economy as the main concern of most Americans. According to Personal Business Advisors, the job loss impact to C-level Baby Boomer executives is even more significant.

Back in late January, Gallop released another study about job creation and unemployment stating that most Americans are pessimistic about job creation and six in ten unemployed people feel that the next job they get will not be the one they want. However, they will have to simply settle for whatever job they can find. On average, unemployed workers have spent 27 weeks looking for a job and have applied on average for 45 different jobs.

With a full 42 percent of senior level executives unemployed; many now seeking jobs and career opportunities have started looking at websites such as Personal Business Advisors to locate alternative sources of employment. In fact, experts believe that many people, especially Baby Boomers, have simply stopped looking for jobs during a long period of unemployment and instead are creating their own job – by working for themselves.

Companies such as Personal Business Advisors are helping C-level executives transition from unemployment to creating new businesses using franchising, buying an existing business, being a distributor or by licensing a product.

The wealth of knowledge available at websites, such as the Personal Business Advisors, is often a great starting place for senior level executives dedicated on fighting unemployment and lighting the entrepreneurial spirit to create a job of their own.

The government continues to believe that the economy will be slow to recover and jobs will be slow to appear with a continued drag on the unemployment rate. While this is a concern to many Americans, as displayed in the Gallop polls, many people are choosing a different route and instead deciding to create their own job by bootstrapping a new business.

With a wide level of natural management skills, senior and c-level professionals can use online resources such as Personal Business Advisors to recreate themselves and develop their own job in the face of lagging unemployment.

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Boomers Finding Slim Job Prospects in Unemployment

2011-02-15T15:49:00.001-06:00

Personal Business Advisors: Articles & Insights

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Boomers Finding Slim Job Prospects in Unemployment

The jobless recovery now taking place in the United States is especially tough on Baby Boomers; Americans aged 47 to 65 years old. In fact, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is seeing an increase in complaints from Boomers aggressively seeking jobs while collecting unemployment benefits. Websites catering to the needs of unemployed Baby Boomers looking for alternative employment, such as Personal Business Advisors, are also seeing an increase in traffic as more senior level executives find themselves on unemployment and looking to create their own business opportunities, which create jobs.

A full 39 percent of Baby Boomer men were less likely to get a job each month compared with younger unemployed workers according to a job and unemployment survey conducted by CNN. According to Personal Business Advisors, 76 percent of the 77 million Baby Boomers plan to seek a job in retirement and currently 42 percent of senior level executives are unemployed.

Compounding the issue for most Baby Boomers is the fact that they need to rely more on job income due to the minimal return on bank savings accounts and the recent correction in the stock market. Many Baby Boomers are finding that their retirement accounts are no longer replacing their job income and have to find alternative methods to job income.

Personal Business Advisors is dedicated to rebuilding the world one business at a time. Their philosophy is by helping unemployed Baby Boomers make a career transition to alternative employment, they will be creating a business opportunity, and creating jobs, instead of relying on unemployment. They focus on creating business opportunities by purchasing a business, starting a new business, licensing a product or by joining a franchise opportunity.

A key group of Baby Boomers are freeing themselves from unemployment and finding job satisfaction by starting their own business. In fact, a recent survey for C-level executives by Personal Business Advisors found that 82 percent of Baby Boomers say they are going to start their own business eventually. The transition from unemployment and lack of job prospects are turning more American’s towards starting their own business.

A number of C-level executives are also joining the ranks of firms such as Personal Business Advisors to become high-level business consultants helping other entrepreneurs start their business or helping other Baby Boomers make the career transition from job and unemployment to long term opportunity.

Baby Boomers have been able to reinvent their job and career outlook in past recessions and are taking the recent downturn and high unemployment rate to truly relaunch themselves towards rebuilding the world one business at a time.

By: Personal Business Advisors Admin

Personal Business Advisors : Our Future Part 3

2011-02-10T16:49:00.001-06:00

Continued from Personal Business Advisors : Our Future 2

Now, knowing all this PLUS being confronted with

- Religious Fanaticism here and abroad

- Global Economic ‘contractions’ as we have not seen them since the great depression

- A world which is driven by technology and changes now every 5 years instead of every 100 years or more

- Populations which are NOT interested in doing what they/ we have to do, but only what they/we want to do… and

- Politicians, who become elected by promising exactly THAT, whether it makes sense, is realistic or not.

- Weapons of mass destruction in the hand of fanatics (i.e. North Korea, Iran, Pakistan (Venzuela?) etc.) and the increasing likelihood of those weapons to “fall” into the hands of terrorists.

What might our future look like??

Well, as with everything, the answers to that question will of course depend on who you ask (and what their agenda is). Since my sole agenda is to grow PBA, helping all partners to be successful and our candidates to become (somewhat) independent from the (economic) mess (and effects thereof) we are all facing, provide for and raise my children to become good & responsible & productive citizens, become a better husband and man, leave this world a better place than I found it, here is what I think has the highest likelihood to happen:

- Within the next 12 months to 2 years we will have another global economic collapse (similar to the Great Depression)

- Within the next 10 years, we will see MANY more natural (& man-made) disasters (which include potential ‘virus outbreaks’, due to man made experiments and/or how we ‘produce’ protein (pigs/chicken etc.)

- We will see ‘emerging countries’ who put a lot of their resources and finances into renewable energy (and by that gaining a competitive advantage over other nations, like China does over the U.S. right now).

- We will see ‘Charismatic Leaders’ emerging ‘out of nowhere’ who promise ‘the people’ everything they/we want to hear, but who will be making things much worse and wreaking havoc for the country/world…

- We will see civil ‘unrest’ triggered by natural disasters (think Katrina/ floods in Pakistan etc.) as well as more and more people STARVING due to the deteriorating economical conditions…

- We will see (more) wars fought over (the last) natural resources (instead of investing into/working on renewable resources).

- We will see discretionary income & spending dramatically decline and a renewed focus on basic items like food, shelter, clothing, energy and security.

- We are and will see many more business opportunities focused on that versus the ‘fancy stuff’ everybody wants, but nobody needs.

- We will have the leaders of the ‘free world’ ask their citizens publicly to start small businesses (already happening here in the U.S.), because they KNOW that they cannot fix this mess, only small businesses can, being the largest employer and tax payer every capitalistic society around the world has.

- We will find that people will start valuing ‘small things’ more than they are today (similar to what we saw after 9/11, because crisis brings out both the worst AND the best in people.

- We will teach our children how to become entrepreneurs instead of employees, because as a population we lose all faith in larg(er) corporations.

- We will become more independent and open-minded and therefore STRONGER as a people and nation(s).

- We will experience a long time of ‘discomfort’ and hardship and change before things will start to look better (for our children?).

- We will become ‘micro-economies’, will DE-centralize (i.e.. local communities will become more self-reliable, plant/ raise their own food locally, small business will serve the local population, big distributors (i.e. Walmart, BestBuys etc.) will become less prevalent, in a nutshell we will get back to how we did business and lived before the industrialization (but this time WITH the creature comforts and added efficiency modern technologies provide.

- We will drive less and work more out of our homes.

- Even in rural communities small biz owners will be/ are able to access/ communicate and cater to world markets (like it happened in/ for India).

- We will never go back to the excess and waste we have experienced/ lived during the end of the last/ beginning of this millennium.

- The ‘party’ is over, let the new times begin and EMBRACE them with open arms/ minds and hearts!

It’s OK to be scared, it’s NOT OK to be paralyzed or refuse to see and acknowledge our new reality. Only if we are willing to look at the truth for what it is –just the truth- will we be able to not only survive, but MASTER (the dawn of) the new times which have already begun.

I am confident that we will prevail, but it will take time, because people have a natural tendency to cling to what they are familiar with, which not only slows down the natural process of evolution, but also makes them part of the problem, instead of the solution.

This is NOT going to happen to PBA. In the year 2004 we already had pictures of the great depression on our website and back then many (executive candidates) laughed at us and said “you guys are nuts’, this is not going to happen again in the foreseeable future”. I’m sure that after reading this little chapter many will say the same again.

It doesn’t matter though. What does matter is that those who (are willing to) acknowledge our new reality have found a place and a future –for themselves, their families and their peers.

Read Personal Business Advisors : Our Future Part 1

Population Research Presents a Sobering Prognosis

2011-02-10T16:37:00.001-06:00

Continued from Personal Business Advisors : Our Future (Part 1)

With 267 people being born every minute and 108 dying, the world’s population will top seven billion next year, a research group projects, while the ratio of working-age adults to support the elderly in developed countries declines precipitously because of lower birthrates and longer life spans.

In a sobering assessment of those two trends, William P. Butz, president of the Population Reference Bureau, said that “chronically low birthrates in developed countries are beginning to challenge the health and financial security of the elderly” at the same time that “developing countries are adding over 80 million to the population each year and the poorest of those countries are adding 20 million, exacerbating poverty and threatening the environment.”

Projections, especially over decades, are vulnerable to changes in immigration, retirement ages, birthrates, health care and other variables, but in releasing the bureau’s 2010 population data sheet, Carl Haub, its senior demographer, estimated this week that by 2050 the planet will be home to more than nine billion people.

Even with a decline in birthrates in less developed countries from 6 children per woman in 1950 to 2.5 today (and to 2 children or less in Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Iran, Thailand and Turkey), the population of Africa is projected to at least double by midcentury to 2.1 billion. Asia will add an additional 1.3 billion.

While the United States, Australia, Canada and New Zealand will continue to grow because of higher birthrates and immigration, Europe, Japan and South Korea will shrink (although the recession reduced birthrates in the United States and Spain and slowed rising birthrates in Russia and Norway).

In Japan, the population of working-age people, typically defined as those 15 to 64, compared with the population 65 and older that is dependent on this younger group, is projected to decline to a ratio of one to one, from the current three to one. Worldwide, the ratio of working age people for every person in the older age group is expected to decline to four to one, from nine to one now.

Earlier this week, Eurostat, the statistical arm of the 27-nation European Union, reported that while the union’s population topped a half billion this year, 900,000 of the 1.4 million growth from the year before resulted from immigration. Eurostat has predicted that deaths will outpace births in five years, a trend that has already occurred in Bulgaria, Latvia and Hungary.

While the bulge in younger people, if they are educated, presents a potential “demographic dividend” for countries like Bangladesh and Brazil, the shrinking proportion of working-age people elsewhere may place a strain on governments and lead them to raise retirement ages and to encourage alternative job opportunities for older workers.

Even in the United States, the proportion of the gross domestic product spent on Social Security and Medicare is projected to rise to 14.5 percent in 2050, from 8.4 percent this year.

The Population Reference Bureau said that by 2050, Russia and Japan would be bumped from the 10 most populous countries by Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

By SAM ROBERTS

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/30/world/30population.html

Read Personal Business Advisors : Our Future (Part 3)

Personal Business Advisors - Our Future (Part 1)

2011-02-10T16:33:00.001-06:00

REAL Issues...Insights from Uwe 'Unplugged' : Personal Business Advisors

Talking about our future in North America is impossible without thinking and talking about all the global developments and the effect these have on all of us on a daily (if not hourly) bases.

I certainly do not claim to know more than the next educated (subject matter) “expert”, but maybe my conclusions are a bit different and (hopefully) NOT clouded/tainted by pre-conceived notions/wishful thinking and/or any political agenda (since I have NONE).

Having said all this, let’s go together and try to define our current situation as we face it today:

- The entire western hemisphere has reached a standard of living that is higher than it has ever been before in recorded human history.

- The Southern and Eastern hemisphere countries are successfully building a middle class –thanks to our outsourcing and offshoring- and therefore are continuously growing their wealth –chipping away steadily from the Western hemisphere’s wealth and dominance (economically/militarily and consumption ).

- Global climate change is presenting ‘challenges’ and devastation we have not seen since the Middle Ages.

- Natural resources (oil/ gas/ drinking water/ arable land etc.) are dwindling (and harder to get to) rapidly on a global scale.

- The world’s population is exploding. The United Nations projects it to peak at 9,22 billion by 2075

also see article Population Research Presents a Sobering Prognosis, contributing even more to the strain on the Earth’s natural resources, which are FINITE.

Read Personal Business Advisors - Our Future (Part 2)

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Personal Business Advisor - Senior Advisor

2011-01-16T00:03:00.001-06:00

I spent four and a half decades working in health care and enjoyed every day. Starting at 17 years old, I joined the Navy and was put through the best medical training any branch of the military has to offer. I was attached to the Marine Corp as a Medical Corpsman (combat medic) and went through Basis Marine Combat School, Jump School, Combat Swimmers’ School and Jungle Warfare School before completing two tours with a 1st Recon Unit in Vietnam. After six years with the Marine Corps I worked as a Certified Critical Care Registered Nurse, cross trained as a Registered Respiratory Therapist, in adult and neonatal Intensive Care Units.

After receiving a MBA from a renowned business university, I held positions as an acute care hospital administrator/CEO at several major hospitals. As my career opportunities expanded I moved to the corporate level of health care management, where I held positions ranging from V.P. of Operations, V.P. of Development to V.P. of Acquisitions & Mergers with a number of national/global for-profit hospital companies.

I started my first business when I was 27 years old and during my career I owned and operated several health care companies. I realized early on that working for yourself is the best investment that an executive can make. I eventually sold all the businesses that I owned for many times what I had invested in them. As I approached retirement age I was looking for something different- a new challenge.

At the time I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do with the rest of my life and having worked only in health care my vision was somewhat myopic. I did know that I wanted to continue helping people.

Fortunately I was contacted by an Advisor from Personal Business Advisors. My Advisor presented various executive career opportunities that both fit my skill-set and my criteria. He also provided sound advice related to career transition. After several weeks of exploring and reviewing different options I selected working for Personal Business Advisors.

It was a decision that I don’t regret and I can, without hesitation, recommend and endorse Personal Business Advisors to other executives regardless of where they are in their career.

I have been an Executive Senior Advisor with Personal Business Advisors for over a year. I enjoy working with top level executives and providing assistance in their career transition. I have the flexibility and lifestyle that I was looking for and I believe that I am providing a service that no other company provides.

I feel like I am helping executives discover new possibilities during a time where our economy and the executive job market are in crisis.

Dennis Hanson
Senior Advisor
http://www.personalbusinessadvisors.com/

More Resume Bloopers and Blunders

2011-01-15T10:01:00.001-06:00

"SKILLS: Committed to meeting deadline."
Just one?

"HOBBIES: Michael Bolton."
That's a first.

"SKILLS: I'm try-lingual."
She either speaks three languages or has trouble with just one.

"COVER LETTER: I host a superlative proficiency for resolving complex systematic problems. I have pedagogic expertise conducting sales, and I can be quickly utilized as an assiduous, visceral and proactive problem solver."
Easy for you to say.

-- Are you applying for jobs? Find out what they pay.
"EQUIPMENT: Human brain 1.0."
We'll wait for the upgrade.

"POSITION DESIRED: Profreader."
It doesn't look good...

"DATE OF EMPLOYMENT: 2002-9999."
She's earned her gold watch!

"EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENTS: Maintained a 2.0 GPA."
We can't "C" why you highlighted this fact.

"REFERENCES: Scott."
We'll need a little more to go on.

"EXPERIENCE: Demonstrated ability in multi-tasting."
You'll love our vending machine.

"EXPERIENCE: Only employee of a small distribution company."
Can't get much smaller than that.

"APPLICATION: Q: How large was the department you worked in with your last company? "A: 3 stories."
OK ... Then, approximately how many people sat on each floor?

"PERSONAL: I can describe myself in three words: committed, hard working, and very strategic thinking."
That's seven words.

"REASON FOR LEAVING: Pushed aside so the vice president's girlfriend could steal my job."
We're glad you're not bitter.

"OFFICE EQUIPMENT: Stapler."
Did you find it tough to master?

"EXPERIENCE: "Responsibilities included recruiting, screening, interviewing and executing final candidates."
Seems kind of harsh ...

"EXPERIENCE: I was brought in as a turnaround consultant to help turn the company around."
Sounds like you may be going in circles.

"COMPENSATION: My compensation should be at least equal to my age."
And bonuses "tied to" your shoe size?

"WORK EXPERIENCE: Responsibilities included checking customers out."
And then did you rank them on a scale of 1-to-10?

"CURRENT SALARY: $36,000. Salary desired: $250,000."

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

By Barbara Safani

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Good Jobs: The Only Cure for Poverty

2011-01-15T09:42:00.001-06:00

We didn't need the Census poverty data released today to tell us what we already know: families are facing the highest rates of economic hardship in a generation. However, maybe such stark numbers can help increase the urgency around one of the most important issues of this moment and move us beyond the naysayers who attack every anti-poverty strategy, yet have nothing new to offer. While the crisis of poverty in our communities is not new, the recent spike is clearly the result of our current recession. What we can't forget is that this recession was triggered by reckless Wall Street schemes impacting a middle class already being squeezed away by 30 years of failed right-wing economic policy.

Right-wing commentators will use today's figures to argue for more of what got us here. Don't get me wrong, their policies have been successful. But they have only been successful at what they are designed to do: prioritize wealth creation for the rich, leaving barely a trickle for those below. Since the 1980s, the dominant economic policy has been a combination of tax cuts aimed at the rich and deregulation designed to maximize profits for the top 1%. Coupled with an any-job-is-good-enough approach to employment and a labor policy that has stripped away the foundation supporting middle class jobs, the result is an explosion of the working poor. The poverty rate for working age people between 18 and 64 rose to 12.9 percent last year, its highest in more than four decades.

The only way to reverse that trend is to create and sustain good jobs that pay enough to meet families' needs and lift them out of poverty. Without a focus on job quality, we can look forward to annual increases in poverty well into the future.

Disturbing as the numbers are--with 43.6 million U.S. residents officially suffering in poverty last year--the official figures underplay the true extent of economic hardship. The Federal poverty level, $11,161 for an individual or $21,756 for a family of four with two children, should more appropriately be defined as a measure of extreme poverty. A more accurate measure of poverty would be to set the bar at twice the Federal poverty level, $22,322 for an individual or $43,512 for a family of four. Below those income rates, getting by is still a significant struggle in the U.S. today--and yet this definition would include a third of all Americans, many of them working.

Unfortunately, the forecast for jobs is not good. We find ourselves in what has been called a jobless recovery, and the few jobs that the economy is creating merely perpetuate the cycle of working poverty. As a recent study from the National Employment Law Project shows, while job losses from the recession were spread across all income levels, job creation has been primarily in low-income industries. The top three occupations among industries that grew this year are retail salespersons, cashiers, and food preparation workers. These are among the lowest-paying jobs, with few benefits and minimal job security. The low-wage job trend is expected to continue, with the Bureau of Labor Statistics projecting that the majority of the fastest-growing occupations over the next decade will be among the lowest-paying sectors. Clearly, the economy is not poised to create good jobs on its own.

However, while Republicans push to make permanent the Bush-era tax cuts for the top 1%--people who have thrived over the last thirty years--those of us concerned with real answers are mapping a better course. Promising strategies have been designed to maximize the good jobs that will actually reduce poverty, both by improving existing jobs and creating good new jobs.

In Los Angeles, a living wage policy covering hotels near the Los Angeles International Airport has improved pay in existing jobs and helped more than 5,000 workers and family members earn their way out of poverty. Studies have put the net benefit to the community from increased wages and spending at more than $23 million in the first four years, through wage increases combined with the economic boost as those families spend their new income in local stores and restaurants.

Other successes include the creation of quality new jobs, many harnessing stimulus money in combination with local workforce programs. Among other projects, we have helped enact construction career programs in Los Angeles that guarantee good jobs and direct them to local residents in low-income communities. Stimulus money has become a political football, but the reality is that the resources it provided have been instrumental in the creation of good jobs. The critical question is how local leaders use such resources.

The question the Census poverty data should push us to ask is simple: what kind of a recovery do we want? Do we want a recovery where the only jobs we create are at the bottom of the income ladder? Or do we want to leverage everything at our disposal--local programs, federal spending, and standards that will raise the bar for the quickly-vanishing American middle class? Following the right wing's narrow focus on profit at the top, even dressed up as anti-poverty policy, would continue to concentrate wealth and take us in the wrong direction. The only way to truly address poverty--and restore the middle class--is to embrace an economic strategy focused on the creation of good jobs.

By Madeline Janis

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How the FBI and Better Business Bureau Are Cracking Down on Job Scammers

2011-01-14T18:43:00.001-06:00

Job scams are becoming so prevalent that the FBI and the Better Business Bureau are stepping in to protect desperate job seekers. The old adage that "If it looks to good to be true, it probably is" bears little sway when you, like 45 percent of all out-of-work Americans, have been unemployed for six months or more.
"The dismal employment rate means that a lot of people are desperate for work and may be grasping for any job -- which creates a great opportunity for scammers," said Stephen A. Cox, president and CEO of the Council of Better Business Bureaus. "Not thoroughly researching a job opportunity can make a bad situation even worse, and a victim can lose hundreds or even thousands of dollars to any number of job-related scams."
The FBI has issued press releases warning of these types of scams, and has devoted an entire section of their website to alerting people about them. They've investigated far too many hoaxes that actually induce victims to unknowingly commit crimes that land them in jail.

Breaking the law for a 'job'

Kelly, a disabled Kentucky resident, was actually arrested for his unwitting participation in one of these scams:
"I am on disability and I don't have a car. I was looking for extra money for the month, because I don't receive a lot from disability. So when an e-mail came to me offering me a job that I could work from home I jumped at the chance." The job involved receiving cashiers checks and money orders, cashing them at his bank then wiring the money to another country, but keeping a piece for himself. Of course when the bank notified him that the checks were fake, he discontinued all contact with the phony company. But a few months later he was arrested on seven counts of criminal possession of forged instruments, and found guilty of felonies, for which he served 150 days in jail. "Beware of any e-mail that offers a job!" he counsels.
Stacy, from Washington, explains how she was approached with a different pitch for the same scam: "...They ask you to be an accountant," she says, again processing foreign checks that turn out to be phony, through your own bank account. "If you are very lucky," she cautions, "the bank will just want the money back. But be advised they can charge you with the federal crime of passing fraudulent checks. Run from this! You could find yourself in prison."
Another work-from-home scheme that could send you to prison, as well as incur huge fines, involves Web-based international companies offering you the chance to sell high-end electronic items like plasma televisions and home theater systems, at reduced prices. As an "affiliate," you're told to offer the merchandise on well-known Internet auction sites and accept the payments, then pay the company, typically by wire transfer. The company is then supposed to drop-ship the merchandise directly to the buyer, so you don't have to stock, ship or warehouse the merchandise. But of course the merchandise is never shipped, and the buyers take legal action against you, the affiliate.
It seems hard to believe that people would actually fall for this, but Randy Johnston, a lawyer who specializes in going after scammers, says, "Job-hunting scams rise along with the unemployment rate. These con artists target desperate people, and if you've been out of work for a while, you're desperate and are more likely to fall for stuff like this." As the author of the book 'Robbed at Pen Point,' he's seen it all. "Crooks make a killing" during tough economic times when people are most desperate.

Four huge red flags

Even if there's no chance of going to prison, job scams can be a tremendous waste of time and money. The BBB recommends looking out for the following red flags when searching for a job online:

Red Flag #1: The employer asks for money upfront
It's seldom on the level when an applicant is asked to pay upfront fees or make a required purchase to get a job. BBB often hears from job hunters who paid a phony employer for supposedly required background checks or training for jobs that didn't exist. Also be wary of job placement companies that ask for large upfront fees to find you a job.

Red Flag #2: Employer e-mails are rife with grammatical and spelling errors.
Online fraud is often perpetrated by scammers located outside the United States. Their first language usually isn't English, and this is often evident in poor grammar and the misspelling of common words.

Red Flag #3: The employer requires you to check your own credit report.
After posting their resumes online or responding to online job listings, many job hunters received what they thought was good news: an e-mail from an interested employer. But in order to be considered for the job, the applicant has to check his or her credit report through a recommended website. The truth is, the e-mail is just an attempt to get the job hunter to divulge sensitive financial information or sign up for credit-monitoring services.

Red Flag #4: The employer quickly asks for personal information such as Social Security or bank account numbers.
Some job seekers have been surprised to learn they've gotten a job without having to do a single interview. However, when the employer then asked for personal information in order to fill out the necessary paperwork, suspicions were raised -- and rightly so. Regardless of the reason, a job applicant should never give out his or her Social Security or bank account numbers over the phone or e-mail and only after they've confirmed the job is legitimate.

What to do

If you're approached online about a job you didn't apply for, one of the best and quickest ways to check out its legitimacy is to visit the Better Business Bureau website, where you'll find more red flags and documentation of job search scams. If the particular one you're searching for doesn't come up, do a google search. These days, you can never be too careful.

By Lisa Johnson Mandell
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New Unemployment Numbers Devastating but Not Debilitating

2011-01-14T16:12:00.001-06:00

"Expert" economists predicted that at least 140,000 new jobs would be created in November and that the unemployment rate would hang tight at 9.6 percent (if not be reduced a fraction). So it felt like a punch in the stomach to the American work force when the Department of Labor's monthly report stated that only 39,000 jobs had been added and that unemployment has climbed to 9.8 percent.
"The numbers are devastating," says national trends expert Michael G. Zey, PhD, a professor at Montclair University. "They show this so-called economic recovery has been tepid. In a true recovery, we would be adding more than 200,000 jobs per month, and bringing back some of the 8 million jobs lost since 2007."
But how can the number of jobs added be so low, especially since the Department of Labor also announced today that in October 172,000 jobs were added? That's a revised number up from 151,000. You may have also heard reports that 600,000 holiday jobs were opening up. Well, the November numbers released today have been what they call "seasonally adjusted" and don't include most of the part-time, temporary positions.
That's not to say that the abundance of seasonal work won't have a positive effect on the economy, however. Even part-time jobs increase people's spending power, and that increases profits for the companies doing the hiring.

A glum immediate outlook

Still, unemployment numbers might get worse before they get better, explains Dan Finnigan, president & CEO of Jobvite, a social recruiting software company. People traditionally stop looking for work during the holidays, and therefore drop off the radar. When they start looking again in January, the number of unemployed people seems to increase.
But Finnigan believes that in January job seekers won't just be looking, they will be finding. Right now, he says, most companies are devising their budgets for the upcoming year, and they won't be hiring until the first or second quarter. Corporate America has been sitting on huge amounts of capitol, and has been "reluctant to add to the payroll until they see how the recovery is going," he says. "They've been squeezing as much as they can out of their current work forces, but should finally open up next year. They'll say, 'Enough! it's time to hire more people!'"
Zey points out that profits are indeed up at some companies, but that's because of company wide cost-cutting, which includes layoffs. They're not actually making more, they're just spending less.
Harry Holzer, professor of public policy at Georgetown and author of the soon-to-be-published 'Where are All the Good Jobs Going?: What National and Local Job Quality and Dynamics Mean for Workers,' adds that while productivity in America is up, that's not going to necessarily create more jobs. "Doing more with less looks good on the corporate bottom line, but not on the bottom line of the American worker," he says.

So what can we do about it?

The answer, according to Zey is in increasing production. "America needs to become a nation of producers again, not the nation of consumers which we have become. We need to increase our manufacturing base." He points out that the financial industry is thriving again, "but we can't all be bankers." The manufacturing sector actually lost 13,000 jobs last month.
Zey feels policy makers should be focusing on areas with much growth potential, such as energy development. "It's quick, and the most logical," he says. He believes that instead of importing energy from foreign sources, we should be expanding on what we have right here within our own borders. And he believes the government is restricting that development, rather than encouraging it.
"I do see a way out of the current situation," says Zey. "But it will require a revolution in policy making and will require take great courage. Tax cuts alone won't help."
And on the political front, today's disappointing rise in unemployment numbers is expected to nudge legislators toward extending unemployment benefits and retaining the Bush-era tax cuts, all of which have been the subject of much debate.

"The important thing to remember," according to Georgetown's Holzer, "is that you should never place too much weight on any one month's numbers. Last month the numbers were much better, and there may have been a little too much euphoria. Just remember, this is only one month. Things will change again next month."

By Lisa Johnson Mandell

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Jobless Claims Jump, Prices Rise

2011-01-14T15:32:00.001-06:00

Recovery? What Recovery? Jobless Claims Jump, Prices Rise

The number of Americans filing for first-time unemployment benefits increased by 35,000, to 445,000 last week -- the biggest increase since October. Add the fact that the U.S. Department of Labor just reported big leaps in prices for things like gas, home heating oil, fruits and vegetables, and there are very few Americans who are not feeling the pain economicaly.

U.S. producer prices climbed 1.1 percent in December, as reflected in big gains in the costs of home heating oil (up 12.3 percent), fresh and dry vegetables (up 22.8 percent), and fresh fruits (up 15.4 percent). Optimists point out that inflation, excluding food and energy, rose just 0.2 percent, which is just below analyst estimates -- but whose budgets exclude food and energy?
According to the most recent statistics released from the Department of Labor, last week more Americans lost their jobs than expected. Analysts predicted only about 410,000 people would lose work -- as opposed to the 445,000 that actually lost their jobs. In addition, the number of those claiming state Emergency Unemployment Compensation has risen drastically, up to 3,773,092, an increase of 195,429 from the prior week.
The total number of people claiming unemployment benefits in all programs for the week ending Dec. 25, was 9,193,838. Keep in mind that that's just the number of unemployed people receiving help from the government. There are millions more jobless folks whose benefits have run out and who are not currently eligible for government assistance. Freelancers, minimum wage earners and the self-employed have been hit especially hard.
The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending Jan. 1 were in Georgia (+11,997), Michigan (+10,129), Pennsylvania (+9,004), New York (+8,379), and Wisconsin (+7,236), while the largest decreases were in California (-13,694), Florida (-1,867), Nevada (-972), Kansas (-841), and New Mexico (-721).

The states with the highest rates of citizens collecting unemployment insurance, for the last week in November were: in Alaska (7.5 percent), Oregon (5.2), Idaho (5.1), Montana (4.9), Wisconsin (4.8), Pennsylvania (4.7), Puerto Rico (4.6), Nevada (4.5), Illinois (4.4), and Michigan (4.3).
Location means a lot these days, as not all states extend unemployment benefits. States where they're still available include: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.
The latest numbers sort of cast a shadow over last week's good news that the unemployment rate has dropped from to 9.4 to 9.7 percent, proving that this recovery is going to be one long, slow haul.

By Lisa Johnson Mandell

http://www.personalbusinessadvisors.com/