Small business is big

Small business is an American cultural icon.  Companies with fewer than 500 employees account for almost two-thirds of net new jobs and generate 13 times more new patents per employee than large ones do. But optimism among these enterprises is at its lowest levels in almost 20 years. If the US economy had generated as many start-ups in the Great Recession’s aftermath as it did in 2007, the country would have almost 2.5 million more jobs.

 

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Ray Kurzweil talks about the future workforce

What impact will advancing technologies have on employment?

Singularity University’s Vice President of Innovation and Research, Vivek Wadhwa, has written about why he believes this will be the most innovative decade in human history and how we are headed for an era of abundant and affordable health care, and how robotics, artificial intelligence and 3D printing will lead to an era of local manufacturing in which the creative class flourishes.

 

 

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Are men starting to see marriage differently and what is it doing to America’s workforce?

We are seeing more and more where the mom has the anchor job in the family and the dad either doesn’t work or works in a flexible job.

After Gail McGovern’s daughter Annie was born, she and her husband established what came to be known as the “kitchen calendar rule.”  McGovern worked for AT&T overseeing 10,000 employees; her husband ran a large unit of Hewlett-Packard. They both needed to travel regularly for work, but one of them also needed to be home for Annie.

 

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America’s fastest growing group in the workforce is changing what it means to be ‘retired’

Senior Worker in Supermarket

According to government estimates, the over-65 set is the fastest growing segment of the working population: More than 7 million are punching the clock.

Ailika Thomas’ husband brought her coffee in bed after she woke. It was 7 p.m., and the 73-year-old was facing a long, moonlit drive from her rural Indiana home to Chicago; Dean wanted to make the journey as easy as possible for his wife. He warmed the car and stocked it with snacks while she got dressed. When Ailika emerged from the back door in a pink-and-white pants combo accompanied by her two Yorkshire terriers, Dean gave her a warm goodbye kiss and made her promise to call at journey’s end.

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5 biggest job cuts announcements in 2011

Patrick Donahue

U.S. Postmaster General Patrick Donahue

U.S. Postmaster General Patrick Donahue prepares to testify at  Senate hearing on the the U.S. Postal Service’s fiscal crisis on Sept. 6 Senate. The postal service’s 7,500 job cuts announced in March rank No. 5 on outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas’s list of 2011 announced workforce reductions.

 

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10 U.S. cities that will take 10 years to recover from the recession

Reno

Reno’s economy relies on gaming and tourism, two industries which have been hit extremely hard by the recession.

December 2007 is when the Great Recession officially began and it officially ended in July 2009. But that doesn’t mean the economy has returned to where it was before the steepest downturn since the Great Depression and may not for years. Employment is not expected to return to its pre-recession peak until 2014, according to a recent report by IHS Global Insight.

 

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China’s Workforce Will Start Shrinking in the Next Five Years

china's workforce

China’s working-age population has plateaued in size and will begin getting smaller.

The large labor force in China  has been central to its rise as an economic power.  It has allowed companies to tap a seemingly endless pool of workers willing to move from their home towns, often live at the factory site and accept comparatively low wages.

 

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Jobs Are Back Just Not For the Middle-Aged Worker

why-the-middle-aged-are-missing-out-on-new-jobs

Jobs are back. Just not for everybody.

Like many other things in the stutter-step economic recovery, the job market is finally recovering, but progress is uneven and some people are being left out. The latest jobs report, for example, shows that the economy created 216,000 jobs in March, for a total of about 1.9 million new jobs since employment levels bottomed out at the end of 2009. That’s a healthy pace of job growth that will help bring down the uncomfortably high unemployment rate, and, with luck, cement the recovery.

 

 

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BMW Opens New Car Plant Where the Workforce is All Aged Over 50

BMW 1

An employee at BMW rests between shifts at the plant in Dingolfing.

Its name is a byword for providing drivers with every comfort – and now it seems BMW is taking the same approach with its workforce.  A section of the luxury car manufacturer’s works at Dingolfing in Southern Bavaria has been nicknamed ‘Altstadt‘ – German for Old Town – by the grateful employees who say they might otherwise be on the job scrapheap. (Pics)

 

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Discover the Hidden Patterns of Tomorrow with Futurist Thomas Frey
Unlock Your Potential, Ignite Your Success.

By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.

Learn More about this exciting program.