Career Center News House votes to expand ADA workplace protections Fewer students entering computer science programs Tech sector shows strong growth in US cities Making the best of unhappy work environment: hard but doable Watercooler: Future jobs, virtual office chat, more Specials Meet the Members of EON - our new community  networking effort Graduate / Professional School Channel What's New with the IMDiversity site

Career Center News

By The Associated Press

Outlook: Hospital jobs should be OK, housing and auto not faring well

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER

AP Economics Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Hospitals, schools and the assembly line at an airplane factory look like pretty good places to be with a recession looming and unemployment rising. Construction workers, real estate agents and auto workers aren't expected to fare as well.

The startling news that the economy lost 80,000 jobs last month and nearly a quarter-million over the last three months is the starkest signal yet that the country has probably fallen into a recession, with things on the job front expected to get worse.

"All the indicators suggest that we will see even larger job declines in coming months. Businesses are getting nervous and pulling back," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com.

While the downturn is expected to be short and mild, economists are still forecasting the unemployment rate, which jumped to 5.1 percent in March, will climb much higher before the nation's job engine sputters back to life.

Economists are forecasting a jobless rate that will peak at around 6 percent, but probably not until early next year, several months after the recession is expected to end. Analysts said as many as 2 million people could lose their jobs in the current downturn.

In an environment of a sluggish economy and rising unemployment, analysts said there will be some safe harbors where job demand will keep growing. First and foremost in this group will be health care, where the demographics of an aging population mean the demands for medical care will keep rising.

Also a bright spot in a generally bleak jobs picture will be education, again driven by the demographics of a rising population of school-age children and students attending colleges, community colleges and trade schools.

Outside of those areas, the falling value of the dollar against many foreign currencies is helping to power an export boom, which is benefiting farmers and some segments of manufacturing, particularly airplane makers and factories producing various types of heavy machinery where the United States enjoys a competitive edge.

But other segments of manufacturing are not faring nearly as well. Domestic automakers have been laying off workers in the face of slumping sales as the weak economy and soaring gasoline prices cut into demand. General Motors and Chrysler reported U.S. sales were down 19 percent in March compared with a year ago, while sales at Ford fell by 14 percent.

Other manufacturers, such as appliance and furniture makers, have been hurt by the deep downturn in housing. In all, manufacturing lost 48,000 jobs in March, with half of those cuts coming in autos and auto parts.

Construction, decimated by the housing slump, shed 51,000 jobs, the ninth straight month that construction jobs have declined. Hiring has also fallen in related industries such as real estate agents and mortgage brokers, as well as at the Wall Street firms that have declared billions of dollars in losses from bad investments on securities backed by subprime mortgages.

In general, hiring is expected to hold up in areas where consumers will keep spending money regardless of the health of the economy, such as at grocery stores, gasoline stations and repair shops. But companies selling discretionary services -- such as various segments of the tourism industry, from airline travel to hotels to restaurants -- are likely to experience more layoffs.

"Anything that people can defer, like a vacation or buying a new car, tends to suffer," said David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor's in New York. "The basics like food and medicine tend to do pretty well."

Small businesses, which generate the bulk of the country's new jobs, are decidedly more pessimistic. William Dunkelberg, chief economist at the National Federation of Independent Businesses, said hiring plans had plummeted, with the number of firms saying they planned to hire new workers exceeding those planning job cuts by just 3 percent in March, down from 11 percent in the group's February survey.

Government employment generally holds up during a recession because of increased demand for services, although some states are warning of cutbacks due to falling tax revenues. Federal, state and local governments added 18,000 jobs in March, according to Friday's jobs report.

Bernard Baumohl, managing director of the Economic Outlook Group, said the new jobs report showed a number of other labor market strains, including the sixth straight monthly increase in the number of workers taking part-time jobs because they could not find full-time positions. That figure now stands at its highest level in 14 years.

Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist at Global Insight, said he believed the overall economy, as measured by the gross domestic product, fell by a small 0.1 percent at an annual rate in the January-March quarter this year, and would drop at a larger 0.7 percent rate in the current quarter. By one classic definition, a recession occurs when GDP is negative for two consecutive quarters.

Gault said he expected a mild recession that will end when tax rebate checks are spent this summer. He said he wasn't looking for as big a rise in unemployment as the 2001 downturn because companies have not added as many workers to their payrolls during the current expansion.

"We think companies are starting from a leaner position so they won't have to lay off as many people," he said.

Other Recent Readings of Interest

• Seeing doctor shortage, Mich joins nationwide medical school boom

Defying surveys and statistics, some small companies are expanding their payrolls

Apr 09 14:48

By JOYCE M. ROSENBERG

AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) -- Having been in business for 30 years and survived many consumer spending slowdowns, Lloyd Lippman isn't cutting staff at his retail executive search firm. He's been adding account executives and plans to hire two or three more by the end of the year.

"Our competition will probably be looking to contract. By us expanding, we think we'll be in a great position," Lippman said.

Cliff Robertson is also hiring for his Dallas-based real estate investment firm, seeing plenty of opportunity in a wounded industry: "The fact the real estate market is down is good for us. It allows us to buy better deals."

While the government has reported job losses in the hundreds of thousands since the start of the year, many small businesses are looking to build their staffs, not cut them. They can benefit when other companies are struggling, or they're preparing for better times ahead.

Overall, surveys and statistics show that small business owners are cautious. The National Federation of Independent Business, which tracks small business sentiment through monthly surveys of its members, said optimism fell in March to its lowest level since 1980. One of the components of the NFIB's optimism index, companies' plans to create new jobs, dropped to its lowest level in five years.

The good news is that small business owners in general don't seem to be looking to eliminate jobs. William Dunkelberg, chief economist for the NFIB, said the expected relative mildness of this economic downturn may be a factor in their holding the line on hiring rather than cutting back. The big companies in cyclical industries are the ones under the most pressure and being forced to cut positions, but, Dunkelberg said, "Barbershops? Probably not. Hardware stores? Probably not."

Rob Wilson, president of Employco, a human resources outsourcing company, found a similar trend among his clients. "We haven't seen layoffs like you saw in the last recession," he said, although he's seen an overall downturn in new hires.

But Employco also finds that many clients are indeed taking on new staffers. "The hires we're seeing tend to be more strategic hires, a senior person or adding to your sales staff," Wilson said, explaining that some companies are focused on the growth areas of their business.

Lippman, CEO of East Brunswick, N.J.-based Career Management, sees plenty of growth opportunities for his company, with retailers looking for executives to help them out of a slump that began late last year.

"My thought process in the past has been to contract, but since we've been a pretty healthy business, we are going to take the opposite approach and really look for market share," said Lippman, whose company also has an office in New York.

He said Career Management has had some painful times of its own, with business off in December and January. But, he said, "you grow or you die -- that's been my philosophy."

Robertson also finds opportunity, even in the troubled real estate industry. His company, The Champions Group, is involved in projects ranging from single-family homes to commercial developments, lining up investors for each. He says business is harder -- he used to be able to get 100 percent investor financing on deals and now 80 percent or 90 percent is more the norm -- but he's been running a company long enough to be philosophical about a downturn.

"There are always going to be problems," he said.

Robertson said his firm has hired two people including an accountant so far in 2008, and plans to add three or four new positions by the end of the year.

Having a service or product that's in demand, particularly in a downturn, is helping many small businesses flourish.

Buzzback Market Research, a New York-based company that does online consumer surveys, is adding staff because of the growing call for its services from other businesses, including big corporations that need market research data on their products. Owner Carol Fitzgerald said her company is providing a service that some of her larger clients used to do in-house -- before they were forced to lay off staff and had to outsource some of their operations.

"We've become part of the research team, part of the marketing team," said Fitzgerald, who estimated her business has grown by 70 percent to 80 percent in the past 18 months. She's about to add four workers to the current staff of 39, and "I'll probably add a few more by the end of the year."

Outsourcing providers of all kinds -- whether they supply accounting or human resources services or high-tech help -- can find themselves in a position to hire, simply because their business customers need help, sometimes urgently.

Dave Winslow, president of Epik One, a Burlington, Vt.-based firm that helps companies improve their online marketing operations, began 2008 with 12 employees, now has 20 and is looking to have about 40 by year's end.

"After the holiday season we saw a lot more inquiries," Winslow said. This past holiday season was a huge disappointment for many retailers, offline and online, and prompted many to seek help from small businesses like Epik One.

And other small businesses just find themselves able to hire because they're in relatively new and growing industries.

LoanWell Financial, a reverse mortgage company based in Clearwater, Fla., has hired eight loan officers in the past three months and expects to take on at least four more before the end of the month. Owner Michael Banner said the company is expanding to New Jersey because of the number of senior citizens wanting to take money out of their home equity to supplement their income.

"Our part of the mortgage industry is exploding," he said.

Banner said he migrated into the reverse mortgage business from traditional mortgages 18 months ago, and recognizes that his timing was fortuitous. Instead of hiring, "I might be saying, 'would you like fires with that?"' he said.

Other Recent Readings of Interest

• Agency offers special training to small business in Des Moines, 10 other cities

Seeing doctor shortage, Mich joins nationwide medical school boom

Apr 09 19:27

By DAVID RUNK

Associated Press Writer

DETROIT (AP) -- Universities and hospitals across Michigan are working to head off an impending doctor shortage fueled by the nation's aging baby boomer population.

The state's first new medical school in four decades is set to open in 2010 and existing schools are expanding their campuses and admitting bigger classes.

Those training future physicians also hope that many of the new doctors will stay in Michigan when they're done with school, helping revive the state's troubled economy while improving health care.

"People should not have to leave their community to get state-of-the-art medical care," said Marsha Rappley, Michigan State University's dean of the College of Human Medicine. The medical school is expanding from East Lansing into Grand Rapids, which will become its base of operations. An April 21 groundbreaking ceremony is planned for its new medical education building.

And on the other side of the state, Oakland University and Beaumont Hospitals are moving forward on their plans for a new medical school that is expected to admit its first class in 2010.

"We want that knowledge to be used within our community to serve people better," said Virinder K. Moudgil, vice president for academic affairs and provost at Oakland University in Rochester.

Other schools in the state also are looking at starting medical schools as part of a nationwide medical education boom, the first since an earlier growth spurt ended more than three decades ago.

Policymakers reined in the growth of medical programs after the mid-1970s, fearing an oversupply of physicians. But in the late 1990s, new data showed that more doctors would be needed to care for the aging baby boomer population.

The Association of American Medical Colleges has recommended a 30 percent increase in enrollment by 2015. This should be done, the association said, by boosting enrollment and creating new medical schools.

"People over 65 use twice as many physician services as those under 65," said Edward Salsberg, director of the AAMC's Center for Workforce Studies. "All the major chronic illnesses are illnesses that afflict the elderly."

And last month, the Michigan Department of Community Health said an estimated 41 percent of active physicians in the state indicate they only plan to practice medicine for one to 10 more years, compared with 38 percent in 2005. The estimate was based on mail and online responses in late 2006 and early 2007 from about 5,350 of the state's about 40,000 licensed physicians

"These findings suggest we are going to have to step up efforts to meet the increasing demand for medical care in Michigan," MDCH Director Janet Olszewski said.

Oakland University and Beaumont Hospitals' medical school will be privately funded, and have a presence on both the school's campus and at Beaumont facilities. The process is under way to find a dean, Moudgil said, and details about a possible site for a building on OU's campus are being examined.

During the first two years, students would study at the university. For the final two years, they would be placed in clinical rotations at Beaumont's hospitals in Royal Oak and Troy, and at other hospitals. They also will take part in research at Oakland University during all four years, Moudgil said.

In Grand Rapids, Michigan State's expansion also is privately funded. The $90 million project includes the Secchia Center, a seven-story medical education building located in a downtown district where a cluster of hospitals, research laboratories, educational facilities and medical specialty buildings has been taking shape.

The school currently trains physicians at six community campuses, including East Lansing and Grand Rapids, and has 493 students. The Secchia Center is scheduled to be completed in the summer of 2010. By 2013, the school will train about 800 students a year, including 350 in Grand Rapids and 250 in East Lansing.

In Detroit, Wayne State University School of Medicine, the nation's largest single-campus medical school, swelled its class size to 300 from about 270 two years ago in response to fears of a shortage.

And Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine, which has already increased its entering class in East Lansing from 147 to 200, is expanding by adding 50 students each at the Detroit Medical Center and Macomb Community College's University Center, raising its class size to 300.

Other Michigan universities are considering new medical schools. Western Michigan University President John M. Dunn asked the school to take a look at the possibility in Kalamazoo, noting two area hospitals already provide medical education through Michigan State University's medical school.

"We look at what is already in place on the ground. Assets that can be strategic in such a venture," said Bob Miller, associate vice president for community outreach, who is spearheading the effort with Dunn. "They're already here."

And Central Michigan University also is studying whether a medical school might work.

------

On the Net:

• Association of American Medical Colleges: http://www.aamc.org

• Beaumont Hospitals: http://www.beaumonthospitals.com

• Central Michigan University: http://www.cmich.edu

• College of Human Medicine at Michigan State University: http://humanmedicine.msu.edu

• Liaison Committee on Medical Education: http://www.lcme.org

• Michigan Department of Community Health: http://www.michigan.gov/mdch

• Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine: http://www.com.msu.edu

• Oakland University: http://www.oakland.edu

• Wayne State University School of Medicine: http://www.med.wayne.edu

• Western Michigan University: http://www.wmich.edu

Other Recent Readings of Interest

• Hospitals brace for shortage of nurses

Study: Middle-class Americans increasingly downbeat about their short-term economic progress

Apr 09 20:13

By HOPE YEN

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- More and more middle-class Americans say they are not better off than they were five years ago, reflecting economic pressures amid growing personal debt, a new study found.

Their short-term assessment of personal progress, according to the study released Wednesday, is the worst it has been in nearly half a century.

The survey by the Pew Research Center, a Washington-based organization, paints a mixed picture for the 53 percent of adults in the country who define themselves as "middle class," with household incomes ranging from below $40,000 to more than $100,000.

It found that a majority of all Americans said they have not progressed in the last five years. One in four, or 25 percent, said their economic situation had not improved, while 31 percent said they had fallen backward. Those numbers together are the highest since the survey question was first asked in 1964. Among the middle class, 54 percent said they had made no progress (26 percent) or fallen back (28 percent).

Asked about their financial experiences in the past year, 53 percent of middle-class people said they had to cut spending because money was tight. Nearly one in five, or 18 percent, said they had trouble getting or paying for medical care, while 10 percent reported they had been laid off or otherwise lost their jobs.

Looking ahead to the coming year, half of the middle class surveyed said they expected to have to cut more spending. Among those employed, one in four, or 25 percent, expressed worries that they would be laid off, that their job would be outsourced or that their employer would relocate in the coming year, while 26 percent were concerned that they would see cuts in salary or health benefits.

Middle-class prosperity overall also lagged compared with richer Americans. From 1983 to 2004, the median net worth of upper-income families -- defined as households with annual incomes above 150 percent of the median -- grew by 123 percent, while the median net worth of middle-income families rose by just 29 percent.

At the same time, most middle-class people remained upbeat when asked to measure their progress over a longer timeframe, although their level of optimism lagged behind their richer counterparts. Two-thirds, or 67 percent, of middle-class Americans say their standard of living is better than the one their parents enjoyed at the age they are now.

In contrast, 80 percent of richer people said they exceeded their parents' standard of living. Among the lower class, only 49 percent reported better conditions.

"It's been a lousy run for the American economy and people feel it," said Paul Taylor, director of Pew's Social & Demographic Trends project and lead author of the study. He noted that people's pessimism largely tracks annual median household income, which has seen little gain in recent years. Middle-class people also may be disproportionately feeling the pinch because they tend to borrow more heavily against their homes to support their lifestyles, Taylor said.

"Still, over a span of a generation, it's been a pretty good run, even as there are some recent pressures that I think people are feeling," he said.

The Pew poll involved telephone interviews with 2,413 adults, conducted from Jan. 24 to Feb. 19. The margin of sampling error was 2.5 percentage points.

Among the other findings:

--Nearly eight in 10 of all people, or 79 percent, said they believe it has become more difficult compared with five years ago for the middle class to maintain their standard of living, up from 65 percent in 1986.

--Among the middle class, no consensus existed on who was to blame for their economic problems. Twenty-six percent blamed the government, 15 percent faulted the price of oil and 11 percent said the people themselves were responsible. Others faulted foreign competition and private corporations for economic woes.

--Politically, 58 percent of middle-class Americans said they believed the GOP favors the rich, while nearly two-thirds say the Democratic Party favors the middle class (39 percent) or the poor (26 percent).

--Some demographic groups have improved their income status between 1970 and 2006, while others saw declines. Among the winners were seniors ages 65 and older, blacks, native-born Hispanics and married adults. Losers included young adults (ages 18 to 29), the unmarried, foreign-born Hispanics and people with a high-school education or less.

------

On the Net: Pew Research Center: http://pewsocialtrends.org/

Other Recent Readings of Interest

• Analysis: "Into the economic abyss": How deep will it go?

• Poll: More using federal income tax refunds to pay bills, reduce debt

Watercooler: Protect your identity; start planning for retirement now; high-income jobseekers aren't worried

Apr 08 11:02

By TALI ARBEL

AP Business Writer

BREAKING AND ENTERING: A receptionist collecting job applications doesn't need to see employment-seekers' Social Security numbers. Professors don't need to post grades by students' Social Security numbers. Customer service representatives don't need to know Social Security numbers to respond to consumers' complaints.

"There's a general uneasiness in the public right now," said Linda Foley, founder of the Identity Theft Resource Center, a nonprofit that tracks identity theft and data breaches. "There has been a loss of public trust in e-commerce, online banking."

The ITRC has counted 167 data breaches in the first three months of 2008. These invasions of private information -- Social Security numbers, bank accounts, credit card numbers -- could affect more than 8 million Americans.

But identity theft is not inevitable just because data has been leaked. Even though a breach notification letter is alarming, "the majority of these people will never become victims of identity theft. Don't panic," said Foley.

If a breach happens to you, act quickly. Put a fraud alert on your credit report, cancel affected credit and debit cards, close or change leaked account numbers, check your credit report at Annualcreditreport.com once every four months and put new passwords on sensitive information.

And, pre-emptively, give out your Social Security number as infrequently as possible.

Other Recent Readings of Interest

• IRS not doing enough to stem tax fraud identity theft, internal report finds

SAVE UP: If you want to spend retirement tangoing on all-you-can-eat Caribbean cruises, start planning today.

While more than two-thirds of Americans in a recent Bank of America Corp. survey said they had heard of Individual Retirement Account (IRA) savings accounts, only 40 percent said they had one.

"Baby boomers are putting more pressure on Social Security," said Dan McNamara, who oversees financial planning and personal retirement solutions at Bank of America. "Companies are not really offering as many pension plans, people are living longer and health care costs continue to rise. You have to have a plan."

Maintaining a post-retirement lifestyle akin to what you're used to requires 85 percent of a working year's pretax income for every year of not working, McNamara said, but 40 percent of those surveyed found it difficult to figure out how much money they'll need to live comfortably in retirement.

Take advantage of financial calculators -- Bank of America's Web site has a free, simple six-question quiz, for example -- company savings plans, such as 401(k)s, and individual, low-cost investment accounts.

The random telephone survey of 750 nationally representative Americans, part of a broader survey of 1,000 U.S. adults, was conducted for Bank of America during March 7-13.

Other Recent Readings of Interest

• Lawmaker says CA retirement plan should help private workers

• Trends: Employees seek more financial, retirement advice in workplace

A NEW JOB IN SIX MONTHS OR LESS: Recent employment data has economists and working Americans jittery, but jobseekers with salaries higher than $100,000 aren't so worried.

The survey, conducted by executive jobs Web site TheLadders.com, found that while 74 percent of those looking for new employment said there are fewer interviews available, 65 percent still think they'll get a new job within six months. That number hasn't changed much since late 2006, when 70 percent were sure they'd land a new job in six months or less.

"They're still optimistic," said Robert Turtledove, chief marketing officer of TheLadders.com. "This group is used to some of the vagaries of the job search market."

And while hiring by consumer goods companies, construction and manufacturing may be taking hits, pharmaceuticals, the health care industry and high-tech companies are reassuring pockets of strength, he said.

TheLadders.com surveyed 655 of its members online in March 2008.

Other Recent Readings of Interest

• Previous Watercooler: Hopeful grads, nervous employers; April Fools no joke; more

• Previous Watercooler: Resumes get too flaky, office talk is too racy, more

Previous Edition's Headlines

• Read All

Weekend Supplement: Tax Season

• Read All

Also of Interest

• Main News Headlines by the AP from IMDiversity.com's Multicultural Villages
• Your Weekly Horoscope

[Back to Top]

[Back to IMDiversity Career Center Home]

[Add IMDiversity Career Center to your IE Favorites]