Your Recession

If you think the economy is on a modest rebound, raise your hand!

According to numbers released the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there’s slight growth on the job front. Unemployment rates fell in two-thirds of the states last month!

Plus, unemployment rates dropped below seven percent in 22 states in April; that’s less than the national average of 8.1 percent. That said, unemployment rose in five states and remained unchanged in eight. Considering almost half of our nation’s states saw a drop, that seems like a cause for a mini-celebration, yes?

As for the states with the lowest unemployment rates? Check out North Dakota: Their rate in April was three percent. Next up? Nebraska’s rate was 3.9 percent and South Dakota was 4.3 percent. Larger states saw a relatively low rate as well since Minnesota and Virginia both had unemployment rates of 5.6 percent last month.

And Texas has pretty strong numbers, too! Our second largest state added 250,000 jobs during the past twelve months and dropped its unemployment rate to 6.9 percent last month.

Keep in mind the national average is just that — an average. Although some states dipped, others increased. For instance, Nevada has the highest unemployment rate in the nation at 11.7 percent, followed by Rhode Island at 11.2 percent.

Although the optimistic report doesn’t break down numbers in terms of industry — ahem, the media — hopefully the trend will continue as we head into June.

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Well, the numbers are in and they do not look good. Are they better than stats from March? Yeah but they’re not exactly great. The April job report reflected a creation of 115,000 jobs and indicated the unemployment rate decreased from 8.2 percent to 8.1.

According to CNBC, although it may seem like jobs have been created, the number of discouraged employees increased from 865,000 to 968,000 — that’s an increase of 12 percent! Plus, people working on a part-time basis increased by 18,000. It wasn’t clear if this was in lieu of full-time work or if people re-entered the workforce from retirement, let’s say, to earn some extra cash.

What can we make of these numbers? Not to sound too grim but um, it’s indeed weak. Peter Morici, economist at the University of Maryland, told CNBC, “In the weakest recovery since the Great Depression, more than four-fiths of the reduction in unemployment has been accomplished by a dropping adult labor force participation rate — essentially persuading adults they don’t need a job, or the job they could find is not worth having.”

Although long-term unemployment slightened a little last month, at least numbers are headed in the right direction. Americans out of a job for more than 27 weeks decreased to 5.3 million to 5.1 and the average timeframe for unemployment decreased to 39.1 weeks.

Numbers, schmumbers — are they helpful? Perhaps for a macro view on the economy but when it comes right down to it, nothing can replace a job search than hard work, networking, and a ton of perseverance, numbers and all.

According to a report issued by ADP, businesses added 119,000 jobs during the month of April — not exactly great news since the jobs report will be released tomorrow. As reported by CNN Money, economists were anticipating growth of 170,000 jobs.

So, what does this mean with the soon-to-be-released monthly jobs report? There’s a slight slowdown since 201,00 jobs were added in March and 228,000 jobs were added in February, as per the same report.

Joel Prakken, Macroeconomic Advisers chairman, thinks it’s a lukewarm statistic. He told CNNMoney, “Those employment gains are not enough to get us back to full employment. I don’t consider this to be a good number. It’s tepid.”

CNNMoney anticipate the data tomorrow will reflect 160,000 additional jobs in April which represents 165,000 from the private sector minus approximately 5,000 government jobs. Assuming the number of people in the work force remains the same, the unemployment rate will likely not dip below the current rate of 8.2 percent, says the piece. Until the report is issued tomorrow, however, we won’t have exact numbers. Stay tuned…

It’s hard out here for CEOs. According to preliminary results from a new study by The Wall Street Journal and Hay Group: “Despite fairly significant gains in companies’ profit and revenue, total direct compensation for 65 CEOs in place at least two years rose just 1.4% last year.”

This figure is down from an 11% in 2010. Reasoning for the CEO compensation decline is that pay is being more directly tied to performance. Whereas before, “directors would often overlook missed targets and award big bonuses anyway.” Now, however, investors and the Securities and Exchange Commission aren’t looking the other way.

These preliminary results are drawn from a survey of 75 companies with annual revenue greater than $5.9 billion. A larger report of 300 companies is slated to be conducted this spring.

Here’s an example:

Athletic-gear maker Nike Inc. posted a 10% increase in revenue and a 12% rise in net income in the fiscal year ended May 31, 2011. But the company missed three-year targets for revenue and per-share earnings that had been set in 2008, so CEO Mark Parker received a smaller bonus, driving his total compensation down 5.8%, to $12.7 million.

Fair?

In the midst of layoffs, buyouts and unemployment all around the media world, it’s hard not to point the finger towards everyone else.

But Dr. Wayne Dyer believes all you need to break out of a professional rut is a simple attitude adjustment.

“[People are] just going through unemployment benefits and complaining that they can’t get any work. But there are opportunities everywhere if you’re open to them,” the bestselling author said in mediabistro.com’s So What Do You Do? interview.  ”Instead of waiting for the government to do it, or for the factory to re-open, they can put their attention on abundance and prosperity will show up in your life.”

First step, says the “father of motivation,” is to realize that you are what you think.

“If you’re thinking about unemployment, or how bad the economy is, or all the reasons why you can’t do something, you’ll get exactly that. Instead, align yourself with the type of energy you want to attract and those kinds of people will show up in your life.”

Read the full interview to find out how he began his multi-million dollar empire.

 

Here’s the first episode of Salon’s new series on joblessness, which is titled F**ked (people watching at work: the video never says the curse word explicitly, but the censored version is displayed rather large as the title).

The series looks at the lives of the 99ers, those who have been jobless for so long that their unemployment benefits have been entirely used up.

Regardless of how you feel about the politics of the 99ers this series looks to be a thought-provoking watch.

It might look like Stacy London‘s life is nothing but peaches and sunshine, but the stylist and co-host of TLC’s What Not to Wear has had her share of failures.

“I was actually fired when I was the senior fashion editor when I was at Mademoiselle,” she explained in our Media Beat interview. “In retrospect, I can say it was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. At the time, I was furious. I thought that I had done a really great job, a really strong job while I was there. And one of the things that was really hard was that I sort of had to reconfigure how to identify myself. I’d associated myself really with my name on that masthead for so long that it took a second for me to figure out what’s next. It actually took about a year.”

The most important thing she learned? That a forced “vacation” can ultimately lead to a personal (and career) breakthrough.

You can also view this video on YouTube.

Part 1: Stacy London: ‘It’s not just about the clothes. It’s about the psychology behind them’
Part 2: What Not to Wear’s Stacy London Takes Your Fashion Questions

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer shut down March 17, 2009 to be replaced by an online-only site with much fewer staff.

The former book critic, John Douglas Marshall, hasn’t yet found gainful employment.

He wrote in the Atlantic last Friday that he’s cashed his last unemployment check. Nearly 3 years of unemployment, 400 applications, three in-person interviews.

It’s not a happy story. He’s been freelancing and applying for jobs. He’s clearly a qualified, intelligent human being, like so many of the jobless.

And yet…

I honestly thought that I could land another regular job, even if I was a few years short of retirement. That turned out to be a Fractured Fairy Tale, as my blue file folder testifies.

That folder, now 3 inches thick, scarcely contains all the weekly logs of jobs that I applied for in order to qualify for unemployment – three jobs every week during two years of federal unemployment, then four jobs every week during six months of Washington State unemployment. That totaled 400 job applications, from my first to be communications director for a Seattle private school on 4/8/2009 to my last to be a technical editor for a staffing agency on 6/30/2011.

My weekly logs contain jobs in writing, editing, marketing and communications, jobs at non-profits, at publications and publishers, at retail concerns, at universities and colleges, at ad agencies, law firms, the zoo, even a few newspapers. … I never heard back from most places I applied and only scored three in-person job interviews from my 400 applications, three in-person interviews that taught me how close I could come to landing a job and still not get it.

Ugh, ugh, ugh. Our condolences go out to Marshall, who is one of those people who is doing everything right and not able to catch a break. Like millions of other Americans today.

Touching story from Theodore Ross in the New York Times’ Opinionator about being laid off from Harper’s, and what happens to your social life afterward.

“I received no gold watch or commemorative plaque, and the $75 service fee to cash out of the profit-sharing program was higher than the amount owed me,” he writes, but at least there were some farewell cocktails involved. First, he went to a bar with his old editor and a writer he’d worked with for a few years. The second trip “included the full assembly of my friends and co-workers. I recall being thanked, with only minimal sarcasm, for my exemplary contributions and years of service. A few politely indifferent questions regarding the direction and progress of my book were asked, I believe; and while pledges to stay closely and eternally in contact weren’t stated explicitly, I feel confident that they were implied. The rest vanished mysteriously into the depths of a shot glass.”

Then there were the lunches, the coffees, and so on, “to preserve a connection, however tenuous, to my former life.” Yet ultimately, as anyone who’s changed jobs knows, it’s a futile effort…see how well it turns out by reading the rest of the piece.

Editor’s note: Writer and marketing professional Mary Katherine Rossi contributes this tale of job search and phone interview woe. Sound familiar? Probably because we’ve all been here before. If you have a tale, let us know too—we’ll be happy to be your outlet for catharsis.

It’s like I’m on my umpteenth blind date. I’ve gone through the rigmarole before, but maybe this will be the one. I try not to, but I talk loudly around him and I cough to muffle awkward pauses. Even so, I tell myself I’ve got what he’s looking for. But ultimately, he just isn’t that into me. The difference is that my date is a job recruiter and we’re not out to dinner. It’s time for a phone interview.

I’m about to talk to Doug, a recruiter on the west coast who contacted me on LinkedIn to discuss an entry-level communications job in my town. I’m overqualified for the position, but with the state of things…well, you know. Can’t be overly picky. Plus he showed interest first. Has to be a good sign.

He suggests an 8pm EST call. Seems late, but I agree. The day of the interview I entirely mismanage my time and end up answering the call in my car while parked in a grocery store parking lot. I’m freezing, have no notes in front of me (the ultimate plus, if any, of a phone interview), and worry that a car alarm will randomly go off during the call.

The phone rings. I answer the call with a polite yet personable “Hello?”

The response: gurblegurblegurble. I hear nothing but static.

“I’m sorry?” I ask courteously.

The second time he’s perfectly clear. “It’s Doug? We have a phone interview scheduled?” I’ve said three words and he’s already annoyed. I have to turn this rocky start around and wow him with the goods I’ve got for this job.

He starts asking the usual questions. I structure each response to show my range of previous work and capabilities. I’m no bigwig, but I’ve been in the field for a couple of years. I think I’m a pretty great catch.

His responses went from “Uh huh,” to “Yep, okay,” to “Oh, well that’s interesting.”

His obvious lack of interest in my answers weaves in between mocking the area of the country I live in, which is also where the job is located. I get it, I live in the Northeast, it does indeed snow here and yes, it gets quite cold. Oh, well that’s nice your pool is still open. Let’s focus on what I can say to impress you.
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