February 4, 2016 Challenger, Gray and Christmas, an outplacement firm, released its job cuts report for January. Layoffs increased by 218%, the highest since last summer, mostly due to a loss of 16,000 jobs at Wal-Mart, America’s biggest non-government employer, and 4,800 at Macy’s. The low-wage retail sector suffered cuts … Continue reading
Category Archives: Jobs
Compromise at the Convention on Climate Change, Lima 2014
December 7, 2014 As at previous similar conventions, there is agreement on the overall goal, not on who should do what, when, and pay how much. Rather than repeating the entire list of disagreements, the following might become the basis for a possible compromise. The overall goal is to reduce … Continue reading
Climate Change & Lima, Peru 2014
December 2, 2014 The ongoing United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (December 1 through 12, 2014) in Lima must not fail to slow, and eventually halt, the use of fossil fuels and nuclear energy to generate electricity. That would greatly reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the … Continue reading
Solar Power Economics
October 24, 2014 Here’s an example –albeit of limited scope- of how solar power could be used to reduce unemployment. An Arizona-based private company will build a 60-megawatt solar power plant on 600 acres of dry, vacant land near Mendota, California, a drought-stricken community with near 30% unemployment about 25 … Continue reading
Mass Exodus From The U.S. Workforce – Nov. 2013
The unemployment rate has been declining, but so has labor force participation. Media attention tends to focus on the former and to ignore the latter; as a result, some people wrongly assume that the employment situation is improving and that it’s only a matter of time before things get back … Continue reading
Man-Cession
In the mid 1950s, nearly every man in his prime working years was in the labor force, a category that includes both those who are employed and those actively applying for jobs. Early in 1956 the “participation rate” for men ages 25 to 54 stood at 97.7%. By late … Continue reading