Jobless on Labor Day

On Labor Day we celebrate with barbecues, baseball and beer. But the original idea was to celebrate the contributions working people make to our country. And work is a crucial part of our identity as Americans. In fact, the United States is home to some of the most productive people on the planet, and apart from Korea, we put in more hours at work than every country in the world.

Jobseekers being forced into zero-hours roles

Jobseekers face losing their benefits for three months or more if they refuse to take zero-hours contract roles, a letter from a Conservative minister has revealed.

For the first time, benefit claimants are at risk of sanctions if they do not apply for and accept certain zero-hours jobs under the new universal credit system, despite fears that such contracts are increasingly tying workers into insecure and low paid employment.

Temporary Foreign Worker Program linked to joblessness: report

There's evidence that the government's Temporary Foreign Worker Program nudges the unemployment rate higher in some sectors of the economy and parts of the country, think-tank C.D. Howe says in a report released Thursday.

The Canadian government program allows companies here to employ non-Canadians to fill job openings that can't be filled by a Canadian worker.

Fewer Young Americans Have Full-Time Jobs Now Than Last Year

According to a recent poll, young Americans are finding themselves with fewer job opportunities as the recovery continues.

The poll, conducted by Gallup, discovered that only 43.6 percent of Americans ages 18 to 29 had a full-time job in June 2013. That rate is lower than the 47 percent of millennials who were employed full-time in 2012. In fact, more young Americans reported to be employed full-time three years ago than last month.

Young Workers Face 'Crisis' of Scarce Good Jobs

Bonnie Hammond doesn't need statistics to understand the precarious job landscape B.C. offers young people today. Her first paid gig was a paper route at 12, and by the time she was 15 she was working in an ice-cream parlour. After leaving school at 16, she worked at "every crappy retail and office job in the province," moving so often from one temporary job to another that by 24, she could count up over 50 different employers.

Sequestration Will Prevent Creation Of Up To 1.6 Million Jobs In Next Year, CBO Concludes

WASHINGTON -- As many as 1.6 million new jobs could be added to the U.S. economy if Congress simply canceled the budget cuts implemented due to sequestration from Aug. 1, 2013, to the end of September 2014, a new non-partisan study has concluded.

The study, which was compiled by the Congressional Budget Office at the behest of House Budget Committee ranking member Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), looked at the practical impacts of repealing sequestration from now through the end of fiscal year 2014.

Job Growth To Get Even More Depressing In The Future: Fed Study

We are at a place where 175,000 new jobs per month is widely considered "good" job growth. According to a new Fed study, it won't be very long before merely adding 35,000 jobs per month is good enough.

In other words, enjoy this lousy labor market, because this might be just about as good as it gets in terms of job growth.

Jobseekers made to carry out bogus psychometric tests

Jobseekers are being made to complete bogus psychometric tests by the Department for Work and Pensions – and told that in some cases they risk losing their benefits if they do not complete the meaningless online questionnaire.

The test called My Strengths, devised by Downing Street's behavioural insights or "nudge" unit, has been exposed by bloggers as a sham with results having no relation to the answers given.

Millions Of Britons Could Not Afford Their Housing Costs If They Lost Their Job

Eight million people are estimated to be just one month's salary away from struggling to pay for their home, a charity has warned.

Some 35% of workers, equating to around 8.6 million Britons, do not have enough savings put by to cover their rent or mortgage for more than a month if they lost their job, Shelter found.

New Jobs Report 'Should Be A Wake-Up Call,' Analyst Says

WASHINGTON -- Nearly half a million Americans left the labor force in March, the U.S. Labor Department announced Friday, causing the unemployment rate to decline from 7.7 to 7.6 percent.

Part of the reason fewer people are participating in the labor force is that the baby boomers are hitting retirement, but another part is that the economy is lousy. Employers added only 88,000 jobs in March, the fewest in any month since June.

Unemployment Canada March 2013: Rate Spikes To 7.2 Per Cent As 84,500 Private Sector Jobs Lost

Canada's job situation was even worse in March than headline numbers suggest.

While Canada lost a net total 54,500 jobs, the number of job lost in the private sector was a whopping 85,000 -- the worst performance since February of 2009, at the height of the financial crisis.

Canada loses 54,500 jobs in March

Canada's economy lost 54,500 jobs in March, bleak new data from Statistics Canada showed Friday.

That's the worst month for Canadian employment since before the last recession, in February 2009. When added to the numbers for January and February, they show that Canada's economy has lost 26,000 jobs so far in 2013 as a whole.

The job losses pushed Canada's jobless rate higher to 7.2 per cent.

JVS Los Angeles Helps Job Seekers Who Face Barriers To Employment

Since the Great Depression and through the Great Recession, one California nonprofit has been working non-stop to help Americans thrive in the workplace.

Jewish Vocational Service Los Angeles provides Southern Californians with a full host of employment services, from education and training to counseling and psychological assistance. A non-sectarian organization, JVS focuses on at-risk youth, the physically disabled, veterans and anyone else struggling to establish independence and self-sufficiency.

Five reasons the Keystone XL pipeline is bad for jobs, as well as the environment

The American labour movement is once again facing a most controversial issue -- the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. While the KXL debate has largely centered around the environmental risks, from labour's perspective opening up the Canadian tar sands is often seen as an economic, not an environmental, issue.

And it's no wonder: Construction unemployment is double the national average and, from a worker's perspective, Keystone jobs will be good-paying union jobs in an economy that increasingly offers up only minimum-wage service work.

Think-tank says trade deal between Canada, Europe could kill Manitoba jobs

WINNIPEG - A left-leaning think-tank has issued another warning that a free trade deal between Canada and Europe could kill jobs rather than create them.

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives says the proposed Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement could cost Manitoba up to 3,800 jobs.

NDP says Human Resources Minister Diane Finley demonizing jobless Canadians

OTTAWA—Human Resources Minister Diane Finley was accused of demeaning the unemployed Friday when she stressed the need to identify fraudsters she said are cheating the Employment Insurance system out of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Finley denied a newspaper report that federal investigators are given annual quotas for discovering illegal EI claims. But she said the government is determined to “root out” fraud among the unemployed — a clampdown that netted $530 million in 2012.

Jobless Benefits Should Be Included In Fiscal Cliff Deal, Democrats Say

WASHINGTON — Hovering in the background of the "fiscal cliff" debate is the prospect of 2 million people losing their unemployment benefits four days after Christmas.

"This is the real cliff," said Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I. He's been leading the effort to include another extension of benefits for the long-term unemployed in any deal to avert looming tax increases and massive spending cuts in January.

The Forgotten Millions

Let’s get one thing straight: America is not facing a fiscal crisis. It is, however, still very much experiencing a job crisis.

It’s easy to get confused about the fiscal thing, since everyone’s talking about the “fiscal cliff.” Indeed, one recent poll suggests that a large plurality of the public believes that the budget deficit will go up if we go off that cliff.

Tom Brokaw At DNC: Job Crisis May Be Civil Rights Issue Of 21st Century

Tom Brokaw said he thinks that the jobs crisis may be this century's civil rights issue.

After moderating the HuffPost-sponsored Opportunity: What Is Working jobs panel Wednesday at the DNC, the well-known journalist and 'NBC Nightly News' anchor spoke with The Huffington Post about the "extraordinary transition" we are going through today.

He drew parallels to the civil rights issues of the 1960s and the current job crisis, saying that awareness is what moves people to action.

"During the Civil Rights Era when I was a young reporter...by just going out and covering it and putting it on the air every night, it began to move the conscience of people and raise their awareness of what we needed to do," Brokaw explained. "I think we can do the same thing with jobs, which may be the civil rights issue of the 21st Century.

Brokaw went on to describe the role the media can play in this challenge, saying "I think if we just start covering the subject in a more sophisticated way, people will get it and respond to it."

He also said he believes that local communities are going to play an important role: "I always think that the solutions are best from the ground up."

Original Article
Source: huffington post
Author: -

Jobless Youths Left Behind As Older Workers Fill More Openings

Young people are getting left behind.

High unemployment is hurting many young people as they languish without developing job skills. The United States added just 80,000 jobs in June, the Labor Department reported on Friday: This amount is less than half of what would be needed for the economy to recover in a timely fashion, according to economists.