Falling wage growth adds gloom to jobs picture, labor group says
Declining wage growth is adding to the discouraging employment picture, leaving cash-strapped workers unable to help boost the recovery, the National Employment Law Project said. One big way lawmakers could help is to raise the minimum wage and index it to inflation, the worker advocacy group said.
http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-wages-jobs-20120504,0,1582124.story
Long-term unemployment can lead to deeper unhappiness than spouse’s death: report
Stay unemployed long enough, and you don’t just bounce back once a job rolls around. People who have been out of work a long time tend to be unhappier, on the whole, than people who have suffered many other types of negative life events, researchers have found. Even if you’ve lost your spouse to death or divorce, you have a better chance of climbing back up to your previous level of happiness.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/07/longterm-unemployment-happiness_n_1495837.html
The jobless young find their voice
This may be little consolation to recent graduates who have sent out dozens of résumés with nary a response; who have been turned down for unpaid internships; who have vast amounts of student debt to repay as they continue in jobs as baby sitters and waiters. But employers say they will hire 10.2 percent more college graduates from the class of 2012 than they did from the class of 2011, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/06/business/for-jobless-young-people-new-advocacy-groups.html
Jobs few, grads flock to unpaid internships
Confronting the worst job market in decades, many college graduates who expected to land paid jobs are turning to unpaid internships to try to get a foot in an employer’s door. Although many internships provide valuable experience, some unpaid interns complain that they do menial work and learn little, raising questions about whether these positions violate federal rules governing such programs.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/06/business/unpaid-internships-dont-always-deliver.html
Child agricultural labor rule: Not just dead, but erased from DOL’s website
Get this, if you go to the Labor Department’s Wage and Hour website, there’s not a nugget, not a morsel, not a crumb of information about this proposed rule. If you click into the child labor-specific page you’ll see information about a rule finalized in 2010 to protect youngsters who work for pay in other industries (e.g., restaurants, landscaping, amusement parks, childcare centers, etc.) but not a peep about what the Labor Department wanted to do to protect the same kind of kids who are working in agriculture. Does the Labor Department think it can just erase history by removing all evidence of this proposal?
http://scienceblogs.com/thepumphandle/2012/05/child_agricultural_labor_rule.php
Thousands of teen worker injuries each year, including youth job deaths
Workplace injuries do not only happen to adults, and new research has raised serious concerns about teen worker safety. According to a recent report that appeared in HealthDay News, researchers from the Colorado School of Public Health found that there were approximately 20,000 teen worker injuries in 2010, including 88 fatalities due to on-the-job injuries at privately owned companies.
http://www.prweb.com/releases/gary-martin-hays/lawyers/prweb9478272.htm
Federal probe into SF fire deaths cites problems
A federal investigation into the deaths last year of two San Francisco firefighters blamed a lethal mix of hillside architecture, tactical blunders and heat so intense it rendered the engulfed crew’s radios useless. The firefighters became trapped and overwhelmed by intense heat that rose from the floor below them. Not knowing the radios had failed, fire commanders assumed they were safe with another crew when they did not respond.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/05/04/BAAC1ODQCC.DTL
Wells Fargo fires employee for ’72 shoplifting conviction
A Milwaukee woman is now unemployed after Wells Fargo, her employer, discovered she committed a crime more than 40 years ago. Yolanda Quesada was fired when a background check revealed she shoplifted in 1972.
http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/07/11578176-wells-fargo-fires-employee-for-72-shoplifting-conviction
