Archive for December 2015
Arizona miner layoffs continue, county career system encourages skill transfer
plans to officially close the Sierrita copper mine, which is located about 20 miles outside Tucson, Arizona, in the city of Sahuarita. The mine had previously employed 1,300 people, and had begun announcing layoffs in August and October due to low copper and oil prices. Because of these prices, spending cuts became necessary. The mine…
Read MoreUber rolls out new safety feature in Boston, Austin
undergo fingerprint background checks, while as recently as last month, Austin City Council received letters from two groups that argued such fingerprinting is a form of discrimination. Now, Uber has rolled out a new feature in the Texas capital, where riders can send their ride information to their friends via their smartphones. The feature, called…
Read MoreSocial media not always taken into consideration during immigration background checks
After the San Bernardino, Calif., shootings by husband and wife Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, it was discovered that Malik had posted to her Facebook page several years prior that she supported violent jihad activities, and that she wanted to participate in them. Those posts were not reviewed when she entered the U.S. with…
Read More20,000 gun background checks conducted in Florida since San Bernardino
dramatic increase in the amount of background checks that were conducted related to gun purchases. The number of gun-related background checks in Florida was up 77 percent, as nearly double the amount of people who purchased firearms in Dec. 2014 chose to purchase guns since the Dec. 2, 2015, shooting. With the increased number of…
Read MoreMissouri Dept of Health finds safety violations at daycare centers
recently cited for safety violations at their facilities during Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services inspections. The violations ranged from peeling paint on baseboards, to not having background check records easily accessible at the facilities, to staff members napping when they should have been watching the children. Each center had between one and 12…
Read MoreNovember 2015 employment: Slow growth compared to previous months
Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate continues to hold steady at 5 percent in November. The unemployment rate officially dropped two whole percentage points over the past two years, since November 2013. Approximately 7.9 million Americans still find themselves unemployed, a number unchanged since last month. In addition, 211,000 new jobs were added in…
Read MoreE-Verify to dispose of decade-old records
purging all transaction records that are more than 10 years old from its system database. This is in an attempt to minimize the amount of Personal Identifiable Information that the U.S. Government maintains, to reduce the risk of online security threats. E-Verify is a free web-based application that allows employers to ensure that their employees…
Read MoreDept. of Labor investigating Kansas staffing agency for failing to pay temp workers
failing to pay temporary workers that were contracted to work at Kauffman Stadium during Kansas City Royals baseball games. The agency, Staffing KC — not to be confused with another Kansas City-based temporary agency with a similar name (“Staffing Kansas City, Inc.”) — had failed to pay Royals game workers who had worked in the…
Read MoreNew state program requires comprehensive background checks for Connecticut care facilities
must undergo federal and state background checks to ensure the individual has no criminal record and no history of abuse or neglect. In November, however, the Connecticut Department of Public Health created a system that will allow care facilities to better screen their employees and job applicants in an attempt to reduce the number of…
Read MoreDHS to hire 1,000 new employees for cyber security team
Office of Personnel Management gave DHS permission to create up to 1,000 new jobs. By granting this authority, the OPM will allow the Department to bypass many of the hiring procedures that the government currently has in place that could delay hiring. The hope is that, by getting staff on board quicker, DHS can get…
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