employment
Supreme Court to decide: is pregnancy a temporary disability?
In early December, the Supreme Court began listening to arguments regarding whether employers should be required to include pregnancy in their coverage for short-term disabilities. The case was brought by Peggy Young, a Maryland woman who had been working as a UPS driver for four years, but lost her job when she became pregnant. Prior to…
Read MoreFinal Rule prohibits sexual orientation, gender identity discrimination
President Obama signed an Executive Order that would prevent federal contractors from discriminating against potential employees on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, in addition to the characteristics that are already protected by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Earlier this month, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs finally released information outlining how…
Read MoreNovember 2014: job growth improves substantially
Bureau of Labor Statistics news release, non-farm employment improved by 321,000 new jobs in November, up almost 100,000 from the previous average of 224,000 new jobs per month across all industries. The unemployment rate held steady last month, unchanged at 9.1 million people unemployed, about 5.8 percent. New jobs were available across many fields, as…
Read MoreOctober 2014: unemployment rate continues slow descent with addition of 214,000 jobs
the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were plenty of new jobs available in October, and the unemployment rate slid down another 0.1 percent from September, to 5.8 percent for the month. This decrease means that only 9 million Americans are currently unemployed, down from 9.6 million people that were unemployed in August. (The number of…
Read MoreCareerBuilder releases list of unbelievable excuses for taking sick leave
With the help of a Harris poll, CareerBuilder.com has released this year’s list of “The Most Unbelievable Excuses for Calling in Sick.” The job-search site has been compiling the best and craziest excuses from U.S. workers for the past decade. Would you tell your boss that you couldn’t make it to the office because you…
Read MoreTerms of Executive Order released for contractor minimum wage
a second Executive Order was signed on “Equal Pay Day” in April. Their proposed regulations would keep government contractors from keeping pay policies a secret, and remove discriminatory language from contracts regarding employees asking about or sharing information about their wages. The Order will go into effect on January 1, 2015, and applies only for…
Read MoreSeptember 2014: Unemployment rate drops to 5.9 percent
the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate dropped by .2 percentage points in September, bringing the unemployment rate down to 5.9 percent. So far in 2014, the percent of unemployed people has dropped by 1.3 points overall. The number of available non-farming jobs increased by nearly 250,000 jobs last month, thanks to growth in…
Read MoreEmployment equality: D.C. ranks highest, West Virginia lowest for women in the workforce
At the beginning of September, the Institute for Women’s Policy Research released a study on how the 50 states (and Washington D.C.) rank as far as women’s equality in employment and wages. This study has been in progress since 1996. Washington D.C. ranked the highest as far as equality between men and women, due to…
Read MoreAugust 2014 employment: job creation stagnant in several industries
a news release from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, August didn’t bring much good news for job seekers across several large industries. Those industries — including manufacturing, financial, government, transportation and trade — remained essentially unchanged from July as far as new jobs created. In addition, the number of retail jobs available actually decreased,…
Read MoreeHarmony wants you to meet your perfect … boss?
recruit employees via social media and job listing websites. But would you consider using a matching service to pair you with your ideal job? Dating website eHarmony is counting on it — and has put three years of work into making it happen. In December, eHarmony plans to launch a new company called Elevated Careers…
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