Another BLS employment situation report was released this past Friday, which is my cue to deliver a riveting round up of all the major details, highlights, and headaches contained within it. In the case of May�s report, the headaches are abundant. The U.S. dropped another 49,000 positions off of its payroll employment totals, and the unemployment rate has skyrocketed from 5.0 to 5.5 percent in the span of just one month.

With the number of unemployed persons jumping up to 8.5 million in May, this portion of the population has increased by 1.6 million over the past 12 months. The nation�s unemployment rate has also climbed an entire percentage point since May 2007. The number of persons unemployed for less than five weeks, otherwise referred to as newly unemployed persons, rose by 760,000 to 3.2 million last month as well. Over the first five months of the year, our country has lost more than 300,000 jobs in various industries.

Of the sectors that have lost of the most jobs in 2008, construction, manufacturing, and retail trade have certainly been the most consistent in the positions they�ve cut. May was no different, with manufacturing dropping 26,000 jobs, retail trade losing another 27,000, and the construction industry cutting 34,000 positions as well. Professional and business services added to the damage with another 39,000-job loss.

The health care industry continues to persevere, with an additional 34,000 jobs created in May. As one of the only bright spots that the U.S. has to brag about these days, there is nothing discouraging to say about earning a degree in health care.

In less dramatic (or rather, headache-laden) news, the average workweek for U.S. workers held steady at 33.7 hours. Average hourly earnings for the country�s employees rose another 0.3 percent to $17.94, seasonally adjusted. This brings the average weekly pay for U.S. workers to $604.58. Hourly average earnings have climbed 3.5 percent since May of last year.

Saint Louis University joins online education wave

2008-05-22

Saint Louis University School for Professional in Saint Louis has announced the school's first online education program, a 120-credit hour Bachelor of Arts in General Studies. The school describes the program as "a multidisciplinary, flexible degree program that offers students an opportunity to study aspects of society and culture, sharpen comprehension, speaking and writing skills, and think critically."

Online Careers provides a list of online colleges that offers degrees in a wide range of discipline.

A sweeping look at the job market for college graduates, teens and drop outs

2008-05-19

The 2007-2008 school year is coming to an end and hundreds of thousand of teenagers and college graduates are about to enter the job market, some looking for career-path positions, some looking for paycheck jobs and some just looking for something to do over the summer.

As we've noted before, the U.S. labor market isn't in the best of shape right now, having lost jobs each of the last four months. Yet, the unemployment rate is a non-scary 5.0% and the mortgage collapse doesn't appear to have spooked employers entirely. But the exact state of the job market depends on who you are, where you are, and what you are looking to do, as a series of articles we link to below illustrate.

As has been the case for a few summers, more or less across the nation, is that it is pretty difficult for teenagers to find summer employment. But, as The Coloradoan writes, there are opportunities out there for young, inexperienced go getters:

Kathy Reid, a manager at Fort Collins Nursery, hires three teens every summer.

"We run their little tails off, and we're very happy to have them," she said.

"They bring energy and good backs to the table, and they're all eager learners, which is fun."

Even summer employers look for experience when comparing resumes, said Bill Whirty of the city's parks department, which hires about 75 seasonsal [sic] workers and has about 10 jobs still open.

"Experience ... is always a plus," Whirty said.

"But in an entry position, you look for a willing attitude and sparkling eyes ... people with a good attitude who are ready to go to work."

One of the problems that teenagers face - apart from the always present fluctuations in the economy - is the growing immigrant work force. The Miami Herald reports:

Young people are competing with adults for positions at Publix and department stores. [Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University research associate Joseph] McLaughlin said teens in states like Florida also are hurt by other factors: new immigrants, retirees and young adults.

Immigrants and older workers are preferred by a lot of employers, McLaughlin said. ``They have work experience and can interact with customers better. They're perceived to be more reliable.''

Young adults, ages 20-24, have a harder time landing entry-level career positions, and wind up staying in positions they've had since college or even high school.

''It doesn't open up spots for teens,'' McLaughlin said.

The practice of holding on to an existing job, even if it is a fairly low-wage one, is not an uncommon strategy for young people at the verge of entering a career. A small but reliable paycheck is still a reliable paycheck, after all. Having a job, any job, is usually a plus in itself when one tries to get a more coveted position. Having a job demonstrates the ability to show up on time, follow instructions and generally be of some economic value.

Getting that elusive first job can require patience and, well, work. Chicago tribune takes a look at the summer-job situation for teens in that city:

Six hours after her search began Saturday, Stephanie Castro, 18, still was unemployed.

Storefront by storefront, she knocked on doors across Chicago's West Side to come up with only one job lead: a sales position with Foot Locker. She applied immediately.

"I walk in with a great smile and try to look approachable. I speak in a high level, not a shy tone, so they can see I'm someone who would bring people in. I show them I'm determined," said Castro, who first posted her résumé online four months ago.

One way to land a full-time summer job is to start off with a part-time position during the school year:

Alexa Sarachan, 15, parlayed what began as a summer job into a year-round gig at the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory in north suburban Gurnee Mills, five minutes from her house. She juggles three shifts a week with her classwork at Warren Township High School, hoping this will further her ambition to become a chef and give her pocket money at a time when many classmates struggle to find jobs.

Things are a bit easier for college graduates, even if the weakening employment outlook has prompted many students to head straight to graduate school in an attempt to stay out of the downturn altogether. Lisa Rich at New Jersey Times describes how graduates from The College of New Jersey are dealing with the situation:

But many students said that, for now, they've opted to bypass the work force and instead head to graduate school.

"I am so thankful to not be job hunting, especially considering the nature of the economy," said Brigitte Mcnamara, of Somerville, who will attend New York University in the fall. "Had I not been accepted, I would probably be feeling scared right now."

That's not to say her class is without enterprising daredevils:

Student James Introcaso of Collingswood said he also feels prepared, but the path he's decided to take after graduating is a little different than others.

Introcaso is going across country to shoot a documentary film about a national kindness movement of community service. The film is being funded by various grants and will likely be finished by the end of the summer.

Then what? A mission of scouring the classifieds in hopes of finding a job?

"I have an interview with VH1 right after the trip, so I'm not really worried right now," he said. "I know I'm in a hard field to break into, especially now with the economy, but those who work hard will make it."

That's the right attitude.

While employment prospects look and are somewhat shaky now for college graduates right now, it may be a bit too early in the economic cycle to run for the proverbial hills of graduate school. Getting into grad school is a good defensive move - and excellent preparation for future success - in times of recession, but if one opts for it too soon one might end up entering a labor market that's even worse than the one one tried to avoid. Entering grad school at the bottom of a recession also increases one's chances of entering the job market when corporate staffing is at its thinnest, which gives job seekers much better leverage than they normally would have. It's a tricky balance to strike, but then again, if it was easy it wouldn't offer much of a pay off.

There are signs that it may be a tad too early to make the jump to grad school.

Rebecca Boyle at Fort Collins Now reports that hiring for college graduates remains rather strong:

"The job market for them is not bad across the board, actually. There are certain areas that just really consistently have more positions than students to fill them," said Brett Beal, associate director for employer relations for the Career Center at CSU.

...

According to a report last month by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, on average, college graduates who get jobs will get paid 5.3 percent more than last year's graduates, a sign that the job market for graduates is still healthy.

...

The more experience, the better, but new graduates are often a hot commodity even in a tepid economy, Beal said.

"They're enthusiastic, they are still in that learning mode, so there are a lot of reasons why employers like to look at college students,"she said. "There are some advantages that a college grad brings to the workforce."

Saying that new graduates are a hot commodity even in downturns may be going a bit far, but as of right now, certain graduates are facing more inviting prospects than others. Fields with still strong hiring include chemical engineering, computer engineering, civil and mechanical engineering, and accounting majors. As we have noted time and time again here on Online Careers.com, the health care sector is also growing.

Similar story lines are playing out for graduates from technical schools in Minnesota and Wisconsin. KAALtv in Minnesota reports from the graduation ceremony at Rochester Community and Technical College (that's Rochester, MN.):

"Historically and to date we have not felt that downturn, says Dave Weber, an Administrator for RCTC.

Weber says his students fall into one of two groups.

Either they're in the Liberal Arts program and plan to continue at a four-year-university, or they're in one of the technical programs.

"Most of our students leave us and find a training-related job within months, says Weber.

Wasau Daily Herald tells a similar tale at Northcentral Technical College in Wasau, Wisconsin:

When Karen Welch lost her job at Fiskars, she knew she needed to find better job security.

On Saturday, Welch, 47, and 593 other students graduated from Northcentral Technical College. Welch, who lives in Spencer, received a welding degree.

"I knew that's where the jobs were," she said, standing in her cap and gown prior to the commencement. "I'm confident that I'll find a job. The market out there is good."

According to local and national experts, Welch is right. The job market for 2008 graduates is good despite a stagnant economy.

The top five jobs with the largest expected growth in Wisconsin are physician assistants, home health aides, network systems and data communication analysts, medical assistants and computer software engineers, according to Wisconsin's online Workforce and Labor Market Information System.

ABCaffiliate KFSN covers the situation facing Fresno State graduates:

More than 4,300 students earned bachelor's degrees this year and even in the tough economy, there are plenty of reasons for them to be optimistic about the future.

...

"It will be a while before it affects the new college graduate market. That tends to lag behind the larger economy," said Rita Bocchinfuso-Cohen [director of Career Services at Fresno State].

...

Still, the market is softening. Though employers say they'll hire more graduates this year than last, they won't be hiring as many as they had earlier anticipated. "In the fall when you surveyed them, they said about 16 percent. When we surveyed them again around March, you can see they've dropped the number of new hires, but it's still more than last year, which was a good year," said Bocchinfuso-Cohen.

Again, graduates shouldn't be too much in a rush to get into graduate school, unless, of course, they originally planned on going there after completing their undergraduate studies.

Washington State is another state with a weakening but really weak job market, as the Seattle Times reports:

The state lost 1,800 nonfarm payroll jobs [in April], according to the Employment Security Department's monthly report, which is adjusted to smooth out seasonal variations. It was the second straight monthly decline, after a revised 2,300-job drop in March.

...

But Washington's unemployment rate fell to 4.7 percent from a downward revised 4.8 percent in March, comparing favorably to the national jobless rate of 5 percent.

Unemployment in the Seattle metro area was even lower, falling two-tenths of a percentage point to 3.5 percent, the lowest rate in the state.

"We're kind of experiencing a mixed picture," said Dave Wallace, the state's acting chief labor economist. "We don't have enough supporting evidence to say we're in a recession; considering we're getting a lot of mixed signals, I wouldn't say we are."

What works in Washington's favor is that the state has a broad-based economy that includes airplane manufacturing, forestry, agriculture, and software development.

Utah, which has benefited from in-migration from California and other high-cost states, is still experiencing job growth, albeit at a slowing pace. Writes the Salt Lake Tribune:

Utah's employment growth, as in many other areas of the country, is slowing down in great part because of the sharp downturn in the residential real estate market. As home sales have declined from a blistering pace, people working for home builders, mortgage and title companies, and other companies related to real estate have lost jobs in recent months.

But the effect of the decline in that sector has not spilled over into other employment sectors or to the economy as whole, [Workforce Services senior economist Mark] Knold said.

One reason that the decline in jobs in the housing construction sector hasn't had as much of an impact on the wider economy could be that many of those jobs were held by illegal aliens (or undocumented workers, if you prefer that expression) and thus not as big a part of the labor market for citizens and immigrants as raw payroll numbers may have indicated. At the same time, it is worth stressing that the labor market is a laggard when it comes to gauging the state of the economy. Employers are wary of laying off workers when the recession draws near and wary of hiring when it dissipates. So it could well be that we haven't really seen the effects of the housing bust on the overall economy.

California is a mixed picture in the sense that part of the state is losing jobs while other parts are expanding. Overall, the number of jobs was almost unchanged. The state's unemployment rate was 6.2%, third highest in America, and one percentage point more than last year. The San Francisco metropolitan continues to do well while Oakland, for example, is struggling.

Whatever the economy is like,having an education is a good deal better than being a high school drop out. Mississippi is trying to dent the state's high-school drop rate, according to the Hattiesburg American:

With a state dropout rate of more than 24 percent, the influx of unskilled workers into the job market is shrinking the quality of the state's labor pool, which could have a devastating effect on Mississippi's economic development if something is not done, said Ben Teague, vice president of economic development for the Area Development Partnership.

...

"The real issue isn't whether you have a diploma or not, although it's a real plus when you go out looking," [Allen] Anderson [president of Anderson Retail] said. "But mainly, can you show up, act like you've got a little gumption and can you care about what you're doing? Give me those things."

Finally, Spherion Corp.'s monthly survey of employee confidence, conducted by Harris Interactive, shows improvement in California, Florida, New York and Ohio, but retreat in Texas in April. However, workers in Texas remain more bullish on the economy than workers in the rest of the nation.

Criminal Justice Degrees Prepare U.S. Workers for More Careers than Ever

2008-05-15

This past Sunday marked the start of National Police Week here in the U.S., which is fitting, since I had already planned to write a post about the relevance of criminal justice degrees in our country (with a few related fields of study mixed in). It�s either a remarkable coincidence or I�m starting to develop a sixth sense when it comes to America�s employment situation. For the sake of my social life, I�m hoping for the former. Either way, while National Police Week denotes something tragic�officers lost in the line of duty�the annual commemoration also pays tribute to a group of men and women who dedicate themselves to an indispensable and courageous line of work.

Law enforcement occupations are often thought of as hands-on positions that require intensive training, good judgment, and the ability to react appropriately in high-pressure situations. Furthermore, the majority of these jobs now call for a degree or a professional certificate. In the contemporary U.S. job market, a college education in criminal justice is exactly what you need to break into many of the competitive law enforcement industries. But jobs in law enforcement certainly do not encompass all the career paths that a degree in criminal justice can lend itself to.

According to an online tutorial posted on eLearners.com, professionals with an associate�s or a bachelor�s degree in criminal justice end up working as court clerks, drug enforcement agents, non-profit organization advocates, social workers, and much, much more. Alternative concentrations that colleges offer alongside their criminal justice curricula include private security, leadership and executive management, corrections, and global issues as they relate to social justice.

Paralegal work is another popular area of study that�s closely associated with criminal justice. If you know that the law aspect of the criminal justice field interests you the most, a postsecondary program that offers paralegal certificates, diplomas, or degrees may be your best option. The eLearners guide mentioned above outlines potential jobs for those who hold advanced criminal justice degrees, and paralegal work frequently serves as springboard for many of the law-oriented professions on this list.

Forensic science and criminal investigation, fields that have recently gained momentum as a result of popular culture and the media, comprise yet another branch of the criminal justice industry that�s worth pursuing. Despite their current status as trendy career choices, positions in forensic science must be filled by capable and educated individuals. Institutions like the New York-based Bryant & Stratton College recognize this need, which is why the school has invested more into its criminal justice and paralegal programs in recent years, going as far as to build a high-tech lab that simulates crime scenes and houses equipment like fingerprinting supplies and ballistics kits. And schools like Colorado Technical University have followed this cue.

That isn�t to say that online alternatives aren�t available to willing students. A number of different schools ranging from Lincoln College to Kaplan University to Virginia College Online to Tiffin University offer accredited criminal justice degree programs over the internet. The eLearners.com criminal justice guide is actually geared towards online students.

So while it won�t take much to convince you that a career criminal justice has the potential to impress and excite, I assume by now you�re considering the financial rewards. For the most part, U.S. workers who hold at least an associate�s degree in criminal justice make between $35,000 and $55,000 a year. With further schooling and multiple industries available for you to enter into, the potential to increase this salary is limitless. In the end, it�s all about whether or not a career satisfies your needs. With criminal justice, many workers have found an industry that allows them to offer aid within their communities, to earn competitive wages, and to use their instinctive talents and learned skills on a daily basis.

The Return of the BLS Employment Situation Report: How Our Hiatus from Recapping Has Spared You from Some Gory Details

2008-05-06

It's been awhile since we've published a post on the country's employment situation report here at OnlineCareers.com, and luckily for our readers, you guys haven't missed much, save for a few months of heightened unemployment and discouraging job losses. We return to you with April's report, which reflects a decline of 20,000 positions in the U.S. over the course of the month. Sadly, when compared with the results from the past few reports, this cut in jobs is negligible &mdash what I like to call small potatoes. The country has sustained some large payroll losses over the past few months: in January, February, and March combined; the nation managed to drop 240,000 positions.

Most of the major U.S. employment statistics remained unchanged in April. The country's unemployment rate has stagnated around 5.0 percent. The revised unemployment rates for most of the major worker groups in the U.S. revealed minimal changes, and a decrease in the case of adult women (down to 4.3 percent). This was a welcome change following significant spikes in the rates for most of these groups in March. The employment-population ratio held steady at 62.7 percent, and the labor force participation rate (at 66.0 percent) displayed similar inactivity.

The construction industry underwent the most devastating cuts in April, with a loss of over 60,000 positions among specialty trade contractors and within residential and heavy and civil engineering construction. The manufacturing sector cut close to 50,000 jobs as well, while the retail trade industry tacked on an additional loss of 26,800 positions. Several service-providing industries posted impressive gains over the past month, but the deficits mentioned above proved too significant to offset.

Of the industries that landed in the plus column in April, contributions from health care and professional and business services had the most impact, helping to lessen our overall losses for the month. Specifically, the health care and social assistance sectors added over 43,000 positions. Ambulatory health care services alone added close to 22,000 jobs. Food services and drinking places also added 18,000 positions. Within professional and technical services, an industry that gained over 26,000 jobs in April, computer systems design (+10, 200 jobs) and accounting and bookkeeping services (+9,100 positions) experienced some of the healthiest growth. Administrative and support services added 13,000 positions last month as well.

Overall, things haven't changed that much since the start of 2008, or even further back into 2007 if we consider which industries are adding positions and which ones are losing ground. Sizeable declines in construction and manufacturing were the primary reasons why the U.S. posted an overall loss in jobs in April. On the other hand, health care and a handful of service industries have been the only constants when it comes to job creation in the U.S. lately. It's worth noting that the American workforce has enjoyed moderate increases in their hourly pay over the past few months. While April only brought about a single-cent increase in wages, our average hourly earnings (which now sit at $17.88) have jumped 3.4 percent within the last 12 months.