Layoffs and Restructure at Google

Google announced on their blog recently that they’ve not only reduced the number of contractors they’re employing but they’re now reducing the number of recruiters on staff by about 100:

Our first step to address this was to wind down almost all our contracts with external contractors and vendors providing recruiting services for Google. However, after [...]

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How is the Economy and Recession Affecting *YOU*?

Utah’s economy continues to outpace the United States, though we’re losing ground on key economic indicators, we’re losing that ground more slowly than the nation as a whole and many states around the country.

September 2008 Unemployment Rate Utah VS. USA
Click for latest employment situation report

Utah: 3.5%
U.S.: 6.1%

Year-Over Nonfarm Growth

Utah: 0.1%
U.S.: -0.4%

With economists and pundits expecting [...]

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Utah Jobs Growing

Matthew Reinbold was kind enough to use a few of my comments in a recent piece on Utah Job Growth at UtahPulse.com.
Here’s some of the takeaways:
“Unemployment is still below the generally-accepted measure for ‘full-employment’ of 4-5%,” Robert Merrill, Technical Account Manager for SOS Engineering and Technology, said. “This means that people who would otherwise choose [...]

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Laid Off and Blogging About It

I’ve spoken about Robert Florida’s awesome book, “Rise of the Creative Class” before. In essence, the take-away for me is that companies do a great job of making widgets that are cheap and efficient, but companies do a horrible job of taking care of people.
One thing sure to accelerate the flight of talented people away [...]

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Utah Unemployment Death-Grip Loosening?

Wow, what an amazing year this has been. The very tight unemployment rate seems to finally be seeing a little light with some well-known Utah companies laying off employees, other movement of employees from company to company still strong, and the relative salaries being paid seeming to stabilize instead of the spiraling out-of-control, even [...]

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RE: Unemployment Insurance - Dancing With the Devil

Jason Alba of Jibber Jobber posed a question today about Unemployment Insurance:
A long-time reader has recently lost their job after just a couple of months (and before that, a long bout with unemployment). Here’s a question from her:
I was let go (fired) because of “unsatisfactory work performance�? according to the employer. I am trying to [...]

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