Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – The U.S. Department of Agriculture plans to close 259 offices nationwide as part of a program to cut costs and improve service.

In a statement that coincided with the American Farm Bureau Federation’s annual meeting, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced changes to his agency worth about $150 million in savings every year.

The measures, which had been expected, will reduce the agency’s workforce by more than 7,000 employees. Apart from the domestic closures, seven international offices will be shuttered.

The restructuring follows a department-wide review of operations that recommended consolidating 700 cell phone contracts into about 10.

Since 2010, Congress has cut the USDA’s discretionary spending by $3 billion, or 12 percent.

“The USDA, like families and businesses across the country, cannot continue to operate like we did 50 years ago,” Vilsack said. “We must innovate, modernize, and be better stewards of the taxpayers’ dollars.”

Agriculture is the second most productive sector of the U.S. economy, providing one in 12 jobs nationwide and leaving a $42 billion farm trade surplus after producing $137.4 billion worth of exports.

The closures involve offices and laboratories that are either not staffed or are staffed by no more than two employees. Other facilities are located within 20 miles of other offices.

Among those affected are 131 Farm Service Agency offices. In addition, 15 Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service offices in 11 states, and five offices of the agency abroad will be shuttered. The APHIS will be left with about 560 domestic offices and 55 abroad.

Vilsack assured that the quality of service will not be sacrificed with the changes, citing available technology. “American agriculture is currently experiencing its most productive period in history thanks to the resiliency, resourcefulness and efficiency of our farmers,” he said. “As we move forward, USDA will continue to find ways to modernize its services.”

View full post on Labor Stories

Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – First time claims for unemployment compensation benefits during the week ending Dec. 31 dropped by 15,000 from the previous week to 372,000, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

The less volatile 4-week moving average also fell, registering a decrease of 3,250 to 373,250 initial claims.

However, the advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate also fell. It dropped by 0.1 percentage point to 2.8 percent for the week ending Dec. 24, the most recent week for which such data is available.

Analysts say the decrease in filing for jobless benefits is a move in the right direction.

The total number of people claiming benefits in all unemployment programs for the week ending Dec. 17 dropped by 8,311 from the previous week to 7,223,203.

The unemployment rate for December was 8.5 percent.

The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending Dec. 24 were:

• California (+16,490)
• Pennsylvania (+6,764)
• Michigan (+5,632)
• Kentucky (+5,263)
• Indiana (+5,084)

View full post on Labor Stories

Chicago, IL, United States (AHN) – The number of jobs employers cut rose by 14 percent overall in 2011 compared with 2010, although planned job cuts slowed during December.

The yearend total was 606,082 compared with 529,973 in 2010, but still well below the recession peak of 1,288,030 job cuts in 2009, outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas noted in a statement released Thursday.

The Chicago-based firm said U.S. employers announced only 41,785 planned job cuts in December. That number was the lowest monthly rate since June, but it was 31 percent higher than December 2010 when employers announced 32,004 job cuts.

Nevertheless, the trend is in a better direction with the planned job losses announced in December down 1.6 percent from the job cuts employers announced in November.

In addition, planned job cuts were well below the annual 1,288,030 annual job cuts in 2009 during the height of the recession, the company noted.

“Job cuts in 2011 were dominated by the government and financial sectors. These two alone accounted for 41 percent of all the job cuts announced last year. The 183,064 government job cuts represent a record high for that sector, since we started tracking it in 2002. And, while the financial sector did not come close to its record high, annual cuts for the sector were up 165 percent from 2010,” said John A. Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

“Unfortunately, these sectors are likely to continue to struggle in 2012. Washington is under immense pressure to cut spending and it looks like every deal to extend tax cuts, raise the debt ceiling and pass the budget will come with measures to cut spending, which can be expected to result in more job cuts.”

“Additionally, there are still proposals to make massive cutbacks within the United States Postal Service. While its budget is not taxpayer funded, it has been ravaged by the growth of electronic mail. Involuntary layoffs at the Post Office could total as much as 120,000, according to one plan, with another 120,000 positions lost through attrition,” said Challenger.

Moreover, Challenger said he didn’t see much chance of significant improvement in the jobs sector for a variety of reasons. That included the eurozone crisis that will affect banks in the United States, as well as the continued mortgage problem and weak consumer demand that is affecting the retail sector.

“Net job gains picked up at the end of the year, after dipping in the third second and third quarters, but the pace of job creation is still too slow to make a significant dent in the number of unemployed,” Challenger said.

“Job creation is likely to remain slow and steady in 2012. Washington seems paralyzed when it comes to enacting policies that might spur job growth. Even if they were to pass some legislation that could help, the impact is rarely immediate and is typically smaller than anticipated,” he continued.

“In the end, there may be little government can do to jumpstart job growth. It really comes down to demand and, right now, consumers and businesses around the world simply are not spending. So, there is little demand and, therefore, no compelling reason to ramp up hiring,” Challenger said.

View full post on Labor Stories

Washington, D.C, United States (AHN) – It appears that quite a few Americans got pink slips for Christmas.

In the week before the holiday, the number of Americans filing for first-time unemployment benefits rose.

Roughly 381,000 people filed initial jobless claims in the week ended Dec. 24, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That was more than forecast and marked an increase of 15,000 from the prior week when claims dropped to their lowest level since April 2008.

Continuing claims, which include Americans filing for their second week of claims or more, increased 34,000 to 3,601,000 in the week ended Dec. 17, the most recent data shows.

Initial claims tend to be volatile around the holidays, so many economist say not to read too much into the increase. Thursday’s numbers are still well below the level of applications for claims during the same period a year ago.

View full post on Labor Stories

New York, NY, United States (AHN) – Confidence among U.S. consumers rose in December to the highest level in eight months, helped by an improving job market that helped gain ground lost following the mid-year government budget battles and credit rating downgrades.

The Conference Board’s index increased to 64.5, exceeding all estimates, in a report released Tuesday. The number is the highest since April. During the recession that ended in June 2009, the index averaged 53.7.

In November, unemployment dropped to its lowest level in more than two years, and gasoline is the cheapest since February. The extra money in consumers’ wallets spurred households to take advantage of discounts during the holiday season.

The percentage of consumers saying jobs were plentiful jumped to the highest since January 2009, while those saying jobs were hard to come by decreased to the lowest.

The shares of respondents expecting more jobs to become available in the next six months increased, and those projecting their incomes will rise improved to the highest level since February.

The outlook for the U.S. economy, the world’s largest, weighs heavily on Europe, where the region’s sovereign debt crisis continues to be a threat to the global economic environment.

View full post on Labor Stories

Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) – The 2011 curtain on the ongoing political drama in Washington came down on Friday as President Barack Obama signed a bill extending payroll tax cuts and unemployment benefits for two months, and urged Congress “to keep working without drama” to extend them through 2012 when it returns in January.

Citing the extension as “some good news, just in the nick of time for the holidays,” President Obama said, “This continues to be a make-or-break moment for the middle class in this country, and we’re going to have to roll up our sleeves together — Democrats and Republicans — to make sure that the economy is growing, and to make sure that more jobs are created.”

President Obama addressed journalists in the Brady press briefing room as helicopter engines could be heard revving on the South Lawn for the president as he left immediately for his holiday break in Hawaii.

Earlier the final chapter of the drama in Washington started when Republicans in the House of Representatives labeled the two-month extension a gimmick, after the Senate including Republicans had voted the bill with a thumping majority of 85 votes.

The Republican-controlled House voted 229-193 with no Democratic support to reject the two-month bipartisan Senate measure and called for a yearlong extension of the tax cut.

The House Republicans were forced to back down on their demands for a longer extension under pressure from the public and within their party when the Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky implored House Speaker John Boehner to accept the deal that McConnell had stuck last week with Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid.

The tensions of the drama fizzled out early Friday as first the Senate and then the House of Representatives rapidly approved a compromise to extend the tax cut for two months.

“Thank you, guys. Aloha,” Obama said as he left the briefing room to depart for Hawaii where his wife, Michelle Obama, and their daughters Malia and Sasha have been since last weekend, while he remained in Washington struggling with Congress over extending the payroll-tax cut.

View full post on Labor Stories

New York, NY, United States (AHN) – U.S. stocks rose Thursday following news that the number of Americans filing new claims for jobless benefits hit a 3 1/2-year low.

Just after the opening bell on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 40 points, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rose 6 points and the NASDAQ advanced 18 points.

Initial jobless claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 4,000 to a seasonally adjusted 364,000, the Labor Department reported, reaching the lowest level since April 2008.

The data shows that the labor market is showing strong signs of gains. The improving jobless situation softened the blow from a separate report from the Commerce Department revealing that gross domestic product grew at a 1.8 percent annual rate in the third quarter. Growth had previously been reported to have expanded at a 2 percent pace.

Despite the tepid pace of economic growth in the third quarter, it is a step up from the April-June period’s 1.3 percent pace.

Additionally, although the rest of the world is slowing down and a mild recession is forecast in Europe next year, the U.S. economy remains resilient. Households continue to spend, home building is picking up and factory output is expanding, putting the U.S. economy on course for at least a 3 percent growth pace in the fourth quarter. That would be the fastest pace in 18 months.

Commodities were mixed in morning trading. Oil was up 47 cents at $99.14 a barrel and gold was down $3.80 at $1,609 a troy ounce.

View full post on Labor Stories

Kathmandu, Nepal (AHN) – A nationwide strike called by Nepal’s main opposition party, Nepali Congress (NC), after its youth leader was killed in a prison brawl paralyzed the normal life across the nation on Monday.

Transportation has come to a halt and entire market areas, academic institutions and industries have been shut down by the strike. Thousands of NC party members scattered throughout major cities and highways protesting the death of their leader.

They also vented ire against the government for not declaring their murdered youth leader a martyr and not fulfilling other demands forwarded by the party.

General strike is a common phenomenon in Nepal, a tool to take forward and fulfill demands by any dissatisfied political parties, ethnic groups, trade unions or pressure groups. The nation has lost million of dollars in revenue due to the strike, according to the Nepal Federation of Chamber of Commerce.

According to media reports, dozens of drivers who tried to defy the strike had their vehicles vandalized. Police have arrested dozens of NC members for obstructing traffic.

The United States Ambassador to Nepal, Scott H DeLisi, said such “repeated strikes” could lead to the reinstatement of U.S. travel warnings. “The U.S. recently lifted the travel warning for American citizens hoping to visit Nepal and we are actively seeking to bring American investors here,” DeLisi wrote on his Facebook wall on Sunday.

He further said, “This type of political violence puts our efforts at risk and threatens to recreate the atmosphere that led to the travel warning in the first place.”

View full post on Labor Stories

Washington, DC, United States (AHN) – Initial filings for jobless benefits during the week ending Dec. 10 fell by 19,000 to 366,000 claims, the lowest level since May 31, 2008, according to the Labor Department.

That was welcome news, although it is not sufficient to affect the official unemployment rate of 8.6 percent.

Last week 385,000 jobless Americans filed first time unemployment claims.

Although jobless claims dipped below the 400,000 mark before, analysts are hopeful that they will stay below that critical mark now, which would signal a long-awaited recovery in the jobs sector of the economy is underway.

However, the unemployment compensation program does not cover many Americans. The insured unemployment rate was 2.9 percent for the week ending Dec. 3, the most recent week for which such figures are available from the Labor Department.

The less volatile four-week moving average was 387,750, a decrease of 6,500 from the previous week’s revised average of 394,250, the Labor Department said.

The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending Dec. 3 were in:

• California (+27,780)
• North Carolina (+15,427)
• New York (+14,048)
• Pennsylvania (+13,634)
• Georgia (+11,144)

View full post on Labor Stories

Arlington, TX, United States (AHN) – Are you a creative, motivated, dynamic individual who is highly organized, effective, has good communication skills, is great at problem solving and has an excellent track record?

If you are, you are a cliche, according to the career network site LinkedIn.

LinkedIn has compiled the top 10 overused professional buzzwords in the United States for 2011:

• Creative
• Organizational
• Effective
• Extensive experience
• Track record
• Motivated
• Innovative
• Problem solving
• Communication skills
• Dynamic.

Repeat offenders from last year are “extensive experience,” “innovative” and “motivated.”

Falling off the list are “team player,” “results oriented,” “entrepreneurial” and “fact-paced.”

Hiring experts say to make yourself stand out, or at least not get pushed aside, banish those basically meaningless words and use language that illustrates your unique professional accomplishments. Use concrete examples of your achievements and reference attributes that are specific to you.

As a new year approaches, it appears that it is time to tweak your resume and rethink buzzwords you use to portray your professional image.

View full post on Labor Stories