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Cuts at Northwest (Thursday, 7/19/01)
The nation's fourth-largest airline will cut 1,500 jobs and also reduce its flight schedule, but it's not the only major airline to be losing money right now. Jim Barlow of the Houston Chronicle reports that business travel costs are expected to drop by 7 percent next year because increasingly strapped employers are reducing travel budgets.

Big cutback at Albertson's (Thursday, 7/19/01)
The big grocery chain will close 165 stores and eliminate jobs. Here's more from Boise, Idaho. Columnist Diane Stafford says many companies aren't announcing layoffs, but are conducting them anyway, apparently hoping that nobody will notice. First-time jobless claims declined last week, but the total number of persons collecting benefits is highest since 1992, which is about the time the last recession was ending.

The Kyoto treaty might have less economic impact than originally thought (Thursday, 7/19/01)
Will the new analysis stimulate greater enthusiasm for the climate treaty in the Bush administration? Stay tuned. The man after whom the current American administration is named is attending the G-8 summit in Genoa, Italy, where he's told globalization protesters that they are hurting, not helping, the world's poor.

Tax evasion increases according to the Treasury Secretary (Thursday, 7/19/01)
Secretary O'Neill says that tax cheats are being pursued, but that there are more of them, and even more are expected, according to David Cay Johnston of the New York Times.

Things have been improving for America's children (Thursday, 7/19/01)
Years ago, it was felt that the elderly were the most underprivileged demographic group in American society, but average circumstances for the aged have improved considerably. For sometime now, it has been America's children who have been suffering most, but, according to new data, things seem to be improving for them now too. Speaking of the older young, Alan Krueger writes about a new study that finds that teens are having more trouble finding jobs this summer.

Those who can't find jobs and decide to go to school instead will find it costs more (Thursday, 7/19/01)
The economic slowdown has put a crimp in state budgets, which has led to an increase in college tuition, in some cases at double-digit levels.

Union support for illegal Mexican workers (Thursday, 7/19/01)
However, what might be surprising is that this support comes from American unions. Steven Greenhouse of the New York Times tells why this is so.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Educational Resources (Thursday, 7/19/01)
If you would like to know more about money or economics, or if you teach these subjects, here are some Educational Resources from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.

Greenspan suggests another cut may be coming (Wednesday, 7/18/01)
The Chairman of the Federal Reserve says that the economic slowdown has not ended. He spoke to the House Financial Services Committee today. Incidentally, do you remember Arthur Burns? Mr. Greenspan surely does, and Caroline Baum explains why it probably makes a difference.

Grants rather than loans, Bush says (Wednesday, 7/18/01)
President Bush believes that it doesn't help poor countries much to simply increase their debt load when they are unable to pay what they already owe. Better for the World Bank to offer more grants to aid development, he will say on his European trip. Martin Crutsinger says that leaders at the G-8 summit in Rome face very different world, economically and politically, than the last time they met.

Big cuts at American Express (Wednesday, 7/18/01)
American Express is scrambling to cut costs. It eliminated 1,600 jobs earlier this year. Now, another 4,000 to 5,000 jobs are set to be cut loose.

The new champion (Wednesday, 7/18/01)
At a time when the American economy has slowed and most other major world economies are fumbling a bit, the fastest-growing major economy in the world...drum roll...is China, with an annualized rate of 7.8 percent during the second quarter.

An American plumbing fixtures company in Bulgaria (Wednesday, 7/18/01)
John Tagliabue tells how American Standard's new factory is helping the Bulgarian economy.

What can be done about global warming (Wednesday, 7/18/01)
Here's an analysis of the environmental changes that are occurring from Traci Watson and Jonathan Weisman of USA Today, plus six things that can be done. The Bush administration in the United States seems to have more confidence in science as applied to the missile defense system than to environmental changes, but the preponderance of professional scientific opinion seems to be the opposite.

The contested presidential election last fall contributed to the polarization of political opinion in the U.S., which, in turn, has increased the extent to which many people seem to be dealing in stereotypes and caricatures, even though there are psychologically normal, well-informed grownups in both major American political parties. The problem with polarized partisanship is that extreme, over-simplified expressions make it easier for the political opposition to dismiss a point of view that it may not find very palatable.

For instance, some self-styled environmentalists have acted irresponsibly or have engaged in theatrics that, to some, seems to trivialize the issues or make their conclusions seem ridiculous, but this does not mean there isn't a real problem with environmental change.

Will they cost more when they're young or when they're older? (Wednesday, 7/18/01)
If you think college is expensive, try day-care. Here's more from Neal Learner of the Christian Science Monitor, who also writes about backup child care as an increasingly popular employment perk.

An argument for the "living wage" (Wednesday, 7/18/01)
Working full-time doesn't necessarily mean making a living, according to David Koeppel.

Okay now, which is home and which is work? (Wednesday, 7/18/01)
With more people doing a lot of their work at home, the boundaries are blurring. It works the other way too. Here's Marilyn Gardner's piece on your office as your home away from home.

New patterns of filing (Wednesday, 7/18/01)
Some people are waiting to file for first-time unemployment benefits, and a lot of people aren't standing in line to do it anymore either. Here's an explanation from Lewis Diuguid of the Kansas City Star.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Distance Education Clearinghouse (Wednesday, 7/18/01)
The Distance Education Clearinghouse comes from the University of Wisconsin Extension system and provides information, not only about their own programs, but also items of more general interest.

Could he become one of the Bush administration's favorite Democrats? (Tuesday, 7/17/01)
Well, that may be going a bit too far, but Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle seems to like the idea of granting legal status to presently illegal Mexican workers in the U.S., as President Bush seems to be considering. However, Senator Daschle doesn't want to restrict the plan to illegals from Mexico.

A fairly predictable disagreement (Tuesday, 7/17/01)
The Bush administration's Labor Department has been conducting a forum on the need for legislation covering workplace ergonomic injuries. Representatives of labor and industry disagree, and we'll leave it to you to guess which folks are on which sides of the issue. Give up? Here are some details from Peter Szekely in Washington.

Alan puts on a happy face in preparation (Tuesday, 7/17/01)
Fed Head Greenspan is expected to display an optimistic attitude for Congress this week.

Strike in Argentina (Tuesday, 7/17/01)
The government's austerity program is seen as necessary bitter medicine and wasn't expected to be popular among persons whose salaries and pensions have been cut. A one-day strike makes that message clear, if it wasn't already.

Some perspective on individuals who have soared into the stratosphere and crashed to earth in record time (Tuesday, 7/17/01)
Marjorie Olster tells one young person's story in the wake of the dot-com collapse. Incidentally, the recent bursting of the highly inflated Internet finance bubble isn't the first time that tech firms and the individuals attached to them have made such quick trips so far up and so far down.

For instance, twenty years ago or more, Adam Osborne sold the small but hot publishing company that had arisen out of the success of his pioneering book on microcomputers and built Osborne Computer Corporation, which offered the first portable personal computer. While some suggested that it was portable only in the sense that it had a handle on it, or portable like a suitcase full of bricks, and, given it's four-inch screen, was a bit like looking at the world through a cardboard tube, it was a resounding success. With 64 K of RAM and a lot of bundled software, it sold for $1,800 at a time when the Apple II with 16 K was selling for nearly twice as much.

For a time, Osborne's company grew at a faster rate than Apple Computer Corporation during its hottest years. Osborne when from zero to $100 million in yearly sales in eighteen months, but eighteen months after that, the company was bankrupt and out of business. Osborne himself, who started by writing one book, finished by writing another telling the morbid story of what happened to what might have become one of the tech industry's major powerhouses but certainly didn't.

Incidentally, as we've said repeatedly, the fact that an over-inflated dot-com bubble blew up should not be interpreted to mean that the Internet itself is a failure or that it will not change the world after all. Anick Jesdanun writes about a new survey from the Pew organization showing that the Internet continues to play a significant role in the lives of a very large number of people. Moreover, as Jim Krane reports, there is an important part of the Internet economy that is thriving not only during the downturn, but, in part, because of it.

Whoops! You may not expect such good news from the IRS, and you shouldn't (Tuesday, 7/17/01)
Letters with excessively optimistic rebate news are on their way to a half-million households . Another 500,000 letters containing a correction will try to catch up but won't. As Gilda Ratner used to say, "Never mind."

The increasing scarcity of nurses and teachers (Tuesday, 7/17/01)
Milt Freudenheim reports that a severe shortage of nurses has created a market opportunity for staffing firms, and Marjorie Coeyman tells about the various ways in which school districts will try to cope with one of the most serious teacher shortages ever. In Virginia, as Melanie Scarborough reports, gubernatorial candidates from both parties are advocating higher teacher salaries.

K-12 education in the United States is a mixed bag. While, on the average, there does appear to be a crisis of instruction and student performance in relation to a number of other countries, the "averages" are a product of mixing excellent school districts and schools in with awful school districts and schools in the same datasets. Part of the task will be to fix what's wrong with the poor schools without weakening the excellent ones. Many proposals suggest painting with one broad brush or another, including the voucher proposals, and most of these probably offer costs and risks, as well as potential benefits.

Some experts suggest that a genuine overall solution will require raising the status of the teaching profession to somewhere near that of medicine. Over the past sixty years or so, American medicine has become world-class in part because of the high status of the medical profession, including its high income levels.

However, medicine has lost a little ground in very recent years with the growing dominance of HMOs as well as because of the an overall increase in required skill levels across the economy. At one time, doctors towered over nearly all other workers with respect to their level of technical knowledge and skill, but that gap has narrowed considerably in recent years, meaning, among other things, that young people with technical aptitudes and an appetite for relatively high incomes have a greater range of options.

Education may need to be capable of attracting not only those persons with outstanding talent who are also driven by highly altruistic motives, but those with more conventional career ambitions as well.

Update on the PC employment benny (Tuesday, 7/17/01)
Remember when Ford Motor company announced that it would make a personal computer and the other necessaries available to all of its workers? Rob Kaiser reports on how that's been going. Some Ford workers were suspicious that it was a first step toward getting them to work at home, if not instead of in conventional work settings, maybe in addition to. Whatever the likelihood of that, Colleen O'Hara reports that a major federal government agency is conducting a six-month pilot project to see if some of their key examiners really need to come in to the office all the time.

What do the school-yard bullies do when they grow up? (Tuesday, 7/17/01)
Many of them may simply go to work rather than school without changing their behavior all that much. Gerry McMahon writes in the Irish Times about a new survey showing a high rate of bullying and sexual harassment in British workplaces.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Immigration History Research Center (Tuesday, 7/17/01)
The Immigration History Research Center has been centered at the University of Minnesota for 36 years.

Fox speaks to Mexicans in the U.S. (Monday, 7/16/01)
Mexico's president is in the United States for a few days, and he has promised to do what he can to help Mexicans in the U.S. achieve a better life. Meanwhile, Steven Greenhouse of the New York Times describes Bureau of Labor Statistics data showing that Hispanic workers in the U.S. die as a result of workplace injuries at a far higher rate than American whites of blacks.

Australia's economy accelerates, but many of the unemployed may have to wait (Monday, 7/16/01)
According to Melbourne's The Age, many persons who have kept their jobs through the downturn have been underutilized, so it may be up to three years before firms begin hiring additional people, despite the better times. Not so far away in New Zealand, people have been talking about "the Rankin case." Christine Rankin, who once headed the country's largest government department, sued her former employer, the New Zealand government. As The Jobs Letter reports, it's the "highest-profile" employment grievance ever seen in the country.

Obstacles to an American recovery (Monday, 7/16/01)
Argentina may default on its $128 billion foreign debt, but, while that country's financial woes could set off a storm that might spread out of Latin America, it's not the only thing that could derail or delay the big American economy's recovery that much of the world is waiting for. Here's more from Ken Moritsugu, Michael Zielenziger, and Kevin Hall in Washington. Meanwhile, in Buenos Aires, Bill Cormier reports that Argentine President Fernando De La Rua is trying to get political support for the painful spending cuts he believes his troubled economy needs.

Oil isn't "dirt cheap" anymore (Monday, 7/16/01)
Scott Burns says that the long era of inexpensive oil may be ended forever. Here's what it may mean for the world's economies.

Another look at repetitive stress injuries (Monday, 7/16/01)
The Bush administration quickly rescinded an ambitious and expensive Clinton-era program for preventing repetitive stress problems on the job. Now, the White House is taking up the issue again, but some prominent Democrats are claiming that key people are being kept out of the new hearings on workplace injuries.

Retired singles (Monday, 7/16/01)
Marilyn Gardner writes about the large number of single Americans in their late years.

Another declining occupation (Monday, 7/16/01)
For a few generations across the American Midwest, they've often been referred to as "custom combiners." These aren't people who bring things together in combination, but people who bring their own combines, those big harvesting machines, to other people's fields. They are farmers, often from more southern regions, who bring their own harvesting equipment to northern areas where the harvesting season comes at a different time and hire out for a fee. However, there are fewer of them now, and Craig Savoye explains why.

Arizona offers reimbursement for training costs (Monday, 7/16/01)
Arizona employers who provide training for workers whom they already employ can now apply for reimbursement because of a change in the Arizona Job Training Program.

The radiating effects of slumping business travel (Monday, 7/16/01)
The economic slowdown caused in a decline in business travel, and this affects more than simply the airline and hotel industries. Chris Woodyard explains. Recreational travel has slowed as well, and, as Mike Schneider reports, some major theme parks have been feeling the effects.

Additional cuts from "Chainsaw Al" (Monday, 7/16/01)
A few years ago, Al Dunlap had an almost mythic reputation as a turnaround artist, capable of saving companies about to take their last breath. Now, as Floyd Norris reports, he not only cut a lot of jobs, he sliced a few things out of his resume too. It now appears that nothing was quite what it seemed to be during Al's good years and before.

Deceptive titles (Monday, 7/16/01)
Some workers like to inflate their resumes with euphemistic or impressive-sounding titles, but what about employers who attract workers with titles that have little to do with the job description? We've already reported on the growing problem of calling people "managers" in order to avoid paying them overtime, but Columnist Kenneth Bredemeier responds to a correspondent who had a different kind of problem. He was disappointed to find that he was an "analyst" who really didn't analyze much of anything once he started his new job.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Tax History Project (Monday, 7/16/01)
Here's information about the history of American taxation from the Tax History Project. Among its features are the tax returns of a number of recent American presidents.

Fear that consumers may curtail their spending (Sunday, 7/15/01)
As we've been reporting, many experts believe that it is the American consumer who is keeping the U.S. economy from falling into recession. Now, there is growing concern that all of the economic bad news may cause many to tighten their belts, and that could mean much more economic bad news. Here are details from David Leonhardt of the New York Times. In another article, Mr. Leonhardt also offers some perspective on unemployment in the U.S. vs. Europe.

Unemployment up in California (Sunday, 7/15/01)
California's unemployment rate increased by 0.2 of a percent in June compared to the previous month, standing at 5.1 percent last month. Part of the reason has to do with the tech slump's influence on Silicon Valley. David Sylvester of the San Jose Mercury News reports that joblessness in America's big tech corridor rose to its highest level since the fourth quarter of 1995.

And you didn't know it was IN the woods? (Sunday, 7/15/01)
In an effort to demonstrate why our use of the English language bewilders many persons from other cultures, Alden Bentley writes that the U.S. economy is not out of the woods. Well, okay, so our headline does tend to bring the word "gratuitous" to mind. We understand his point, and he's right, according to many of the new numbers and the informed opinion of many economists.

Poverty on the border (Sunday, 7/15/01)
Texas shares a very long border with Mexico, and, as Jim Barlow reports in today's Houston Chronicle, it isn't just on the Mexican side that you will find a lot of poverty, and, on the American side, it's not just Mexican illegals. Meanwhile, though, key officials in the Bush administration are looking into the possibility of finding a way to grant legal status to three million Mexicans who are already in the U.S. illegally.

If you want to be a channel pilot in Houston, it will probably help if you're white and male (Sunday, 7/15/01)
Jenalia Moreno discusses the continuing struggle of women and minorities to gain membership into a white male dominated fraternity.

Soon, it may be have to be a nickel for your thoughts (Sunday, 7/15/01)
Hal Mattern tells why the American penny's long history--it began circulating in 1793--may be about at its end.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Great Economists and Their Times (Sunday, 7/15/01)
Here's information about Great Economists and Their Times from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.

More evidence that the American economy still has the sniffles (Saturday, 7/14/01)
The New York Times' Louis Uchitelle tells about yesterday's new numbers and what they indicate. In part because of the new data, President Bush remains concerned, according to the White House. Consumer spending accounts for about two-thirds of American business activity, and, as Barbara Hagenbaugh reports, consumers seem to be keeping the American economy from dipping all the way into a genuine recession at the moment. Finally, Leigh Strope lists the reasons the optimistts have for betting that the economy will gain strength sometime during the second half of the year, although it may be fairly late.

Another global financial crisis coming? (Saturday, 7/14/01)
Paul Blustein of the Washington Post says that there is a risk of another global financial crisis, even though many officials are trying to downplay it. There has been concern that Argentina's problems could spread the misery over a broad region, but no bailout is planned, according to U.S. and IMF officials.

Medicare troops dig in on both sides (Saturday, 7/14/01)
Adam Entous reports that Congressional Democrats and Republicans are getting ready for a long fight over Medicare and the prescription medication issue. Odds are not good for settling things before the end of the year, many are saying.

An ulceration causing discomfort in the U.S.-Mexican relationship (Saturday, 7/14/01)
Mexican trucks are stopped at the U.S. border, even if they're current state-of-the-art, and it's become a hot controversy, given all the talk about reducing trade barriers. Here's more from Mary Jordan of the Washington Post. In the U.S. itself, 18-wheelers travel back and forth on the Interstate highway system and, in the process, help rural economies, according to this report from Peter Kilborn of the New York Times.

Disney stops selling products pending wage investigation (Saturday, 7/14/01)
The Orange County Register has reported that workers who produced products that Disney has been selling were not paid minimum wage. Disney has taken the products off the shelf, and California labor officials are investigating.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: JobsInSports.com (Saturday, 7/14/01)
JobsInSports.com claims to be able to give you access to a large number of job listings in the highly competitive sports industry for a fee. Incidentally, it appears tht Michael Jordan's old job is already taken.

Senate decides to resume work on new bankruptcy legislation (Friday, 7/13/01)
Senators decided 88-10 on a procedural vote to resume consideration of a bill that already has passed the House of Representatives. If the bill becomes law, it will make it harder for individuals to walk away from their debts, and opponents say it would remove an important safety net for people who are losing their jobs during the economic downturn. The rate at which individuals are heading for the bankruptcy courts has increased recently, in part, experts say, because of the economic slump, and in part because of an effort to bail out before new legislation narrows the options.

Wholesale prices decline (Friday, 7/13/01)
New Labor Department data for the month of June show the biggest decline in wholesale prices in two years.

Housing and South Africa's extremely poor (Friday, 7/13/01)
Rachel Swarns reports from Johannesburg for the New York Times on the South African's eviction of people from an illegal shantytown, while Geof Budlender writes in South Africa's Financial Mail about the gap in the government's housing program and other issues affecting that country's most impoverished people. Meanwhile, Siyabulela Qoza writes that the South African government intends to try to speed up the process of land reform.

More cuts at Motorola (Friday, 7/13/01)
Motorola is among a number of major technology companies that continues to lose money, so it will cut another 4,000 jobs. Here's more from Dave Carpenter in Chicago.

Why American women are twice as likely to be poor during their late years (Friday, 7/13/01)
Betsy Hart tells about a gender gap that has held true for years, despite the overall poverty rate in American society. She says that one reason is that the Social Security system works to the disadvantage of women.

If you're reading this in Afghanistan, watch your back (Friday, 7/13/01)
The extremist Afghan government is doing its part to demonstrate how fearful totalitarians are of the free flow of information, ideas, and opinion. From now on, use of the Internet is banned in Afghanistan.

Mentors of a different influence (Friday, 7/13/01)
New research for Arizona State University and the National Society of Hispanic MBAs finds that Hispanic executives tend to earn more if their mentors are non-Hispanic. Meanwhile, data from the U.S. Department of Commerce shows that minority-owned businesses have made numerical gains in the United States, but there is still a strong divide when it comes to revenue generation.

Traditional summer jobs look for student workers (Friday, 7/13/01)
According to Lauren Coleman-Lochner in New Jersey's Bergen Record, increasing academic pressures are blamed for the decline in the number of students filling the kinds of summer jobs that typically depend on them.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: ebiz.enable (Friday, 7/13/01)
If you would like to begin an e-business, rather than get out of one, ebiz.enable can guide you through the steps. The site comes to you from Canada.

Argentine crisis casts a broad, dark shadow (Thursday, 7/12/01)
There is growing fear that Argentina's financial crisis may reach a point where the country will default on $130 billion in foreign debt. Jonathan Fuerbringer of the New York Times reports that Argentina's problems already have reached outside Latin America.

Bush plan for reducing prescription medication costs (Thursday, 7/12/01)
The President believes that his plan could reduce the cost to older people of many prescription drugs by about 25 percent. The plan has its critics, but AARP seems to be in favor of it, if it would not be a replacement for a more general Medicare overhaul that would come later.

The interns you haven't heard about (Thursday, 7/12/01)
Liz Marlantes writes from Washington that there are about 40,000 interns in Washington, D.C., and many agree that the highly publicized cases of young people put in jeopardy by powerful politicians has not affected their own work lives, which tend to go on as expected.

Many Northwest workers expect layoffs (Thursday, 7/12/01)
Northwest Airlines is the nation's fourth-largest air carrier and has been in the news a lot during recent years because of labor conflicts. Now, as Eric Torbenson reports from St. Paul, cost-cutting layoffs are expected , and the flight attendants union has asked the company to clarify its intentions.

Growing concern about the surplus (Thursday, 7/12/01)
The Bush administration says the budget surplus is declining. However, White House budget director Mitch Daniels says that the American economy will continue to generate surpluses despite its sluggishness, even though he urges that spending be kept in check and that additional effort be made to stimulate a return to vigorous growth.

Thousands accept early retirement offer from Lucent (Thursday, 7/12/01)
Lucent Technologies is cutting its workforce by 20 percent, and the buyout offer accepted by 8,500 employees is part of the plan.

U.S. threatens to withhold aid from countries that don't prevent human trafficking (Thursday, 7/12/01)
The U.S. has identified 23 countries, including some of its allies, which aren't doing enough to curtail the "modern-day form of slavery," according to U.S. officials. Meanwhile, the House has passed a bill that would permit a label on chocolate products indicating that no child slave labor has been used in the harvesting of the cocoa beans.

Employer liability when employees use cell phones while driving (Thursday, 7/12/01)
Mary Deibel tells why employers have a strong stake in whether their employees talk on the telephone while driving.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: List of Lists (Thursday, 7/12/01)
If you like lists, here's the site for you. The List of Lists comes to you from librarian Gary Price of the Gelman Library at George Washington University in Washington, D. C. It contains the top 10 these, the top 100 those, and the top 50 this and that. LOTS of lists.

Bush backs off quickly (Wednesday, 7/11/01)
President Bush says his administration will not allow religious charities to be exempt from hiring gays. Here's more from USA Today.

Compaq becomes even more compact (Wednesday, 7/11/01)
Not so long ago, Compaq was the largest producer of personal computers, but it has lost market share and is also being influenced by an economic downturn, this time particularly in Europe. For the second time this year, Compaq will trim its workforce by thousands of workers.

Union says acquisition of TWA by American Airlines is okay with them (Wednesday, 7/11/01)
The Allied Pilots Association has approved contract language that means the union will not resist American's acquisition of TWA. Meanwhile, throughout large regions of the world, strikes are putting airline schedules in a bind during the heaviest travel season.

Labor rights in America (Wednesday, 7/11/01)
Research reported in the Scientific American finds that a smaller proportion of the American workforce belongs to unions and unions tend to have less power than in some other countries.

Misunderstanding reality (Wednesday, 7/11/01)
Since the time of Copernicus, but accelerating greatly during the past century, there has been growing divergence between our best knowledge of nature, including human nature, on the one hand, and what most people believe to be true about nature, including human nature, on the other. A new study indicates that misperceptions seem to predominate among many American Whites when it comes to their understanding of the social and economic situation of American Blacks as well. Major knowledge gaps can help explain quite a number of things, including some of what happens in American politics.

Good reasons why you might not want to be a sheepherder (Wednesday, 7/11/01)
Many guest workers in the U.S. don't feel much like guests because they're engaged in the daily grind of herding sheep, and it is a grind, and it is daily. In the international "worst jobs" competition, there may be quite a number of finalists in Russia, where having a job and working full-time can mean not being able to get out of poverty.

Keep in shape, and you won't get hurt (Wednesday, 7/11/01)
Actually, that's not a threat. It's not a totally accurate description of things either, but new research shows that people who are physically fit are less likely to become injured on the job. Employers care, because workplace injuries cost $128 billion per year in the United States.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: The Futures Project (Wednesday, 7/11/01)
The Futures Project: Policy for Higher Education in a Changing World is centered at Brown University.

Charity claims Bush administration help in excluding gays (Tuesday, 7/10/01)
The Washington Post is reporting today that an internal memo from the Salvation Army indicates that the big charity has been led to expect help from the Administration in exempting religious-based charities from the requirement to hire homosexuals. A key White House spokesman says that the Salvation Army has misinterpreted the Administration's position.

What's good for Japan may not be good for the rest of Asia (Tuesday, 7/10/01)
Japan has had a tremendous influence on other Asian nations several times during the past century or so and in a number of different ways, sometimes as a military power, sometimes as an economic power. Japan's economy is the second-largest in the world and more than twice as large as all of the other Asian economies combined, so what happens to Japan from now on can be expected to influence nearly everybody, particularly in Asia. The slump in Japan over the past decade has had many people concerned, but now a top official of the International Monetary Fund says that Prime Minister Koizumi's plans for remedial structural reforms themselves could be a threat to the remainder of Asia.

Two-thousand jobs disappear with latest dot-com failure (Tuesday, 7/10/01)
It may simply be that people really prefer to go to the grocery store in-person where they can "squeeze the bread," in a sense. Whether there is any future to selling groceries online may still be an open question, all doubt about the future of Webvan seems to have been removed following the company's collapse. The online grocer managed to roast $830 million without delivering a profit.

Housing market continues its strength (Tuesday, 7/10/01)
The American housing market continues its resiliency despite a lot of other depressing economic news, according to a new study from Harvard University. Here are some of the details from columnist Chris Lester. Meanwhile, a survey of economists finds that many feel that the U.S. might still avert a genuine recession.

Doubts about America's future leadership role (Tuesday, 7/10/01)
Yoichi Funabashi of Tokyo's Asahi Shimbun reports from a meeting of the G-8 in Genoa that the question of whether the U.S. can continue to be a world leader, if not THE world leader, was discussed. Incidentally, G-7 refers to the seven richest industrial nations, while G-8 is made up of those plus Russia, which, though the opposite of rich at the moment, is given a place at the table because the world learned during the 20th century that nearly everybody can have a stake in what happens to Russia.

High-risk travel (Tuesday, 7/10/01)
Suzanne Daley writes from Euta, Spain for the New York Times times about the harrowing experiences of African migrants trying to make it to Spain.

Making the tech leap (Tuesday, 7/10/01)
According to a new study commissioned by the Untied Nations, an increasing number of poorer countries are using high-technology to close the gap between themselves and the rich, developed countries.

Nurses strike in Nigeria (Tuesday, 7/10/01)
State-run hospitals across Nigeria are having difficulty caring for patients, and many hospitals are turning away all new patients except emergency cases because of a strike of nurses throughout the country. In other labor news, 49 pilots have been fired at Cathay Pacific following a work slowdown.

Ford to stick with its evaluation system (Tuesday, 7/10/01)
Despite a report in the Wall Street Journal that Ford Motor Company plans to re-examine its controversial employee evaluation system, the company says it has no intention of making changes.

The importance of appearances (Tuesday, 7/10/01)
Perception IS reality for many people, as they say, and, in the business culture, people in influential positions do tend to judge books by their covers, in a sense. Jilian Mincer reports that a new survey finds a relationship between "appropriate dress" and things like raises and promotions, particularly for women.

If you're reading this at work, there's a good chance you're being watched (Tuesday, 7/10/01)
According to a new survey from the Privacy Foundation, about a third of American workers are monitored by their employers when they use the Internet at work. However, the surveillance may not be in the companies' self interest, because the resulting "audit trail" could be used against them in future lawsuits, according to the Foundation.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Know It Now (Tuesday, 7/10/01)
Know It Now is an around-the-clock reference service staffed by professional librarians. It comes to you from a consortium headed by the Cleveland Public Library.

More large-scale economic organization planned (Monday, 7/9/01)
A summit has opened in Lusaka, Zambia at which African heads of state will discuss the formation of a pan-African union through which to coordinate economic development on the continent.

Behind the statistics (Monday, 7/9/01)
The American manufacturing sector has been in a serious slump, which has resulted in lots of lengthy layoffs. Joel Dresang and Rick Romell of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel tell how this has affected some individuals who might not ordinarily be easy to see through all the official numbers.

Ratification at Disney (Monday, 7/9/01)
Workers at Florida's Disney World have approved a new contract by a two-to-one margin.

Tax credits for the poor advocated (Monday, 7/9/01)
Peter Dawkins writes that concerns with up-front cost of tax credits for Australia's working poor could delay the plan, and he thinks that would be a mistake.

When the empty nest isn't empty anymore (Monday, 7/9/01)
For parents, it can be stressful when the kids leave home, and possibly stressful as well when they come back again. Kim Campbell reports that more recent college grads are responding to the combination of student loan debt and a tightening job market by moving back in with parents for a while.

Debt counselors may or may not have your interests in mind (Monday, 7/9/01)
Consumer Reports has been looking into non-profit debt counseling agencies and find that quite a number of them are funded by creditors hoping to get some of their money back. Caution is urged when you seek help in climbing out of a financial hole. Meanwhile, the Social Security Administration is warning of a hoax out there that targets the elderly and claims that, if they give up sensitive personal information, they will get additional benefits for slave reparations. Not so, says the SSA. It's a scam, so ignore it.

Hurry! Read this quick so that you can move on (Monday, 7/9/01)
Americans are rushed. John Head tells about the race to beat the clock.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: NetTemps (Monday, 7/9/01)
NetTemps is a jobs site specializing in temporary and contract work.

Taiwan's hard times (Sunday, 7/8/01)
A few years ago, when the "Asian contagion" financial crisis was sweeping across many Asian countries, Taiwan was conspicuously absent from most of the depressing news stories. However, the recent tech wreck HAS influenced the once-mighty Taiwanese economy, and, as Mark Landler reports, this is bringing up all sorts of troubling political questions as well. Hint: Recall that Taiwan is a relatively small island just off the coast of the world's largest country which considers Taiwan to be part of itself, no matter what has been happening during the past fifty years or so.

Ratification at Lufthansa (Sunday, 7/8/01)
The big German airline's pilots have accepted a new contract that will provide a major increase in pay.

Not everyone shares Secretary O'Neill's optimism (Sunday, 7/8/01)
America's Secretary of the Treasury says he expects the U.S. economy to start rebounding soon, but G7 officials as a group appear to be more cautious.

The toppling of Greenspan? (Sunday, 7/8/01)
Alan Greenspan probably shouldn't be blamed for the fact that many have almost idolized him, because he hasn't encouraged it. Still, given the American economy's flirt with recession, his reputation and legacy may be in jeopardy. In fact, as Pierre Belec reports, there are people who seem to be chopping away at the pedestal on which others have placed him.

The rush to bankruptcy court (Sunday, 7/8/01)
A lot of Americans are declaring bankruptcy, and part of the reason may be the high level of indebtedness during an economic downturn. However, as Jim Fuquay reports, many are rushing to complete the process before a change in the law could make walking away from debts a whole lot more difficult.

Fighting financial illiteracy (Sunday, 7/8/01)
Roberta Johnson was Magic Johnson's first-grade teacher at Main Street School in Lansing, Michigan, and she jokes that she taught him to count to thirty-five million. In all seriousness, it would be nice if the next generation could be less financially naive than most of the generations so far. Richard Harris and Ed Douglas are financial experts, and they've written a book for children called If I Had a Penny, which they hope will make a significant contribution to the financial education of children. Also, here's a little financial advice for the many Americans who are still paying off school loans now that interest rates are at their lowest level in the history of student loans. It may make you think about loan consolidation, but experts advise you to think carefully.

Why your employer may want to call you a manager even if you don't manage anything (Sunday, 7/8/01)
Traditionally, managers have been salaried and not eligible for overtime pay, but California's labor laws challenge that dodge, and Starbucks is among the many companies facing lawsuits.

Time and money on your hands (Sunday, 7/8/01)
Rene Sanchez writes about the growing concern that the nation's elderly are vulnerable to "gambling addiction" and are being targeted by casinos. Incidentally, even though the term "addiction" is often used in this context, it really represents a misuse of technical language. Strictly speaking, addiction refers to physiological dependence on a substance. The gambling problem that many people have is really a form of obsessive-compulsive disorder, which is quite different, but can be equally disruptive to lives.

Actors face new competition (Sunday, 7/8/01)
Computer animation has come a very long way since the original "Star Wars" or even since Steve Jobs' Pixar produced "Toy Story" for Disney a few years ago. It isn't just cartoon images that can be put on the screen now. Human images are becoming increasingly realistic, and, so, what's next? If these capabilities reach a point where the typical movie goer is unable to tell the difference between an image of a living actor on the screen and one who exists only in computer memory, will producers prefer the one that doesn't get sick, won't go on strike, and won't demand $20 million off the top? Does the sun first appear in the east in the morning? Are there any beer trucks in Germany?

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Employment Review Online (Sunday, 7/8/01)
Employment Review Online is an online magazine dealing with various employment issues.

Unemployment up in June (Saturday, 7/7/01)
The U.S. unemployment rate rose a tenth of a percent in June compared to the month before, and almost twice as many jobs were lost as experts had expected. Here are some details from Louis Uchitelle of the New York Times as well as from Mark Egan who reports from Washington. In Japan, household spending was down 2.3 percent in May compared to a year earlier.

Does anybody out there remember the surplus? (Saturday, 7/7/01)
The budget surplus isn't gone yet, but it is diminishing, and many lawmakers are saying that it won't stretch far enough. Some are also saying, "I told you so." If you've been thinking about a surplus of $275 billion, start thinking $6 billion instead. Randall Mikkelsen reports that President Bush seems to be hearing these messages and may delay plans for further tax cuts. Are we heading for deficits again? Once upon a time, Democrats didn't seem too worried about deficits, while Republicans were allergic to them. That seems to have turned around somewhat. If you want to maintain a consistent political ideology, you may have to switch parties now and then.

Finger pointing in Rome (Saturday, 7/7/01)
Representatives of the world's seven richest industrial nations got together for an unfriendly chat in Rome yesterday, and found that there is no consensus on who is most to blame for the global economic downturn.

Things are very expensive for Canadians in the United States (Saturday, 7/7/01)
The current exchange rate discourages Canadians from doing much shopping on the other side of their southern border. Here's more from Sarah Baker. Also in Canada, workers at a Toyota plant near Toronto may be setting a precedent, but we won't know until the end of the month at the earliest. Yesterday, they voted on whether to become the first unionized Japanese-owned auto plant in North America.

AARP supports suit against Ford (Saturday, 7/7/01)
The American Association of Retired Persons has announced that it will support a suit that claims that Ford engages in age discrimination. In a somewhat related story, there are likely to be additional bias suits brought against Coca-Cola, despite the largest-ever settlement in a racial discrimination case.

Email gender differences (Saturday, 7/7/01)
Joyce Cohen reports that men and women tend to use email differently, and the differences seem to be consistent with known patterns of communication as well as differences in the ways that the sexes relate. For instance, women's relationships tend to have a broader interface and are more mutually-supportive, while men often stay within narrowly defined roles and are more competitive. Do you know men who have worked together every day for years and don't know a thing about each other's families, even to the point of whether or not they have any children or are married? There are plenty of them. Most women would find that type of ongoing relationship to be intolerable.

Gains for persons with disabilities in Japan (Saturday, 7/7/01)
Japanese society appears to be a bit more sensitive to the needs of the disabled, according to Stephanie Strom in Tokyo, although much remains to be done.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Australian Society for the Study of Labor History (Saturday, 7/7/01)
The Australian Society for the Study of Labor History was founded forty years ago and has published Labor History: A Journal of Labor and Social History since 1962.

Big job losses in June (Friday, 7/6/01)
The American economy shed jobs faster in June than during the preceding two months. That's three months in a row of job losses.

Irish economy slows to a growth rate many countries would like to have (Friday, 7/6/01)
Since the infamous potato famine during the 19th century, many generations of Irish have gone elsewhere in search of economic opportunity and security. However, during recent years, many have been returning to their ancestral home, because that's where the good jobs have been. To the astonishment of many, Ireland, with one of the world's strongest economies, has been the envy of Europe for several years now. However, very recently, according to the Irish Times, the Irish economy has slowed some, but is still hot by nearly anybody's standards.

Internet bubble-burst, China style (Friday, 7/6/01)
The U.S. isn't the only place where dot-coms have dot-gone. Craig Smith tells why so many young Chinese Internet entrepreneurs seem to be feeling less brash this year than last. Incidentally, our view is that the fact that so many startups with no business model and no business plan, which, for a time, were able to benefit from the "irrational exuberance" that Fed Head Greenspan warned against, doesn't mean that the Internet is dead. Quite the contrary. It really is changing everything.

The need for 24-hour day-care (Friday, 7/6/01)
In the global economy across many time zones, business never sleeps. Barbara Carton writes in today's Wall Street Journal about how a 24-hour workplace has created a market for day-care at all hours.

One of the special work hazards of flight attendants (Friday, 7/6/01)
For whatever reason, more airline passengers seem to be losing control of themselves, and, as David Ho reports, flight attendants are concerned about their own safety as well as that of everyone else on the plane. Flight attendants are encouraging airlines and governments to become more responsive in doing something about the problem. There are 4,000 dangerous incidents per year, they say.

Home values have increased, so why do so many people have less equity? (Friday, 7/6/01)
People have been cashing in home equity at a more rapid rate. Here's more from Judy Rose in the Detroit Free Press.

Some top schools redefine their financial aid criteria (Friday, 7/6/01)
More than two dozen of the most famous...and most selective...colleges and universities in the U.S. will try to buck the trend toward giving aid to the students they most want to attract, instead of those who need it most.

While it is true that many of society's biggest successes also were among the smartest kids in their school classes, the correlation between SATs or GPAs, on the one hand, and life/work performance, on the other, isn't nearly so high as many people seem to think. It's not easy to tell who really will make a major difference, so higher educational policy probably should be designed to minimize "false negatives," although not all individual schools need to be organized along these lines.

Some division of labor among higher education institutions probably will continue to make sense. Still, neither Bill Gates nor Stephen Jobs, two of the inventors of the modern worldwide computer industry, have the formal credentials to qualify for the most junior faculty positions in either computer science or business at the least prestigious colleges. Moreover, what was Shakespeare's GPA? How about Lincoln, who, like Churchill, was one of history's political as well as literary geniuses, but had less than a year of formal education? While Lincoln probably would have chosen to attend a fine university if he had had the opportunity, it probably would have reduced his uniqueness, given the tendency of factories of all kinds to create products that are quite a lot alike.

The persistent gender gap (Friday, 7/6/01)
Wal-Mart has been in the news a lot lately because of being hit by what is likely to be the biggest sex discrimination suit ever. But, as Dory Devlin reports, concern about women being paid less because they're women can be found in the public sector as well.

One Senator who is especially happy about that famous defection from the Republican Party (Friday, 7/6/01)
Minnesota's Senator Paul Wellstone will be taking advantage of the newly Democratic-led Senate to try to get a re-write of the National Labor Relations Act, among many other things that would make American labor leaders happy. Here's more from today's Detroit News.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Worldbiz.com (Friday, 7/6/01)
In a world where nearly everything will be connected to nearly everything else, one can expect some degree of homogenization to develop, at least with respect to international business in which people have to sing off the same page to some extent in order to get their business done. For example, we've already reported on the furious rate at which languages appear to be becoming extinct and how, more and more, English has become the standard language of trade and diplomacy. At this tremendously historic transition point, though, we are still heir to a great variety of creeds, tongues, traditions, and cultural patterns which are a product of the many thousands of years when people around the world were not much connected to one another. If you need to know more about business practices, etiquette, and protocol in any of many dozens of nations, Worldbiz.com is a place to begin.

Day labor in the U.S. (Thursday, 7/5/01)
Kris Axtman of the Houston Chronicle reports that more cities are trying to help people who hire on one day at a time, and Houston is an example. Incidentally, day labor is not limited to unskilled or semi-skilled occupations. For example, it has been a prominent feature of Hollywood film production for decades, except that in the big film factory town, they refer to day laborers as "day players," at least if they're actors. The recent settlement on a new three-year contract will affect 135,000 actors, nearly all of whom are not stars, most of whom can expect to earn no more than very ordinary incomes, if they are fortunate enough to be able to make a living as actors at all, and a great many of whom are day players.

Both sides seem to agree that the way is clear for China's WTO membership (Thursday, 7/5/01)
Representatives of China's trade ministry in Beijing, as well as representatives of the World Trade Organization in Geneva are saying that the two sides have reached agreement on China's membership, following nearly a decade and a half since the world's most populous country applied.

Culture clash (Thursday, 7/5/01)
Humanity has spent most of its life on this planet in the stone age, and it's spent most of the 6,000 years or so of recorded history in relatively small collectivities mostly isolated from one another. Over past centuries, when people with very dissimilar traditions have come into contact, the results sometimes have been productive and creative, but more often there has been an effort to subjugate or exterminate. Now, people from all over the globe interact routinely, and, because of its political liberties and economic power, the United States is a magnate for people who are products of a wide variety of different traditions. Those who want to get along will have to find ways to accommodate themselves to some of the main features of American culture. What if you're a Moslem and you're immersed in an economy of which interest is a common feature? Susan Sachs has a story about a man who is in exactly that sort of situation.

How Kansas City workers are doing (Thursday, 7/5/01)
The Bureau of Labor Statistics at the U.S. Department of Labor has released earnings data for individual markets. Columnist Diane Stafford says that Kansas City workers averaged $16.64 per hour during September 2000. Also, Ms. Stafford tells about a former high-level banking executive who is working as an accounting temp and liking it fine.

When employers can ask you to waive your right to sue for age discrimination (Thursday, 7/5/01)
The Older Workers Benefit Protection Act is intended to protect older workers when companies cut jobs. You may be asked to sign a waiver, and here are the conditions under which your agreement not to sue will stick.

People who want the market to be a little less free (Thursday, 7/5/01)
In a free market, something is worth what somebody is willing to pay for it, and willingness is determined by supply/demand relationships. So, for instance, if you are unskilled or if your skills are widely available, you're probably not going to find too many employers who will be willing to pay you very much for them. In fact, the price of your services may be set so low by the market system that, though you work most of your waking hours, you may still not be able to earn a living in an economy where people who earn more are competing for the relatively scarce things that everybody needs. Overall during recent years, there have been strong forces working toward the opening of markets, based on an essentially utilitarian "greatest good for the greatest number" rationale. The fact that you might slip through the cracks won't persuade free market enthusiasts that the economy should be constructed to serve the least fortunate. So, why, in this context, has the "living wage" movement been gathering steam? Here are some thoughts from Jeff Madrick of the New York Times.

Human backup needed (Thursday, 7/5/01)
We have gotten so used to machines which, to our ancestors, could only appear to be magical, that we may be expecting a bit too much from them. Kris Hundley of the St. Petersburg Times discusses the capacities and limitations of hi-tech, and why we probably shouldn't simply turn our lives over to the machines.

Economists and their metaphors (Thursday, 7/5/01)
Suddenly, Goldilocks and Tinkerbell are out. When you hear about an economy that may be V-shaped or W-shaped or L-shaped, a little translation may be required. A leading economics research firm is happy to oblige.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Administration on Aging (Thursday, 7/5/01)
If you're an older person or expect to be, you and your family will find a wealth of information through the Administration on Aging site, which comes to you from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Big deal in the city of big deals (Wednesday, 7/4/01)
Your daily movie and TV fix can continue uninterrupted. Unions representing 135,000 actors have reached tentative agreement on a new three-year contract with major Hollywood studios.

Strike widens in Zimbabwe (Wednesday, 7/4/01)
Much of the country is shut down as more workers join a two-day strike protesting high fuel prices.

Extended holiday in Silicon Valley (Wednesday, 7/4/01)
The 4th of July is a good time to take off work, but firms in California's famous hi-tech corridor have a special reason this year for wanting their workers to stay home a little longer. It's a slow week on the ordinarily fast track.

Manufacturing sector may be about to recover (Wednesday, 7/4/01)
Barbara Hagenbaugh writes from Washington that new data suggest that American factories are receiving more new orders. The slump of the manufacturing sector has been a major factor in the overall economic slowdown in the United States.

Best Buy agrees to settle overtime pay dispute (Wednesday, 7/4/01)
The big electronics retailer will pay $5.4 million to settle a dispute with about 70,000 current and former employees, according to the United States Department of Labor.

What ever happened to the population explosion? (Wednesday, 7/4/01)
It's still occurring, but overall global population seems to be increasing at a decreasing rate. Moreover, the increases are not equally distributed. Much of the economically developed world, for instance, is experiencing population decline because of low birth rates, which also means an aging workforce and labor shortages in some regions. As Emma Thomasson reports from Berlin, Germany is becoming a less populous country, and this is producing significant economic consequences. Fifty-thousand foreign workers will be needed each year to keep the German economy operating in a manner to which the Germans have become accustomed. This is likely to produce social tensions for a while, because many Germans aren't particularly receptive to the idea of large numbers of foreigners settling in their country. Incidentally, one of the many obstacles in the path of Russia's economic development is also a shrinking population.

Japan prepares for the inevitable pain of debt write-off (Wednesday, 7/4/01)
Japan's new Koizumi government knows that the future of the Japanese economy will depend on its banks eliminating huge bad loans, and this will throw large numbers of people out of work. The government hopes that nonprofit organizations will be able to absorb many of the unemployed, but, as Mamiko Takahashi reports in Tokyo's Asahi Shimbun, many people are skeptical of the plan.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Journal of Economic Geography (Wednesday, 7/4/01)
The Journal of Economic Geography deals with an increasingly important subject in a world more connected, more responsive as an economic whole, and in which the fortunes of regions can change quickly. The JEG is published by Oxford University Press, and tables of contents as well as abstracts are available on its web site.

After 15 years, it appears that China is near to achieving WTO membership (Tuesday, 7/3/01)
All major issues have been resolved, clearing the way to China's entry into the World Trade Organization, according to chief negotiator Long Yongru. Here's more from Robert Evans in Geneva.

They're acting optimistic... (Tuesday, 7/3/01)
...But, of course, they're actors. Nonetheless, the pall seems to have lifted over Hollywood, and there appears to be growing confidence that an actors' strike will be avoided. Entertainment is serious business in California, where the film industry is a major force in the economy. It's important for the entire American economy, in fact, because entertainment is a major American export to most parts of the world.

Pilots attempt to foul things up a bit by sticking to the rules exactly (Tuesday, 7/3/01)
Cathay Pacific's pilots ordinarily do more than required by their work rules in order to keep the planes flying on time. Now, because of unsatisfactory progress in their talks with management, they've decided to stick specifically to the rules as a work action.

Last year was a good year for electrical engineers (Tuesday, 7/3/01)
Terry Costlow of EE Times reports that a survey conducted by IEEE-USA finds that median salaries for electrical engineers increased 13.5 percent in 2000. However, given the general economic downturn, those numbers may be less strong during 2001.

Vacation required (Tuesday, 7/3/01)
We've already reported that Hewlett-Packard is asking its workers to take some time off to help the company cut costs, but other companies are taking the same approach, according to Stephanie Armour of USA Today.

Huge discrimination suit examined (Tuesday, 7/3/01)
Columnist Jilian Mincer shares some thoughts about what is believed to be the biggest discrimination lawsuit ever. Wal-Mart is accused of policies biased toward women, and the suit represents 700,000 current and former employees of the big retailer.

Students study union organizing (Tuesday, 7/3/01)
The AFL-CIO's ten college student interns have just completed a summer program in which they studied union organizing first-hand. In Ireland, union members seem generally satisfied with how they are being represented by their unions, but, as Padraig Yeates of the Irish Times reports, only 9 percent of the members regard themselves as "activists."

Maybe we spoke too soon (Tuesday, 7/3/01)
Yesterday, we reported that Mexican President Fox's honeymoon is over. Actually, while his political honeymoon does appear to have ended, another honeymoon has just begun.

One of the more difficult parts of a supervisor's job (Tuesday, 7/3/01)
Columnist Diane Stafford has some suggestions for supervisors faced with the task of dealing with a worker who has offensive personal habits.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Job Search Reference Library (Tuesday, 7/3/01)
The Job Search Reference Library links to various sites intended to help you with your resume, interviewing, and researching prospective employers.

Is any publicity good so long as they spell "Dakota" correctly? (Monday, 7/2/01)
Which American state has a 96 percent high school graduation rate plus some of the highest math and science scores in the world? If you said "North Dakota," you've probably gotten your information from some source other than the TV comedians who have been joking about the latest move to change the state's name by dropping the word "north."

North Dakota IS isolated from major population centers (or, they're isolated from it), and it HAS been losing population, but not because it is a desolate wasteland. The problem is that it has been highly dependent on its agricultural sector, and American agriculture has been in a depression, in part because it has become a victim of its own success.

By mid-20th century, American farmers, including those in the Dakotas, had used technology to produce enormous increases in productivity, something that would not occur in many other sectors until many years later. Suddenly, agriculture was capital-intensive rather than labor-intensive, and then came a glut of farm products which forced prices down. The land was capable of producing huge quantities of high-quality food products, but became far less capable of supporting as many families as it once did. As a consequence, much of the Midwest has lost population, and North Dakota has lost the most.

The state needs more diversification, and in the new high-tech driven economy, geography has become nearly irrelevant. Businesses in search of a high-quality workforce should locate in North Dakota where people tend to be bright, well-educated, hard-working, resourceful, and rock-solid dependable. Many Dakotans are the descendants of people who, only a few decades ago, came to this vast region with their bare hands and a horse, and, within only a few years, built an agricultural industry capable of feeding much of the world. Incidentally, NewWork News comes to you today, as it often does, from...North Dakota, and that's on purpose.

Tough realities persist as honeymoon ends for President Fox (Monday, 7/2/01)
Andrew Hurst writes from Mexico City on the first anniversary of Mexico's new Fox era. The euphoria definitely has subsided, he says.

Salzburg is a little less tranquil than usual (Monday, 7/2/01)
Participants in an economic summit have been met with globalization protesters in Salzburg, Austria.

Inhale and hold your breath: New data are coming (Monday, 7/2/01)
Jerry Heaster lists some of the new stats that will be out soon, and says that unemployment is expected to be up for the month of June. We won't have to wait long before we know.

You're a capitalist, and you want to join WHAT? (Monday, 7/2/01)
Well, it almost certainly wouldn't please Marx or Mao, but times have changed. You don't have to be a Communist to be a member of the Chinese Communist Party anymore. They're not quite ready to call it the Chinese Capitalist Party yet, but this does reflect some major changes of mind among people who run the world's most populous nation.

New audit alert? (Monday, 7/2/01)
A few years ago during the great period of downsizing and the decimation of corporate middle management, the joke going around was that "consultant" means never having to say you're unemployed. Now, it may mean a close look from the IRS. Employers can save money if they can somehow call people "independent contractors" rather than "employees." Same goes for calling them "consultants" when they're really not. There is a place for genuine consultants, though. These are people with powerful, highly specialized competencies who can be brought in as "hired guns" to solve a particular problem for which you do not need a permanent employee. However, in the new economy in which flexibility and a just-in-time workforce are valued, the term "consultant" often is used fairly broadly to include people who are doing the same work they would be doing if they were called "employees." This Washington Post story explains the advantages, if the IRS will allow them.

Bringing Turkey's vast young population up to speed (Monday, 7/2/01)
Turkey's problem with poverty can be solved if it can find a way of providing education and training to its more than 40 million young people, but the country's poverty also makes that task difficult. Douglas Frantz writes from Istanbul on some of the novel methods that are being employed for helping the young prepare for full participation in the new global economy. Meanwhile, in the so-called developed world, Simon Marginson is concerned that reduced investment in education and training is causing Australia to fall behind.

Why the E.E.O.C. still has its critics (Monday, 7/2/01)
Reed Abelson says that critics of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission says it isn't doing its job adequately, and only part of the reason is a shortage of funding.

Careful of those forecasts (Monday, 7/2/01)
Louis Uchitelle of the New York Times says the track record of economic forecasters should make you wary of acting on their optimistic talk about the American economy's recovery by year's end. Lack of caution could cost you money. Glenn Somerville says that Administration officials also seem to be humming a different tune now that they're no longer fighting for the tax cut's passage.

Ah, let us get this straight: you're a professor and also a member of the United Auto Workers? (Monday, 7/2/01)
Before long, that could be the case. Jeffrey McCracken of the Detroit Free Press tells about the UAW's effort to recruit on American college campuses because of its weakening position in the automotive industry. In part because academe contains some of the last decaying remnants of the old European-bred aristocratic system, including its antiquated attitudes and expectations, universities are not necessarily the centers of rationality that you might hope, at least when it comes to their own affairs, and they're not necessarily meritocracies either. There is a big have vs. have-not gap on the campuses themselves, and we're not talking about the student population.

The UAW is hoping to represent many of the people who teach a lot of the courses but are not among the privileged; i.e., grad assistants and adjunct faculty. If you don't believe that the academic culture is capable of realistic or beneficial change, you may be right. On the other hand, some things do appear to be changing rather rapidly. For instance, perhaps you've heard about some of the highly accelerated "freshman to M.D. in six years" kinds of programs. Medical education seems like trying to drink off a fire hose under the most ordinary circumstances, so many people wouldn't like to see it speeded up. However, there's nothing written in stone that says that the academic year has to contain only nine months, while most people's years contain twelve. Arlene Levinson tells about efforts to package various business and tech programs differently to enable people to finish on the campuses and get out in the work world more quickly.

Reality check on working at home (Monday, 7/2/01)
A correspondent has started a home-based business and asks for some advice from more experienced home workers. Betsy Flagler and Beverly Mills are happy to pass some of it along.

First on the planet, first to be cut (Monday, 7/2/01)
Adam Geller reports that it seems easy to find age discrimination reflected in the layoff lists.

Feel free to retire...anytime you can afford it (Monday, 7/2/01)
Are you called a "boomer" because your plans for early retirement just blew up? Many persons born between 1946 and 1964 are facing many challenges, not the least of which is how to finance a desirable retirement.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: Economics and Islam (Monday, 7/2/01)
Islam has played an important role in world history for more than a millennium and is presently the world's fastest growing religion. As a consequence, it's probably important for everybody concerned with the new economy to consider Economics and Islam.

Important deal reached at American Airlines (Sunday, 7/1/01)
President Bush's vow to intervene may have provided the necessary nudge for American Airlines and its flight attendants to reach tentative agreement on a new contract, with the help of federal mediators. Twenty-three thousand workers will be affected. The wrestling over terms has been going on for two and one-half years. In other labor news, the old contract has been extended to allow talks to continue in Hollywood in an effort to reach an agreement and avert a strike of actors.

New Japanese PM has U.S. support and encouragement (Sunday, 7/1/01)
President Bush and Prime Minister Koizumi have met in and near Washington to talk things over, and the Administration has put out the word that it will do whatever it can to support the new PM's efforts to do the painful and unpopular but necessary task of deregulating the Japanese economy so that it can recover from its decade-long "Asian flu."

Minnesota remains open for business (Sunday, 7/1/01)
A last-minute budget deal has been reached by the Legislature which means that the Minnesota state government won't shut down. This is important for many reasons, not the least of which is that the state government is Minnesota's largest employer, so many thousands of workers would have been sent home.

Does Social Security really need fixing? (Sunday, 7/1/01)
Yes, no, and maybe. No doubt about it. And, you're welcome. We thought you'd appreciate our clearing that up for you. How the future of the Social Security system looks depends on your assumptions, and some experts have been using the most pessimistic ones, according to at least one independent analyst. Here's more from Donna Smith in Washington.

Increasing costs threaten healthcare system (Sunday, 7/1/01)
However, this time we're referring, not to the United States, but South Africa. Claire Bisseker has the cover story on a threatened system in the current Financial Mail. In the U.S., most coffee shop talk this morning is about the Senate's passage of the patients' rights bill that the President doesn't like. However, the Washington Post reports that an increasing number of HMOs have already gone out ahead. Many already provide the services to patients that new legislation would guarantee.

Affording prosperity can be a problem (Sunday, 7/1/01)
During the 1990s, the big boom in Silicon Valley made it very difficult for a lot of people to be able to afford living there. Housing, in particular, became prohibitively expensive for all but the most wealthy. A similar situation has accompanied Ireland's economic boom, according to Shawn Pogatchnik in Navan.

Don't people have to be smart in order to be judges? (Sunday, 7/1/01)
Microsoft won't be broken into multiple companies--at least not right away--because the appeals court found fault with Judge Jackson's talking to the press while the trial was going on, including one reporter who wrote a book about it. This Washington Post writer can't believe the judge would do something so obviously stupid.

It reminds us of the judge who sentenced TV evangelist Jim Bakker to something like forty-five years for fraud, which, compared to what was happening to other convicted felons, seemed to many people at the time to be a bit excessive. At the time, the judge made some public remarks which we can only paraphrase about being "sick of these %@#!," presumably referring to people like Bakker who used religion and television to separate people from their money. Those remarks seemed to be highly inappropriate and almost certain to result in an appeals court throwing out the sentence, if not the conviction later.

Shouldn't that have been obvious to the judge? Maybe it was. There is always the possibility that he felt that a 45-year sentence would put, well, the fear of the Lord into Mr. Bakker, who probably felt that he was being sent to hell, while also expecting that by planting a "time-bomb," it would mean Bakker probably would be released in a few years, despite the original sentence.

Of course, it's certainly possible to attribute too much rationality and strategizing to judges or anyone else. Smart people do dumb things all the time, and judges aren't necessarily among the exceptions. Still, what WAS going through Judge Jackson's mind in relation to the historic Microsoft case?

The oil shortage (Sunday, 7/1/01)
The OTHER oil shortage, that is. Neela Banerjee discusses the shortage of experienced workers in the oil industry, including the new generation of oil workers that will soon be needed in Alaska.

Preying on the elderly (Sunday, 7/1/01)
Fred Brock reports on how the elderly and other vulnerable persons are targeted by people who would like to take their money.

Today's NewWork News Web Tip: The Business Strategy Search Specialist (Sunday, 7/1/01)
The Business Strategy Search Specialist can help you find all you need in order to think very big thoughts about business.

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