Labor Trends
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Ford to Add 2,200 U.S. Salaried Workers This Year
The hiring surge is the largest increase in salaried workers in more than a decade, the company said in a written statement.
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Michigan Governor Signs Right-to-Work Bills Into Law
Once they take affect early next year, Michigan will become the 24th right-to-work state in the United States.
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Michigan Lawmakers Pass Controversial Right-to-Work Legislation; Gov. Snyder Expected to Sign
The Michigan House approved House Bill 4003 and Senate Bill 116, which will ban the practice of workers being forced to pay any money to a union as a condition of employment.
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Disaffected Workers Want Out of Unions
As organized labor loses leverage in a race-to-the-bottom global market, some workers are becoming so disillusioned by what their unions can, or rather can't, do for them that they want out.
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Health Care Adds 30,500 Jobs in October
Health care employment totaled 14.45 million as of October. For the year ended in October, health care hiring increased by 296,300, or 2.1 percent. Last month's health care hiring was above the monthly average for the prior 12 months of 24,700 new jobs.
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New Research Shows Retirees Are Bailing on 401(k)s Earlier
The data suggest that more retirees are taking their money and bailing from their plan even sooner after they stop working than used to be the case.
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Verizon to Transfer $7.5B in Pension Benefits Through Annuity Purchase
Under the arrangement, Verizon will transfer about $7.5 billion in pension plan obligations to Prudential Insurance Co. of America by purchasing the annuity. The agreement covers plan participants who retired and began receiving pension benefits before Jan. 1, 2010.
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Ethnic Disparities Found in Compensation for Injured Construction Workers
The study of 1,039 cases does not explain the reason for the disparity, although the researchers said bias or prejudice are a possibility, as are differences in knowledge about how the compensation system works.
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Employees Get Creative When Calling in Sick
Thirty percent of workers called in sick during the past year even when they weren't ill, according to a CareerBuilder survey. In addition, the survey found the holiday season tends to be the busiest time for sick calls.
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Data Bank Focus: A Deficit of Good Jobs or a Deficit of Good Candidates?
The National Employment Law Project recently reported an imbalance in employment growth following the recent recession. Its detailed analysis of data from the U.S. Current Population Survey, produced by the U.S.
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More Employers Adding Automatic Enrollment to Defined Contribution Plans: Survey
In 2012, 65 percent of employers surveyed by Towers Watson & Co. offered an automatic enrollment feature, up from 57 percent in 2011 and 51 percent in 2010.
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Pension Plans' Funded Status Up on Stronger Equity Market: Mercer
The average funding level of pension plans sponsored by companies in the S&P 1500 rose to 73 percent in September, up from 72 percent in August and the record-low funded ratio of 70 percent set in July.
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Chicago Mayor Takes Tech Recruiting Trip to Illinois Campus
Mayor Rahm Emanuel is taking Chicago tech to Urbana-Champaign on Oct. 2, joined on the road trip by representatives from some 40 of the city's tech companies, including Boeing Co., BrightTag Inc., Cleversafe Inc., Google Inc., Groupon Inc. and GrubHub Inc.
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Automakers Try New Recruiting Strategies to Fill Engineering Vacancies
Threatened by a chronic shortage of engineers -- exacerbated by years of industry restructuring -- auto companies are having trouble filling job vacancies in Detroit now that the industry is coming back to health.
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Archer Daniels Midland Joins Growing Ranks of Employers Offering Pension Lump Sums
Archer Daniels Midland Co. has disclosed that it will offer between 7,000 and 7,500 former employees who are eligible for but not yet receiving monthly pension benefits the opportunity to convert their future annuities to a lump-sum benefit.
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Trash, Recyclable Collector Deaths Spike in 2011
On-the-job fatalities among trash and recycling collectors dramatically increased last year, making the job the fourth most dangerous in the land.
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Temp Bill Rates May Be Back on Rise
The IQNdex's August reading of 105.9 is up 0.7 percent from July and up 1.2 percent from three months ago. The increases compare to the entire 12 months ended in May when the IQNdex rose by less than 1 percent.
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Poor Health of Employees Can Drag Down Productivity: Study
Workers' poor health and its drag on productivity costs U.S. employers $576 billion annually. The costs include those spent on group health policies for employees, short- and long-term disability, workers' compensation, illness absence, and presenteeism.
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Corporations Adopt the Hackathon
Small businesses are using hackathons as cost-effective tools to tackle problems, recruit talent and unleash innovation. The hackathon presents a quicker, scrappier way to tackle large-scale problems with whatever resources they have on hand.
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People with Disabilities at Work and Play
With the 2012 Summer Olympics over and its 10,500 competitors back home, the Paralympic Games got under way Aug. 29. Taking part will be 4,200 athletes with a disability—40 percent of the number of athletes in the Olympic Games.
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Working Longer No Lock for Comfortable Retirement
In the past, most workers figured they'd be able to retire at the age of 65. But following 2008's financial crisis, the idea of working a few more years to recoup lost savings became commonplace.
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Survey: 45 Percent Would Cut Salary for Flexibility
A survey released August 30 found 45 percent of working adults are willing to relinquish 8.6 percent of their salary for more flexibility at work.
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Survey: Workforce Strategy Not a Priority
About 78 percent of employers lack a workforce strategy to garner hard-to-find talent, according to the survey conducted by the ManpowerGroup's Strategic Workforce Consulting business.
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Demand Up for Recruiters with Social Media Skills
Recruiters with social media skills are most frequently recruited for jobs located in New York City, Chicago, Washington, Boston and Los Angeles.
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Federal Employees Most Frequent EEOC Charge is Retaliation: Study
It is the fifth straight year that retaliation topped the list as being the most frequently alleged complaint.
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OSHA Steps Up Safety Inspections in South
Beginning August 20, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration will increase the number of unannounced inspections it performs at worksites in Region 4, which encompasses eight southern states east of the Mississippi River.
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Harvard Grads Flooding Wall Street
Any time so many bright young folks flood into Manhattan's concrete canyons to take jobs in investment banking or private equity, it's a clear sign the market has topped out.
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Data Bank Focus: Absence Rate - A Measure of Performance
Understanding absence rates among employees is a key step in gauging overall employee productivity and the costs of the workforce. Recent data from the U.S.
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Data Bank Focus: Shifting Norms?
The unemployment rate has stalled in its decline from the highs of the recent recession—hovering at about 8.2 percent for the first half of this year.
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Goodyear Commits to Hiring 1,000 U.S. Military Veterans
Goodyear said it will hire the veterans over the next three years through its partnership with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Hiring Our Heroes program.
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Auto Industry Execs: We're Hiring
In the past year, IAC Group North America, the big interior supplier, has hired about 350 employees at its Belvidere, Illinois, plant to supply interiors for the Dodge Dart and Jeep Patriot and Compass made at Chrysler Group's plant there.
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Ford Seeks to Close $15-an-hour Canada Labor Gap With U.S.
Ford, which lists 7,400 employees at five plants in Canada on its website, pays $79 an hour for wages and benefits to its hourly workers in the country, said the official, who asked not to be identified because negotiations with the union are private.
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Salaries for Human Resources Managers
Changes in data collection techniques make it difficult to compare past, present and future employment numbers and salaries for managers in human resources, compensation and benefits, and training and development.
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Meeting in the Middle
It's well known that more and more women have entered the workforce over the years. Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics show that about 31 percent of adult women were employed in 1948, but that figure, which has dipped in recent years, jumped to 55 percent by 2011.
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Salaries for Training and Development Managers
Changes in data collection techniques make it difficult to compare past, present and future employment numbers and salaries for managers in human resources, compensation and benefits, and training and development.
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Salaries for Compensation & Benefits Managers
Changes in data collection techniques make it difficult to compare past, present and future employment numbers and salaries for managers in human resources, compensation and benefits, and training and development.
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Jacksonville Jaguars Owner Targeted by UAW Effort to Organize Auto Parts Plants
Shahid Khan, the Pakistan-born self-made billionaire who bought the Jaguars for more than $700 million in January, traditionally has been a private figure in the auto industry, but his profile this year became more public as the owner of an NFL franchise.
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SHRM Transparency Group Reveals Strategy to Run for SHRM Board Positions
The transparency group has met twice with association leaders since last year’s conference in Las Vegas, but after the second meeting in March, SHRM leaders decided to discontinue the meetings, according to Kate Herbst, a transparency group member and now a board candidate.
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The Midnight Shift Returns as Automakers Boost Output
By the start of 2013, 22 of the 83 assembly plants in North America will operate with three shifts of workers, and nearly half of all vehicles built here will come from a three-shift plant.
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Miller School of Medicine at University of Miami Plans to Lay Off 800 Workers
The University of Miami Health System filed a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification with the state of Florida, disclosing its intention to cut 800 positions on July 31. Layoffs of more than 500 employees must be disclosed at least 60 days in advance.
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Health Care Adds 19,000 Jobs in April, 7,000 Fewer Year Over Year
U.S. unemployment held steady last month at 8.1 percent as the overall economy added 115,000 jobs. Hospitals added 4,100 jobs in April for growth of 0.1 percent to bring total hospital employment to 4.8 million. For the year that ended in April, hospital employment grew by 95,100 jobs, or 2 percent.
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Data Bank Focus: Hires vs. Unemployed Workers
While the national unemployment level has slowly fallen from its peak of 10 percent in 2009, the number of unemployed people far outdistances the number of hires. Just how dire the situation is today can be seen by comparing the size of the gaps for the two most recent recessions.
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Data Bank Focus: The Rising Perils of Unemployment
During the past decade, the time it takes to find a job has slowly increased for the unemployed. In 2000, more than half of all unemployed people were able to find a job in fewer than five weeks; last year only about a third found new employment as fast.
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Study: Internal Sites, Referrals Key to Finding New Hires
A new study finds nearly two-thirds of recent hires actually found their positions through such internal sources as company career sites and referrals.
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Bill Proposed to Make Employer-Paid Education Aid Tax Break Permanent
Under Section 127 of the Internal Revenue Code, employers can reimburse employees for up to $5,250 in annual undergraduate and graduate costs without the reimbursement being included in employees' taxable income.
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Extreme Close-up: Report Says Workers Fired After Complaining About Camera
Two garbage workers in British Columbia say they were fired because they complained publicly about a surveillance camera being installed in their truck.
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Norwegian Insurance Company Monitors Workers' Bathroom Breaks
Norway's chief workplace ombudsman Bjorn Erik Thon told a media outlet that one firm required employees to wear a red bracelet during their menstrual cycles to indicate the need for more restroom visits.
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Push for Green Jobs: An Interview With David Foster of the Blue Green Alliance
The executive director of the not-for-profit group Blue Green Alliance is an advocate for renewable energy, recycling and energy efficiency, all things he says will help push our overall economy forward.
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Lockout of Union Workers in New York Shines Light on NLRB Appointees
In a memo released last month, the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel wrote that President Obama was justified in making the appointments.
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American Airlines Wants to Terminate Pension Plans
The termination, if approved, would shift billions of dollars of promised but unfunded benefits to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., resulting in the biggest loss ever for the agency.
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Boeing to Add $1.5 Billion to Pension Plans in 2012
The Chicago-based company contributed $500 million to its pension plans in 2011.
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Analysis: Employment Class Actions Continue to Raise Firms' Financial Exposures
As a result of two key rulings, class actions are 'not dead or blocked, rather they're reforming and morphing into different iterations,' says one expert.
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Data Bank Focus: Hires Outpacing Separations
Although the number of new hires has remained relatively flat in 2011, in most months it has slightly edged out separations, which include voluntary resignations, involuntary layoffs, discharges and retirements. Hires have hovered around 4 million through most of this year to date.
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Surveys Focus on Veterans' Employment
A CareerBuilder survey found that 20 percent of employers plan to actively recruit U.S. veterans over the next 12 months while a separate survey by Monster.com found that 69 percent of firms found that veterans perform their job functions 'much better' than non-veterans.
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Labor Department Approves Grant for Goodyear Union City workers
The U.S. Department of Labor has authorized a $3. 5 million National Emergency Grant to provide re-employment and support services to some 850 workers laid off when Goodyear closed its Union City, Tennessee, plant in July 2011.
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Health Care Sees Little Hiring in October
The health care industry saw little job creation in October, adding about 11,600 positions, while the overall U.S. unemployment rate was pegged at 9 percent.
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Ford: Labor Agreement Will Keep Costs in Check
Ford Motor Co.’s new four-year contract with the United Auto Workers will allow it to keep its annual labor cost increases under 1 percent, company officials told the financial community this morning.
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Ford to Add, Retain 12,000 Jobs With New UAW Agreement
The automaker plans to insource manufacturing work from Mexico, Japan and China. The 12,000 new or retained jobs include 5,000 previously announced positions, Ford said.
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NLRB Issues Employee Notification Rule
Private-sector employers with workplaces under NLRB jurisdiction (all but the smallest companies) will be required to post the employee rights notice on bulletin boards in the same area that other notices are typically posted. The rollout has been postponed until Jan. 31, 2012.
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UAW Says GM Workers Ratify Labor Contract By 2-to-1 Margin
Under the pact, the automaker's 48,000 hourly workers have traded the promise of generous pay and benefits for job security and compensation gains that are more closely tied to the automaker's health, profitability and quality advances.
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SEC Formalizes Dodd-Frank Rules on Whistle-Blowers
Awards under the new program will depend on the quality and timeliness of the information, which must lead to successful enforcement actions with sanctions of at least $1 million.
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Detroit 3 Are Expected to Add 36,000 Tier 2 Jobs by 2015
The U.S. automakers are authorized under their current contracts with the UAW to have up to 25 percent of their hourly workers in the lower-wage category.
