Rutgers' Labor Scorecard for American Workers

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. – Labor Day honors the contributions American workers make to the United States economy, but a new National Labor Scorecard released today by the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations (SMLR) reveals a mixed bag for workers, who may have less to celebrate and more to be concerned about this year.

"The economy is the number one issue going into the presidential race, and the scorecard provides a way to look at this area from the perspective of the American worker," said Professor Douglas Kruse, a labor economist, who created the scorecard along with his colleagues at SMLR, a leading resource on workforce issues.

Highlights:

•     Today, more than 10 percent of Americans are unemployed, discouraged from seeking work, or underemployed, a nearly 25-percent increase (24.2 percent) from one year earlier. 
•     More than a half million Americans (530,000) have been subject to mass layoffs in the last year, a growth of nearly 5 percent, but a lower rate than five and 10 years ago.
•     Over the last eight years, the percent of workers who are working part time who would prefer to be in full-time jobs has gone up over 72 percent.
•     The percentage of Americans working more than 48 hours/week has been steadily declining, to the latest figure of 17.8 percent.
•     Unemployment rates are highest for blacks and Hispanics/Latinos, and their increases in the past year have been greater than the increases for whites. 

Courtesy of GraphJam

Jobvite Appoints Dan Finnigan, Former Head of Yahoo! HotJobs, as Chief Executive Officer

Jesper Schultz, Jobvite founder, to drive product strategy and innovation as Chief Product Officer

Dan Finnigan

Read the full release. Hat tip to Todd Raphael at ERE.

Del.icio.us Tags: Dan Finnigan, HotJobs, Jobvite, Jesper Schultz, job boards, oniline recruiting

Twitter Announces Runway Round

Bijan Sabet and Jeff Bezos join investment team

To all my fellow Twitter Twelve-Step Members (T12). The official Twitter Blog announced today the holy grail of start-ups: runway money! And man, are they sounding corporate (me thinks Biz had a swarm of legal advice on this one):

"We're happy to announce two new members of our investment team: Bijan Sabet with Spark Capital in Boston and Jeff Bezos of Bezos Expeditions in Seattle. Bijan has also accepted a seat on our board of directors. We're looking forward to the guidance and advice both will bring to Twitter. Existing partners Union Square Ventures in New York City and Tokyo-based Digital Garage exercised their pro rata rights to participate in this round as well."

Project: Runway

"Twitter will become a sustainable business supported by a revenue model. However, our biggest opportunities will be worth pursuing only when we achieve our vision of Twitter as a global communication utility. To reach our goal, Twitter must be reliable and robust. Private funding gives us the runway we need to stay focused on the infrastructure that will help our business take flight. We will continue hiring systems engineers, operators, and architects, as well as consultants, scientists, and other professionals to help us realize our vision."

TPR interviewed Andrew Parker with Union Square Ventures last August. He was very excited about Twitter. I didn't get it. Now I do. In addition to Bezos Expeditions, Jeff started a little company called Amazon.com. Twitter me at petertpm.