NJ Sends The Right Message

New Jersey is a much-maligned state, sometimes with good reason, especially in the area of political corruption.

But sometimes The Garden State gets it right and does something ahead of everyone else in America, something so correct you can’t believe it needs to be spelled out in writing.

Case in point is New Jersey’s new law that bans job ads, in print or online, that only consider the employed for openings.

The job ad legislation, signed into law by Gov. Chris Christie, is necessary because some employers are discriminating against the unemployed. You must be “currently employed” to apply for positions.

Some employers and recruiters are operating under the misguided assumption there is something wrong with you if you’re out of work.

So, following this bonehead logic, you are not worth the time and effort.

Wake-Up Call

Under New Jersey’s law, which takes effect June 1, no business can post a listing for a job opening in the state that contains:

*Any provision stating that the qualifications for a job include current employment;

* Any provision stating that the employer or employer’s agent, representative, or designee will not consider or review an application for employment submitted by any job applicant currently unemployed; or

*Any provision stating that the employer or employer’s agent, representative, or designee will only consider or review applications for employment submitted by job applicants who are currently employed.

Violators will be fined $1,000 for the first offense and $5,000 for a second offense. Christie rejected as too severe original provisions calling for fines of $5,000 and $10,000, respectively.

Zero-Tolerance Needed

Frankly, WMB believes the penalties should be higher, with strict enforcement. Repeat offenders, after the second offense, should have their names published as a public service and a warning to others who would flout the law.

There is no excuse for practicing discrimination against any group of individuals. People should be judged on legitimate qualifications, knowledge and skills, period.

True, there are laws prohibiting racial, sexual, age, ethnic and religious discrimination, and various forms of bias in between.

But some employers used the Great Recession as cover for creating two classes of workers – those currently employed but seeking new jobs and those unemployed but deemed not worthy of consideration.

Talk about flawed and skewed thinking!

Debunking The Myth

Some of those who lost their jobs since 2008, through no fault of their own, were well-qualified and veteran workers across a variety of industries – construction workers, teachers, police officers, financial advisers, journalists, just to name a few.

Many of these workers had skills, knowledge, strong work ethic and, yes, higher salaries than what entry-level positions provide.

With few exceptions, nobody willingly would want to become long-term unemployed. Unemployment benefits, even generous ones, do run out. Food needs to be on the table; bills have to be paid.

And, doubters aside, many Americans still have a solid work ethic that has been handed down through generations of immigrants. That ethic is part of the thread that makes us diverse and strong as a nation.

Employers since the recession years have held all the hiring cards, especially when the numbers reflected five to seven workers for each job opening, regardless of industry.

Businesses, large and small, should carefully screen all job candidates to find the best qualified, not toss out the unemployed based on arbitrary rules and bias.

New Jersey is on the right path; others should follow its lead.

Ken Cocuzzo

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Forgotten Millions Still Matter

Divided families, dwindling finances, foreclosed homes, totally jobless – that’s what life has meant for millions of Americans from 2007 to today. Yet for the employed, especially politicians in Washington, not much has changed.

Turn on the TV news today and you see little about the jobless and underemployed – 13.7 million and 8.3 million Americans, respectively. It might be argued our leaders care more about the Mideast and the federal budget deficit.

The April edition of Reader’s Digest offers the ugly truth about the greatest economic collapse in United States since the Great Depression of the 1930s:

“More than half of all U.S. workers either lost their jobs or were forced to take cuts in hours or pay during the recession,’’ RD says. “The unluckiest suffered prolonged unemployment, bankruptcies, or foreclosures, which are now at 65-year highs.”

The icing on the cake, by way of New York Times Op-ed columnist Paul Krugman, is simply this:

“More than three years after we entered the worst economic slump since the 1930s, a strange and disturbing thing has happened to our political discourse: Washington has lost interest in the unemployed.

Difficult To Escape

“It might not be so bad if the jobless could expect to find new employment fairly soon, but unemployment has become a trap, one that’s very difficult to escape,’’ Krugman says.

“There are almost five times as many unemployed workers as there are job openings; the average unemployed worker has been jobless for 37 weeks, a post-World War II record.

Krugman, professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton University, asserts our nation is well under way to creating “a permanent underclass of the jobless.”

How can that be?

Krugman, a Nobel Prize winner in economics, says part of the answer may be that the jobless tend to stay that way, and those who still have jobs are feeling more secure than they did a few years ago.

Layoffs and buyouts spiked during the crisis of 2008-09 but have fallen since then, perhaps reducing the sense of urgency, Krugman says.

The U.S. economy now suffers from low hiring, not high firing, so things don’t look so bad — as long as you’re willing to write off the unemployed and underemployed, according to Krugman.

Closer To Home

Take, for example, a former employer of mine, Gannett Co. Inc., the largest publicly owned newspaper publisher in America.

Under CEO Craig Dubow, GCI has eliminated 20,000 jobs since 2005 -- nearly four of every 10 employees, according to the Gannett Blog, an independent daily journal about the company.

It’s not a stretch to believe a good number of those former Gannett journalists remain unemployed or underemployed. And keep in mind this is just one of many industries slammed by the recession.

The Great Recession was a cold slap in the face for many of us who enjoyed the 1990s boom, when technology advances and soaring stock prices offered unlimited potential – even a hint of early retirement, or at least a secure one.

The Bitter Pill

Today’s reality is quite another matter. Even so, millions of unemployed and underemployed should not simply be written off because it’s politically convenient to have them fade from the spotlight.

For those among us who survived the recession relatively unscathed, good for you and your family!

But while you continue to enjoy the fruits of your labors, please take a moment to remember the less fortunate, your former co-workers.

Urge your elected officials to do the right thing by enacting a “real” jobs bill that puts people back to work permanently, not in some temporary make-work (pork) project.

Stealing some lyrics from the Police song, “Invisible Sun,” nobody should be relegated “to play the part of a statistic on a government chart” and why should they?

Let's all keep that in mind as we move forward and out of this mess, together.

Ken Cocuzzo

Men Battle Great Depression

While it may be true that women are at higher risk for depression than men, the pendulum may be swinging the other way, especially when seen through the prism of the Great Recession.

Men, especially those in middle age, got clobbered. Some found themselves without work for the first time in their adult lives. It was a shock to the system, from which many have yet to recover (and, sadly, some may never recover).

Men who worked hard for two or three decades, with no break in employment in their chosen profession, were tossed aside as the recession deepened and its lingering pain widened.

Employers, fighting for survival, dumped loyal and veteran male employees who found themselves suddenly unemployed and ill-prepared for the financial and emotional fallout. They were sucker-punched and saddled with piles of debt.

In some homes, women, for the first time, became the primary breadwinners for their families in a stark reversal of traditional gender roles.

Inside Your Head

With serious social and cultural changes, men appear to be at increasingly higher risk of developing depression, notes Dr. Boadie Dunlop of Emory University in Atlanta, in an editorial in the British Journal of Psychiatry.

When the psychiatrist began recruiting subjects for a depression study, he enlisted the help of local sports radio shows, and was surprised by the tremendous response he received — from men, reports Alice Park for Time.com.

“We were really impressed with the number of men coming in with depression related to employment or marital conflict,” Dunlop says.

Where Jobs Went

The Great Recession of recent years brought some of those issues to a head, he says, as downsizing and high unemployment highlighted the death of manufacturing and labor-intensive jobs, which have traditionally been held by men.

About 75 percent of the jobs lost in the downturn belonged to men.

Innovations in technology (think online news instead of print news), as well as outsourcing (think overseas TV set manufacturing) to countries where manual labor is less expensive, are compressing this sector, forcing more men than women out of work.

With men culturally shouldering the role of primary breadwinner for their families, unemployment hits men particularly hard, as their self-esteem, an important factor in depression risk, is often contingent on their role as provider.

Socially, Boadie says, despite many high profile cases of men admitting to depression, such as veteran broadcast journalist Mike Wallace (left) and actor, comedian, writer and film producer John Cleese, it's still difficult for most men to acknowledge feeling overwhelmed and out of control.

“To be depressed, to feel overwhelmed and not motivated to do things, are signs that have had the stigma attached to them of mental weakness,” Dunlop says. “And men traditionally have felt that they should just overcome them and snap out of it.”

Close To Home

It’s not reassuring to think the world has passed you by, especially if your career of three decades required you stay focused on breaking news.

As a veteran print journalist, my job was to report and edit the news, to be the eyes and ears for the public and provide an unbiased daily account of relevant and timely information.

But with the Great Recession, I found myself on the other side of the story and caught an economic riptide as the some of biggest newspapers in America, including my own, downsized practically overnight.

Journalism careers, mine included, ended abruptly and without any meaningful closure. I became a modern Rip Van Winkle, though I never slept. I merely blinked and suddenly what I did as a print journalist was no longer valued or wanted.

Did I take it personally? Yes, at first. But I later came to realize it’s all part of a natural order of things, regardless of your job or profession.

From My Notes

For the more fortunate among us, big trouble never really lands on the doorstep; it’s always the other guy who gets nailed. But for many of us, it never quite works that way.

My new attitude is simply this: Be prepared, flexible, and the best you can be at whatever you do – whether that’s mopping floors or signing big clients.

And, most important of all, never let your work define who you really are, what you bring to the table. That’s your call!

Ken Cocuzzo

Workers: Trust Is Lacking

Results from the second annual APCO Worldwide and Gagen McDonald employee engagement study show high rates of confidence among employees, but they sense their companies aren’t committed to them.

The Employee Confidence Index, which measures optimism, and the Employee Connection Index, which measures loyalty, yielded high numbers – 81.4 and 83.5, respectively. But the Employer Connection Index posted a score of just 63.3.

The firms offer three reasons for the gap:

•Degree to which the executive team supports and lives the company values

•Authentic, open and honest communication from the executive team

•Employees receiving consistent information from all the leaders in the company

The firms surveyed 500 full-time workers across the United States who have been with their companies for at least one year and work for companies with at least 100 employees.

This perceived lack of commitment by employers should not come as any surprise.

Many employers during the Great Recession that began in December 2007 and officially ended in June 2009 dumped bodies like a snake shedding its skin.



Millions of loyal and veteran workers found themselves on the outside looking in – and wondering what the hell happened in a blink of an eye.

Some of the layoffs and buyouts across a multitude of industries – everything from publishing to construction – were justified.

Who could argue the logic of a half loaf being better than no loaf if a company’s survival is at stake?

But now there seems to be a nagging sense among many workers – including 14.5 million people who remain unemployed – that some companies took advantage of the national downturn to cut costs by axing employees.

These employers seem to fall into two categories:

•privately owned companies which had grown accustomed to the revenue boom days of the 1990s, when double-digit profits were possible.

•publicly held companies which had cut budgets to the bone before the Great Recession to make the bottom line rosier for shareholders.

I worked for both types of companies in my former newspaper career, and I can say it does make a big difference where you sit when things go wrong.

My former employer, The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J., cut its staff by about 40 percent in late 2008 and early 2009.

The state’s biggest daily paper belongs to Advance Publications, the largest family-owned (Newhouse) media company in the United States.

The Ledger’s owners warned the paper would be closed or sold if steep staff cuts were not made.

The family owner offered a severance package of full salary and health care benefits for one year – a generous deal they did not have to strike with staffers.

Contrast that with the Home News Tribune of East Brunswick, N.J., another former newspaper employer of mine.

The corporate owner, Gannett Co. (USA Today), has sliced hundreds of jobs from its New Jersey papers, including the HNT, with little or no severance pay.

Those cuts continue at the HNT and follow a downsizing of the paper’s staff that began in the early 2000s as a way for management to improve its bottom line.

When the Great Recession hit, Gannett had no cushion and its stock fell like a rock.

I enjoyed my 30 years as a print journalist, and I learned a great deal about people, places and life – good and bad.

But perhaps the most valuable lesson I took away is simply this: Trust is earned, not given.

 Ken Cocuzzo

Our Gas-Guzzling Days Over?

You could chalk it up to heavy job loss during the Great Recession or simply higher prices for gasoline, but America’s gas-guzzling days are now in the rear-view mirror, experts say.

Looking down the road to 2030, Americans will burn at least 20 percent less gasoline than today, experts say, even as millions more cars hit the highways.

After seven decades of growth, U.S. gasoline demand is at the start of a long-term decline, the Associated Press reports. America is No. 1 now in gasoline consumption followed by China.

Our thirst for gasoline is shrinking as cars and trucks become more fuel-efficient, the U.S. government mandates the use of more ethanol, and consumers drive less.

“A combination of demographic change and policy change means the heady days of gasoline growing in the U.S. are over,” says Daniel Yergin, chairman of IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates and author of a Pulitzer Prize-winning history of the oil industry.

This isn't the first time in U.S. history that gasoline demand has fallen, at least temporarily. Drivers typically cut back during recessions, then hit the road again when the economy improves.

The Great Recession – December 2007 to June 2009 – was the main reason demand fell sharply in 2008. Today, with gasoline prices averaging more than $3.15 per gallon for regular, many drivers are rethinking their habits and trips to save money.

History and habits aside, the future of U.S. gas consumption looks vastly different, with government and industry officials insisting gasoline demand has peaked for good.

It has declined four years in a row and will not reach the 2006 level again even when the economy fully recovers (which some experts, including U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, say may be years away). The decrease was on the horizon long before the recession.

The 2001 terrorist attacks, the war in Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, and pump prices rising to a nationwide average of $3 a gallon for the first time in a generation reignited public debates about the political and economic effects of oil imports and climate changes.

Also, the popularity of gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles began to wane, and the government started requiring refiners to blend corn-based ethanol into every gallon of gasoline.

Why We’re Pumped

We, at WMB, see this dramatic decrease in gasoline demand by U.S. consumers as a positive sign that Americans whatever the reason – conserving personal finances, helping the environment, increasing telecommuting options – are finding usage alternatives.

While America's diminishing demand will temper global use, it will be more than offset by rapidly growing demand in China, India, the Middle East and Africa, experts say.

As a result, declining U.S. gasoline demand will not bring lower pump prices for consumers, according to the AP.

Still, we have known since the gasoline shortages and station lines of the early 1970s that America’s dependence and growing appetite for foreign oil would ultimately lead to a dead end.

By continuing to cut our gas demand, we can move forward – financially and environmentally – even if we’re no longer king of the road.

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Temp Jobs Trend Higher

Temporary workers now account for more than a quarter of the jobs added since the Great Recession technically ended, and some experts predict those types of jobs will continue indefinitely as employers seek ways to trim labor-related costs.

The trend is for companies to count more on the services of temporary workers and less on full-time employees, who already may be overworked because of layoffs and buyouts.

This is great news for companies pressing for increased productivity and reduced costs, but it does not bode well for the underemployed and unemployed seeking full-time work.

More than 15 million people remain jobless, with the unemployment rate at 9.8 percent in November. For many, even a temp job is better than no job at all.

Temp workers typically receive few or no benefits – health care, holiday pay, sick time. Essentially, temps work for cash on a per-diem basis, with no job security. Every day could be their last at work.

The New York Times notes that “it is harder for them (temps) to save. And it is much more difficult for them to develop a career arc while hopping from boss to boss.”

There are several factors driving the trend toward temps, including the way work is handled in America’s post-recession era.

“Businesses now tend to organize around short- to medium-term projects that can be doled out to temporary or contract workers,” the Times reports.

And flexibility is another factor: it’s much easier to end a bunch of temp contracts than to actually go through layoffs, according to mediabistro.com.

“We’re in a period where uncertainty seems to be going on forever,” David Autor, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, tells the Times.

“So this period of temporary employment seems to be going on forever.”

View From Inside

Having been a temporary worker more than once in my professional career, I can say it offers more advantages than disadvantages to employers and the temp. It can be an “audition” for both parties.

From the employer side, there is little red tape in terms of temp hiring and termination. The application, background check and interview process typically are the same as for a regular, full-time employee.

In a temp arrangement, an employer tries the worker on for size, to see if he or she fits the position and company culture while performing the same job as regular staff.

It’s not easy, even after an exhaustive resume review and rigorous interview process, to be certain someone is right beforehand for any job.

On the flip side, the temp can do the same thing in terms of sizing up the company and whether a full-time, regular staff position – assuming it’s available and offered later – would provide financial stability and flexibility for professional and personal growth.

A survey by Staffing Industry Analysts, a Mountain View, Calif., research firm, shows 68 percent of all temporary workers are seeking permanent employment, the Times reports.

Temp Worker Advances

My previous career as professional journalist in daily newspapers began this way:

A college internship led to a temporary reporter’s job that led to full-time employment in the career of my choice. Certainly, not all temp work ends in such a positive outcome, but the potential does exist.

The key for me turning the temp journalism job into a regular one was performing at the highest level; that is showing mastery of basic skills, willingness to learn new ones, and developing interest regardless of the assignment.

If you’re not curious about the why and how of things, chances are you won’t make a very good journalist. You have to combine reporting (gathering facts) and writing (context packaging) to get the job done right, regardless of print or electronic format.

Change Direction Now

My point is the use of temporary workers – to fill gaps and cut costs – should not be considered a long-term substitute for hiring full-time employees who, admittedly, do bring higher costs, especially in the health and retirement benefits.

Whether you’re an employer or employee, temporary staffing is a practical solution for the here and now.

But it offers no lasting commitment to the future, whether that’s building a business, improving-maintaining services, or developing a career path.

Temporary workers should be just that, temporary. There's too much at stake for all sides of this equation to let this trend become permanent.

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Lending Ease Fuels Biz Growth

More small businesses say they’re finding it easier to secure loans, a shift that could serve as the catalyst to jump-start the slow recovery and weak job market.

Small companies with fewer than 100 workers make up half the U.S. labor force and typically account for two-thirds of jobs created in a recovery. So far, though, small business has benefited far less than large companies since the Great Recession officially ended in June 2009.

Many small businesses still complain credit is tight. But in a recent survey by the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), the portion saying loans were harder to get than three months earlier was the lowest since September 2008.

Additionally, senior loan officers surveyed by the U.S. Federal Reserve say their standards for smaller business loans eased for the second-straight quarter in three months ending Sept. 30.

“This looks to us like the start of a serious improvement,” says Chief Economist Ian Shepherdson of High Frequency Economics. Examples of previously denied small businesses finally securing loans after two years are surfacing throughout the country.

Recovery Signs Abound

Employers added 151,000 jobs in October, the most in five months, although the U.S. unemployment rate remains unchanged at 9.6 percent. Retail sales of late have been beating estimates.

The U.S. Department of Commerce raised its estimate of third-quarter economic growth to an annual rate of 2.5 percent. It’s still lackluster, but at least it’s moving in the right direction.

Further, financial institutions are on stronger financial footing, with more capital and fewer bad loans to write off.

The amount of loans that banks charged off in the third quarter fell versus a year ago for the second straight quarter after rising steadily since late 2006, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

“Banks have worked through a lot of their problems,” says Paul Merski, chief economist for the Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA). “The industry is in a better position to increase lending.”

Interest rates are so low that banks can scarcely make a profit by investing depositors’ money in T-bills. “Eventually for banks to become profitable, you have to start taking some risk,” Merski says.

Commercial and industrial loans by small banks, which largely serve small firms, grew at a 4.1 percent annual rate in October, the most since 2008, according to a UBS analysis of federal data.

Credit Conditions Tight

Given the improvements, most lenders are still tight-fisted. Credit conditions aren’t nearly as favorable as they were before the 2008 financial crisis.

Sal Marranca, president of Cattaraugus County Bank in Little Valley, N.Y., and ICBA’s incoming chairman, says regulators continue to pressure banks to impose tougher standards following the Great Recession that began in December 2007.

Also, many laid-off workers have tried to secure loans, but 90 percent of the workers don’t have any collateral to back their own business.

Meanwhile, most small businesses aren’t trying to borrow, since they haven’t seen a robust pickup in sales, says NFIB Chief Economist William Dunkleberg.

Many analysts feel that even a gradual improvement in banks’ willingness to lend could fuel small business expansion as demand continues to grow.

What Needs Doing

WMB believes banks need to continue to ease lending practices in order to create more jobs throughout America.

Large and medium-sized companies, now turning large profits, remain on the sidelines. They are reluctant to reinvest in their own companies since their confidence has been shattered by the global downturn and technological changes.

WMB believes it’s now up to the small businesses throughout our country to help turn our economy around and create new jobs. Further, the U.S. government needs to offer new incentives and help provide tax relief for small business willing to take risk and hire new employees.

This post is by TechMan, WMB co-author who blogs about trends, issues and ideas affecting business, industry, technology and consumers. If you like this post, please share it!

Restoring Work, Life Balance

For those who lost their jobs, were forced to change jobs or had their jobs threatened during the Great Recession, there may be a silver lining – the discovery that work is not the end-all, be-all you may have once thought.

That’s right; work is not the most important thing on the planet. There’s is more to life than “working for the man every night and day,” as John Fogerty's lyrics go in the old “Proud Mary” song of a few decades back.

The downturn years that began in December 2007 have caused workers to question career-related sacrifices, including time away from family, less leisure and fewer self-improvement activities.

They are a few of the findings of a recent study by Wayne Hochwarter (right), a Jim Moran Professor of Business Administration at Florida State University College of Business, and research associates Tyler Everett and Stuart Tapley.

They reviewed the Great Recession’s role in changing employees’ thoughts about work, commitment to their families, and the pursuit of a more balanced lifestyle.

“The objective of the study was to see if we could identify shifts in thinking, as well as the causes of these changes,” Hochwarter says.

Opinions gathered from more than 1,100 full-time employees, across a range of occupations and career stages, showed the following:

* 48 percent reported the recession increased their appreciation of family;

* 37 percent reported the recession promoted thoughts that work isn’t as important as it once was in the grand scheme of things;

* 49 percent admitted the recession helped them recognize the value of people over things;

* 23 percent indicated the recession increased awareness of an over-commitment to work at the expense of family and recreation;

* 42 percent confirmed most of what happens at work is out of one’s control regardless of commitment and effort; and

* 43 percent agreed the recession increased motivation to be a better person rather than just a better employee.

Finally, more than 70 percent of employees acknowledged that most days at work “seem like they will never end” — a commonly held belief in work settings where increasingly more time and output is expected with less support and fewer guaranteed rewards.

The study also indicated recession-related stress tends to manifest differently in men and women.

“Digging a little deeper into the data, it was evident that men’s reflective, and often remorseful, thoughts were driven by recession-related job insecurity and its subsequent role in encouraging hostile work treatment,” Hochwarter says.

He suggests it’s common for work stress to push employees to places they would not otherwise go, in terms of thoughts and actions, when it reaches intolerable levels.

Such stress is apparent in the comment of one study participant, a 48-year-old manager of a production facility who was laid off by his longtime employer. “I broke my back for this company, missed my kids growing up, and for what? Nothing!” the man says.

Women’s thoughts, on the other hand, were triggered by conflicts between work and family obligations. Women reported job obligations have increased in recent years — in terms of time and energy — resulting in fewer hours engaged in family life.

The study also uncovered a generational divide, with those born after the mid-1970s more likely to have struck a better balance between work and personal life, especially as it relates to friends, family and leisure. Work shares equal or lesser status.

In this sense, younger employees seem to exert a positive influence on Baby Boomer co-workers in making them realize there's a bigger world outside the office. A great work ethic is important for success, but it does not guarantee it.

WMB finds the study interesting in terms of shared experiences, but the results are not really that surprising when you take a closer look.

Life stresses fall into major areas – job loss, death of a loved one, failing marriage, buying a home, having children, and being a crime victim.

Some or all of these things are part of living a long and full life; you get the good with the bad but, hopefully, more good than bad. Striking a balance between work and your personal life is the key to survival.

For those who got hammered by the Great Recession (and there are millions in this financial mess), now is a great opportunity to rebuild your life on terms more to your liking.

If parts of your old life were not working, you can start anew with something personally satisfying. Trying to reinvent the past (your old job) isn't likely to move you forward into the future.

As for me, I practice what I preach at writenowworks.com. If you like this post, please share it.