Good news on the job front: The service sector expanded in September. This is encouraging in an economic climate in which jobs have been lost. The expansion of the service sector is good news for those on the job hunt, since it indicates that there are some companies ready to hire. The index measuring non-manufacturing jobs moved to 50.9 in September, an improvement over the 48.4 August number.
The sector is considered to be expanding when the index reaches 50. The fact that the index has moved beyond 50 is boosting some morale. This is the second month of expansion, so …read more

While the economy seemed to be showing signs that it would eventually strengthen as the year went on, staggering unemployment numbers tell a different story. While the situation for the average American worker already very grim, it seems that the worst has yet to come.
The unemployment rate has risen from 9.4 percent to 9.5 percent, with 465,000 workers losing their jobs in June. 614,000 people applied for unemployment insurance benefits just last week. Although the number of people losing jobs had decreased every month since January, June represents a year-long high in the numbers.
Analysts predict double-digit unemployment numbers in just …read more

Approximately 539,000 Americans were laid off in the month of April. While that is still a lot of people out of work, that number represents and improvement. In fact, April had the lowest amount of layoffs in any month of 2009 so far.
Many experts were expecting more than 600,000 job losses in April, so this news is better than many were predicting.
“Although we have a long way to go before we can put this recession behind us,” said President Barack Obama, “the gears of our economic engine do seem to be slowly turning once again”.
Among the hardest hit industries …read more

When someone opens fire on a group of innocent people, there are likely a number of factors that come into play. In the case of the NY shooting by Jiverly Voong, one of these factors may have
been the poor economy.
Early on Friday, Voong, who had legally changed his name from Wong and was an immigrant himself, charged into Binghamton’s American Civic Association and killed 13 people before turning the gun on himself. Police suspect that he was prepared for a shootout with police, but chickened out when he heard sirens.
Voong apparently had a gun permit since the late 1990s, but …read more