If you’re looking for work, here is where you may be able to find it.

Jennifer McClelland | RSS | Tue, Dec 29 2009 | 0 Comments

There are so many businesses out there that have hiring at a standstill with hiring and pay raise freezes. However, some industries are coming out as the places to work, where you can find a job and actually do alright.

The industries where jobs can be found include: Accounting, Information Technology, and even food service. This is all according to government data.

There are several surveys out now that are indicating that many companies won’t be hiring anytime soon, but a lot of the companies in the industries listed above will be looking for new recruits and are already out there actively seeking employees.

After shrinking for an entire year, four quarters in a row, the economy is expected to pick up a bit for the July through September quarter; this could lead employers to take away hiring freezes and start hiring people again. However, even with the new unemployment numbers out and showing a decrease in the total number of those who are unemployed, unemployment is expected to increase to 10% by the end of the year. Total job openings stayed steady through June according to the Labor Department.

Of course there are plenty of accounting jobs out there. The college I graduated from often boasts their 100% placement rate for accounting graduates. That number just seems crazy to me. After all, they just took a lot of the same classes I took to get through business school, yet most of them end up working in their field within weeks of getting their diplomas.

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Tags: unemployment numbers, graduates, jobs

Really bad corporate name changes

Jennifer McClelland | RSS | Thu, Dec 24 2009 | 6 Comments

It can be amusing when a corporation goes through an identity crisis. Usually a corporate name change stems from the board or owner’s desire to move the company in a new direction or to pretend that they know what the consumer wants. I suppose sometimes they actually do know what the consumer wants, but more often a name change on an established company makes customers go, “huh?” more than anything else.

I think that more often though, companies decide to change their corporate name to get out from under a dark cloud that they imposed only on themselves.

Here are some of the worst of the worst corporate name changes:

The Shack::Radio Shack. This was so bad that I had to write about it in a previous post. While I now know that the company isn’t completely changing its name to the Shack, I still am not quite sure what the company was thinking when they decided it would be a good idea to align their company with a rickety old building. When I think Hi Tech, I’m not thinking about shacks.

Xe :: Blackwater. Earlier this year Blackwater decided that it would change its name to Xe because the Blackwater name was tarnished thanks to a 2007 incident that led to the death of 17 unarmed Iraqi civilians. Thankfully, even after the name change the government did not renew the company’s contract.

Altria :: Philip Morris Co. When the company changed its name on the same exact day that the company was cleared of responsibility for a woman’s smoking related death in late January 2003, it obviously wanted to escape the bad PR it had been getting. However, all that ended up happening was a magnifying glass on the company. Every time customers are reminded about the name change, they are reminded that this is the same Philip Morris they knew and they only tried to change their name to escape responsibility.

SyFy :: SciFi. This one I can’t quite figure out. All the cable station did was change the spelling of the already abbreviated name.

You can read more about bad name changes as well as the worst offender, I’ll give you a hint, it has something to do about the company who changed the name of the Sears Tower, all at the SOURCE.

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Tags: government, radio shack, cable station

Stocks jump back up as Dubai is thrown a lifeline and Citi announces it will pay $20 billion back.

Jennifer McClelland | RSS | Mon, Dec 14 2009 | 1 Comment

The stock market has been doing better as compared to the same time last year, which was just a month or two after the biggest financial disaster of the decade. However, there have been some bumps along the way. If you look at something that has unfolded over just the past two or three weeks. Dubai was going bankrupt and there looked to be no one to save the country. That is, until today when Abu Dhabi surprised the country with it’s own $10 billion bailout.

With the country accepting a payment like that, it is easy to see why the stock market has kind of shot up today. Investors of the oil rich nation have had their fears calmed regarding the longevity of the emirate.

That is not the only financial news that has helped out the markets today. Citigroup has also announced this morning that it would be paying back $20 billion of bailout money that it has received from the United States government. The move will help put Citi back in control of its own company and will help out the government, which just passed a huge spending bill.

Financial news over the past two weeks has really been overshadowed by the whole “Tiger Woods” debacle. His story has completely caused a media frenzy and no one has mentioned that the Dow Jones has been over 10,000 for a while now. While there is plenty of good financial news to report on, there aren’t many news organizations that are doing so right now (that is, unless you watch cable news which has to report on several different things to fill up the time).

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Tags: media frenzy, dow jones, citigroup