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A faltering generics business leads Teva Pharmaceutical to layoff 25% of its employees. Falling prices of generics and a MS drug are hurting Teva's business. A major acquisition had already caused the company to load up on debt. Management is divided on what strategy to adopt.

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The Liberal Party is falling behind the Conservatives by double digits because of cost of living and housing concerns. Mr. Trudeau's popularity is dimming. His government is a minority government that depends on the New Democrats for key votes in parliament. Mr. Trudeau talks about personal sacrifices on this job. Canada will elect a new government in 2025.

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The situation in the U.S. for unemployment by state in Dec. 2011 as seen through statistics from the Labor Department. Losses in jobs at the local government level offset gains in Georgia in the private sector. Texas, Louisiana, Okalahoma, oil producing states have done well. States which suffered from the housing crisis such Florida, Arizona and Nevada, see unemployment lower than at the peak of the housing crisis. Michigan's unemployment rate is lower with the recovery in the automobile industry. North Dakota and Alaska, other oil producing states show jobs growth. For the U.S. private sector employment is up 2.8% since the low point, but job losses in local and federal governmet lead to an overall gain of 1.9%.

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The former CEO of GE (General Electric) says why he is skeptical about the decline in the unemployment rate to 7.8% as shown by the household survey of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. He says the economy has to have grown at breakneck speed for unemployent to drop from 8.3% to 7.8% in 2 months. The dozen companies he is working with are seeing third quarter 2012 results worse than the second quarter. The labor force participation rate declined to 63.5%, the lowest since Sept 1981- fewer people looking for work accounts for the drop from 8.3% in July to 8.1% in August 2012. Other numbers that look implausible are the BLS figures of federal state and local governments adding 602,000 workers to their payrolls in Aug and Sept 2012, the largest 2 month increase in 20 years. And the BLS figure of overall 873,000 workers being added in Sept. 2012, the largest one month increase since 1983. All this he calls implausible. Part of the problem is the way the data is collected because someone who for example says he got a job baby sitting for from anywhere in the range of 1 to 34 hours is a parttime worker, so that working 1-2 hours would be counted as employed parttime in the BLS methodology....

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Internships in 2026 -63%of interns hired at companies convert to full time jobs at the same company. Companies prefer to hire full time people they already know and have trained.

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Labor Department reports U.S. created 209,000 jobs in July 2014. The unemployment rate goes up slightly to 6.2%. Wages went up only by a penny and remain only 2% higher than a year ago. Retail was up by 27,000 jobs, manufacturing by 28,000 in July. Economists say the steep drop in the unemployment rate to 6.2% does not reflect the true conditions in the labor market, as the labor force participation rate is at 62.9%. One economist called this disturbing as some of the youngest workers are dropping out of the labor force. The Alliance for American Manufacuring pointed out that the U.S. manufacturing sector has recovered only about 30% of jobs lost during the recession following the 2009 financial crisis. It said the the lack of investment in infrastructure, high trade deficits and currency manipulation by China and Japan, remain obstacles for American manufacturing's resurgence.

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A professor of sociology at the University of Basel describes the growing inequality in Germany, in graphic terms. For the lower middle class the efforts to gain upward mobility are like trying to move up on a downward escalator. About one third of jobs are temp jobs which lack the protections of permanent jobs which were at one time 90% of all jobs. Her book is titled- "The Hidden Crisis; German Social Decline at the Heart of Europe." Nachtwey says on the surface Germany has become competitive and has maintained its growth rate, benefiting from the strong manufacturing sector with trade surpluses, low unemployment. Yet this conceals the underlying crisis of the cost which this has come at- a persistent erosion of the social compact of one elevator where everybody moved up together that was the norm in the early postwar period, fulltime employment, a strong welfare state. Job protections weakened, and while manufacturing sector pay remained stable or rose, less skilled and low wage workers suffered. This has also led to the fracturing in the vote with the fragmentation of political parties following the refugee crisis and the weakening of centrist parties. Voters are now open to different messages after the increase in inequality and uncertain economic future for the lower middle class. ...

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This WSJ editorial says the recent agreement at the Caterpillar Joliet plant in llinois is not about leverage but about increasing U.S. manufacturing competitiveness. As U.S. competitivness improves and the economy grows wages will increase. It does little service to management, labor and the U.S. economy for above market wage rates to lead to loss of manufacturing competitiveness as happened in the U.S. automobile industry, resulting in closing of plants.

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Job prospects for college graduates in 2011 are showing significant improvement from the previous year. About 19% more graduates will be hired in 2011 compared to 2010, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers. For college seniors, the survey shows 41% having an offer in 2011 compared to 38% in 2010. But the situation remains difficult for students who graduated in 2009 and 2010. Ernst & Young hired 2800 graduates in 2011- up 22% from 2010. The jobless rate for college graduates in the age group 20-24 is 6.4% in April 2011, coming down from 7.1% in the prior year, according to the Labor Department. In April 2007 the unemployment rate was 3.5%. The situation is uneven, with better prospects for graduates in computer science, engineering, accounting and economics, and most of the jobs in the private sector.

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About 3.5 million Americans ages 45-64 were unemployed as of May 2012, 39% for 1 year or more. This is even higher than the unemployment among younger workers and is a new aspect of this recession compared to the ones before this. Some have quit looking for jobs after depending on extended unemployment benefits of upto 99 weeks, and some have taken part-time jobs. Statistics on unemployment from the U.S. Labor Department give a more distorted picture this time because the unemployment rate as defined by the Labor Department includes only people looking for work. More people today are discouraged and not looking for work, dropping out of the labor market entirely or in part-time jobs. So that the unemployment rate is much higher when these workers are accounted for.

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Readers will ask the question why did it take GM so long to close the jobs bank? Not till January 29, 2008, in the depths of the downturn with looming bankruptcy did GM close the jobs bank.

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The term "lazy girl job" is a misnomer because it refers to work life balance choices made by women who prefer to do remote work, avoid micro manager bosses, and pay attention to health and exercise, lifestyle choices. Being able to take a walk midday and take a bike ride in the evening at 5.00 pm with work cut off times is a preference for many young people. It follows the trend of quiet quitting where lifestyle choices and health take precedence over existing flawed ways of work that ignore family, health and exercise needs. The pandemic has created a new awareness about what is important in life and a new set of priorities. Young people are following their heart.

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The U.S. Labor Department reports 204,000 nonfarm jobs were created in October 2013. Upward revisions of prior months lead to a level of about 202,000 jobs created in the three months July to October 2013. The unemployment rate goes up from 7.2% to 7.3% in the household survey, with furloughed government employees counted after the temporary government shutdown. The negative part of the picture is that 720,000 persons dropped out of the labor force, a high and puzzling number, and the labor participation rate drops to a 35 year low of 62.8%. This has been a problem since the 2008 crisis as more discouraged workers drop out of the work force, go to school or stay home and care for children, and increasing numbers retire. Some economists now see the Fed waiting till the unemployment rate drops to 6% before withdrawing from the bond buying program in place of the earlier announced 6.5%.

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The Labor Department report for September 2013 shows 148,000 jobs added, lower than expected. The lower jobs figures and the political uncertainty provide additional support for new Fed chairman Janet Yellen to continue pursuing the policies of Ben Bernanke aimed at reducing high unemployment.

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The Japanese economy went through asevere contraction in the first quarter 2009, declining 15% on an annualized basis. But Japan's unemployment rate in April was 4.8%, compared with much higher rates in EUrope and even higher rates in the USA. France and Germany have social democratic states that protect workers jobs, and Germany even after the Harz reforms continues to help workers deal with unemployment making it least painful as possible with government help. Japan takes this astep further. The law in Japan requires that even though companies can cut worker's hours, they must pay at least 60% of their hourly wages during that time. THe government provides help. It has budgeted $624 million this year to reimburse companies for half of these payments. In March 48,000 companies got subsidies for 2.38 million employees according to government figures. This includes large companies like NEC Electronics and Nissan Motor. THey have to find things for the workers to do, community service like keeping the area clean, vegetable gardens, handicrafts shop, anything that helps the communities. A recent survey by the Nikkei financial daily, shows zero percent of large business owners said they had plans to layoff permanent staff members, compared with 39% in South Korea. WIthout this the unemployment rate, say experts, would be 2 percentage points higher....

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US table tennis champion Lily Zhang and parental pressure to get a real job. Her parents got her into table tennis in the first place.