McDonald's Wants to Fill 50K Jobs on Hiring Day

The corporation is planning to hold its first national hiring event on April 19th to fill over 50,000 openings across the country. That’s 3 or 4 new jobs per franchise location.

The Associated Press reports:

McDonald's is hiring restaurant crew and management for full-time and part-time positions. The company's hiring goal translates to between three and four new hires per restaurant.

Turnover slowed in the past few years because of the weak economy, the company says. McDonald's sees this event an opportunity to attract employees in a tough job market.

It is also trying to shed the negative connotation of employment at the fast-food chain, once dubbed "McJobs." About half of its franchisees and more than 75 percent of its managers started as store workers.

"A McJob is one with career growth and endless possibilities," the company said in a statement.

McDonald's held a similar event in its Western region last year. More than 60,000 people applied for the 13,000 positions.

Continue reading here...

Obama to Business Leaders: Let's Brainstorm Jobs

On Thursday the President called together a team of business and labor leaders to focus on job creation. He apparently also asked the attendees for their opinions about the current state of the economy. I do love collaborative thinking, let’s hope this was actually productive.

From CNN.com:

"We want to remove any barriers and impediments that are there, but at the same time we want to put a challenge to America's businesses, to take other steps that have been sitting on the shelf for quite some time," Obama said. "We want to make sure we're putting a little pressure on you guys ... so we make sure the economy is working for everybody."

The council replaces the president's former economic advisory team, which had been led by former Fed chair Paul Volcker.

he new jobs council is headed by General Electric Co (GE, Fortune 500). chief executive Jeffrey Immelt and includes a variety of executives, including AOL co-founder Steve Case (AOL) and Intel (INTC, Fortune 500) CEO Paul Otellini.

During the hour-long discussion, executives talked about what they saw as important building blocks to job creation, including an improved education system, better tax policy and less burdensome regulatory changes.

Read more here

Temp Hiring Is Back. Is a Jobs Recovery Next?

Temporary job hiring is on the rise, which has some assuming that job recovery is on the way. However, data is showing that the unemployment problem is not likely to improve anytime soon.

CNNMoney.com reports:

Jobs in the temporary services industry are up 22.1% year-over-year, according to the Labor Department. But the overall job market expanded only 0.2% during the same period. And the outlook is still pretty grim.

"By this stage, we would have expected to see businesses add on larger numbers of permanent workers," said Richard Wahlquist, president and CEO of the American Staffing Association.

The problem is that businesses are still too scared to hire. Mixed economic data, sweeping new financial and health care reforms and uncertainty about the expiring Bush tax cuts, have all left employers feeling jittery about their future business prospects, Wahlquist said.

Read more here

483 Million GM Dollars = 483 New Jobs

Earlier this week General Motors announced their plans to invest $483 million in to their Spring Hill, Tennessee plant, which they claim will create 483 jobs. GM also explained that employees who had been laid off will be brought back to work at the new plant.

CNNMoney.com reports

Mark Reuss, president of GM North America, said his company would invest the money in the powertrain factory through 2012.

"By coincidence, the result in new jobs is 483," he said, before a crowd of cheering auto workers. "No, we didn't plan it that way."

The additional investment and jobs are pending successful incentive negotiations with local and state officials, GM said in an announcement.

The additional employees will be brought back from among workers GM had earlier laid off. The plant already builds three versions of GM's Ecotec four-cylinder engine. The additional jobs are needed to add production of a next-generation variant of the engine which, GM said, is more fuel efficient and runs more smoothly.

"The engines made in Spring Hill will drive the success of GM to meet our customer demands for advanced powertrains which offer high fuel economy without sacrificing performance," said Reuss, in a corporate announcement.

Read more here

Where the Jobs Are

Although many taxpayers across the county are having trouble finding employment, there are a few communities with thriving job markets. CNNMoney.com posted an interesting story on the 25 counties that have experienced the most job growth. I have included two of the cities that made the list below, but you can see the full slideshow here.

1. Lincoln County, SD

Towns include: Sioux Falls

Job growth (2000-2009): 67.0%

Even though it's almost 1,200 miles away, Lincoln County wasn't immune to the financial crisis that rocked Wall Street.

Too-big-to-fail banking giants Citibank and Wells Fargo call this area home -- but Lincoln county isn't all dollars and wide open spaces. A strong retail and healthcare presence helped keep the county going strong when banks were on the brink.

Sanford Health and Avera Health are currently the county's largest employers, and they're expanding. Both are building regional clinics and treatment facilities in the area. A major cancer treatment facility is scheduled to be completed by late 2010.

2. Williamson County, TX

Towns include: Cedar Park, Round Rock

Job growth (2000-2009): 58.9%

Dude, they got Dell! With the computer manufacturer as the county's largest employer, Williamson County has a tech-savvy workforce that helps draw other businesses to the area.

Continue reading at CNN.com…

Can We Afford $100 Billion Jobs Bill?

In a new opinion piece at CNN.com, Maya MacGuineas (president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget and the director of the Fiscal Policy Program at the New America Foundation) examines the American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act recently passed by the House of Representatives. As she explains, the legislation would cost more than $100 billion and add about $50 billion to the deficit.

This does not include the tens of billions that will be part of a supplemental spending measure, which will deficit-finance war spending and other "emergency" measures.

That's a lot of borrowing to add to a debt that already exceeds $8 trillion. It raises a host of questions. Does the economy need measures to help with job creation? Are these the best measures? Should they be paid for or simply added to the deficit?

Obviously, the unemployment rate is still far too high. Although there are pockets of growing employment and other encouraging economic signs, job growth will likely lag during the recovery. As the unemployment rate hovers close to 10 percent and families struggle to deal with the potentially devastating effects of sustained joblessness, efforts to ease the pain are indeed warranted.

The problem is that no clear-cut way exists to use federal dollars to promote sustainable job growth. The House bill includes an extension of unemployment benefits, a bump-up in slated federally-funded physician payments, and an extension of some expiring tax breaks. Would this create a host of shiny new jobs? Unlikely!

Continue reading at CNN.com…

Winds of Change: Ohio Legislature Passes Renewable Energy Tax Reform

It’s about time we find ways to utilize renewable energy sources in the U.S. while creating the jobs that go with them. Ohio is proposing seven new wind farms in their quest for renewable energy according to Wind and Solar Jobs for Ohio, a grassroots coalition in Ohio.

Passing the bill, known as Sub Senate Bill 232, was a bipartisan effort. Both parties put aside their differences to bring Ohio's tax structure for wind development in line those of surrounding states. With this vote, Ohio lawmakers have positioned the state to create thousands of Ohio manufacturing, construction, operations and maintenance jobs in the wind industry and protected the existing manufacturing jobs resulting from new wind turbine orders.

This renewable energy tax reform strengthened the renewable market and secured millions of dollars in new tax revenue for local communities in Ohio.

You can read the full article here.

Obama Election-Year Jobs Agenda Stalls in Congress

President Obama’s election year promise to create jobs in the country is going no where in Congress because of a lack of money to pay for such a program. According to Andrew Taylor, of the Associated Press, both Republicans and the Democratic chairman of the Senate Budget Committee objected to using leftover funds from the TARP program to pay for a new jobs bill.

Such a move, they insisted, would add tens of billions of dollars to the $12.8 trillion national debt.

An $80 billion-plus Senate plan promised an infusion of cash to build roads and schools, help local governments keep teachers on the payroll, and provide rebates for homeowners who make energy-saving investments. Two months after the plan was introduced, most of those main elements remain on the Senate's shelf.

Obama's proposed $250 bonus payment to Social Security recipients is dead for the year, having lost a Senate vote last month.

What's going ahead instead are small-bore initiatives. That includes modest help for small business or simple extensions of parts from last year's economic stimulus measure. None is expected to make an appreciable dent in an unemployment rate, stubbornly stuck at 9.7 percent, which is more that double what it was three years ago.

Continue reading at MyWay.com…

California Lawmakers Approve Tax Breaks to Create Jobs

On Monday, lawmakers in California sent Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger two job creation bills. The first piece of legislation would extend the $10,000 homebuyer's tax credit through the end of while the second would provide tax break to the green-technology industry.

According to Business Week, the Senate and Assembly passed the bills with bipartisan support in hopes of promoting housing construction and making California more inviting to businesses involved in developing alternative energy.

"Today, the Legislature approved two important job creation measures that put Californians back to work," Assembly Speaker John Perez said in a statement after the votes were completed.

Passage of the legislation was intended to buy favor with Schwarzenegger in hopes that he would sign a budget bill Democrats sent to him earlier this month. That bill involves a complicated swap of the state sales tax on gasoline for a gasoline excise tax that would send more money to the cash-starved general fund.

The governor signed that bill late Monday and indicated he would sign the two tax-break bills later.

Continue reading at Business Week.com…

The Senate’s New Job Creation Bill

After Obama announced his intention to make job creation a number one priority, Senate leaders moved quickly to put together legislation they hope will fix the ongoing unemployment problem in this country. Although there have been a few stalls, Congress is hoping to get some type of job creation legislation passed and signed into law within a few weeks.

Forgotten House Legislation

With all this talk about the Senate’s bill, many people have forgotten that the House of Representatives passed similar legislation back in December. Their plan would cost an estimated $154 billion but lost momentum after the beginning of the New Year when the Democratic party lost its 60 vote filibuster-proof majority.

Original $85 Billion Legislation

Early last week, the White House and Senior Democrats had announced their intention to vote on an $85 billion dollar package after negotiating with Republicans to come up with a bipartisan bill. However, after the full legislation was revealed it was met with fierce resistance from many liberal Senators who preferred the House’s bill.

Last Minute Reduction

After receiving criticism from numerous Senators, Majority Leader Harry Reid unveiled a new, lesser bill at the last minute on Friday. This new legislation combines about $15 billion in tax provisions, with about $20 billion in cash infusions into Federal highway and infrastructure programs, for a total cost of only $35 billion. However, these last minute changes angered Republicans who spent weeks working with Reid on a bipartisan bill.

What’s Left in the Bill?

• Incentives to Hire

One of the cornerstones of the legislation is the incentive for businesses to hire unemployed workers this year. All businesses that hire qualifying workers will get an exemption from the 6.2% Social Security payroll tax in 2010. Additionally, businesses that keep those workers for more than a year will be eligible for a $1,000 tax credit per employee. Data suggests this incentive would result in 180,000 new jobs, and cost an estimated $13 billion.

• Capital Investments

Another tax break for business owners that remains in the bill is a law that would allow businesses to write off up to $250,000 in capital investments in 2010 as opposed to depreciating those costs over time.

• Expanded Build America Bonds

The new bill would also extend the Build America Bonds program, which was a result of last year’s stimulus spending. The program subsidizes interest costs for local bonds issued to pay for infrastructure improvement and development projects.

Future of the Legislation

Unfortunately, the future of even this new legislation is questionable. Congress is on recess next week, but when they return on the 22^nd Harry Reid is going to need to work on generating support for the bill. Top Republicans and Democrats expect that the legislation would fall short of the 60 votes needed to proceed, and even if does pass the Senate resistance is already building in the House of Representatives where top Democrats – including Nancy Pelosi – have expressed concern about the bill.

Is Something Better than Nothing?

I think Harley Shaiken, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley put it best when he was quoted in a Washington Post article asserting that the watered down legislation “is better than nothing, but it ought not be confused with a solution to the jobs problem." Since the recession began 8 million jobs have been lost, and current estimates show the stripped down legislation would only create around 200,000 jobs. It is going to take a lot more than just this legislation to stop the ongoing unemployment problem in this country.

Jobless Claims in U.S. Fall More Than Forecast to One-Month Low

According to new reports, the number of applications for unemployment benefits in the U.S. fell again last week, leading to a one-month low. There were 440,000 claims during the week that ended on February 6^th, which represented a 43,000 decrease from the week prior. The total number of people receiving extended benefits also decreased, according to the Labor Department. Economists point to these numbers as a sign that companies are firing fewer workers, and that business recovery is starting to take place.

The fastest pace of growth in six years last quarter means the economy may be poised to add jobs as companies restock shelves to keep pace with increased sales. The Obama administration today projected payrolls will grow by 95,000 a month on average this year, indicating it will take a long time to recover the 8.4 million jobs lost since the recession began.

“Healing is under way, but this process will take time,” said Raymond Stone, managing director of Stone & McCarthy Research Associates in Skillman, New Jersey, who correctly forecast the drop in claims. “We are moving in the right direction and I think we will see some job growth” in coming months.

Stocks fluctuated between gains and losses as disappointment that European leaders didn’t provide specific solutions to solve the Greece’s debt crisis offset the drop in claims. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rose 0.4 percent to 1,071.82 at 11:36 a.m. in New York. Treasury securities fell.

Continue reading at Bloomberg.com…

Jobs Bill Likely to Be Delayed in Senate

Although the Obama administration is hoping to sign the job create bill into law before the end of this week, yesterday Senate Republicans denounced the efforts of Democrats to pass the lengthy legislation in a hurry. It is now reported that the Senate will need to wait until at least the week of February 22^nd to vote on the $80 billion job creation package.

"It's a cake that isn't quite baked yet," said Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R., Ariz.), following a Senate nominations vote.

"Not enough of our members have had an opportunity to review it, for a consensus that would permit us to move forward on it that quickly," he added.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.), had announced earlier Tuesday that despite another snowstorm rolling through the Washington region, he hoped to bring the jobs-creation bill for a vote by the end of the week.

Both the Senate and the House are in recess the week of Feb. 15 due to the Presidents' Day holiday.

Democratic leaders were still weighing procedural options late Tuesday. But with 15 senators absent from Tuesday's vote because the weekend snowstorm impeded their travel, it didn't appear that Democrats had the numbers to limit debate and push the bill to a vote without Republicans on their side.

Continue reading at the Wall Street Journal…

Jobs Legislation to Be Introduced in Senate Today

From Bloomberg.com:

Senate Democrats said they will push for passage this week of a U.S. job-creation plan that includes a $20 billion extension of the federal highway and transportation construction program.

Majority Leader Harry Reid said the package he plans to introduce today has “some good” bipartisan support. “I don’t know of any sticking points at this stage,” he said.

Reid spoke after Democratic and Republican congressional leaders met with President Barack Obama to discuss ways to move forward on a jobs bill and other priorities. Lawmakers in Washington are under growing pressure to boost the economy before this year’s midterm elections.

California Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer said the package to be introduced today will include the extension of the highway trust fund for bridge and road construction, which is financed by a federal gasoline excise tax. Extending the highway construction program until year’s end would create 1 million new jobs, she said.

Before the meeting with congressional leaders, Obama said a jobs package is “a good place to start” on bipartisan cooperation in Congress.

“My hope is that both in the House and the Senate we’ll see some packages moving over the next several weeks that can provide a jump-start to hiring and start lowering the unemployment rate,” the president said.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky told reporters after the meeting, “There’s a chance the Senate could get there with a small package” for creating jobs.

Senate Ready to Tackle Jobs

The Senate is reportedly already getting to work on Obama’s promise to create more jobs. According to new reports, Democratic Leaders in the Senate are expecting to have a package ready by the end of the week. A vote on the new package could be slated for as early as Monday on the legislation that is expected to create as many as one million new jobs. Checkout the following article on this job creation package, courtesy of CNN.com.

With the balance of power changed in the Senate, Democrats have moved away from introducing a comprehensive bill similar to the $154 billion legislation passed by the House in December. Instead, the Democrats will likely push through smaller measures in stages.

"First of all, we do not have a jobs bill," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, on Tuesday. "We have a jobs agenda that we're working on."

Sensitive to the political shift, Reid said he's hoping for a bipartisan bill, though he declined to provide details or a cost estimate at Thursday's press conference. But Democrats will push ahead regardless of whether the Republicans join, he said.

Continue reading at CNN.com…

Landrieu, Snowe Introduce Bill to Boost Small Business Contracts

From MSNMoney.com:

U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship Chair, Mary L. Landrieu, D-La., and Ranking Member Olympia J. Snowe, R-Maine, today introduced a bill to modernize and strengthen the Small Business Administration's government contracting programs to help increase small business sales and create American jobs.

"Government contracts are perhaps one of the easiest and most inexpensive ways the government can help immediately increase sales for America's entrepreneurs, giving them the tools they need to keep our economy strong and create jobs," Sen. Landrieu said. "These contracting opportunities represent job creation for small businesses in a way that is unique. When large businesses get new work they typically spread that work among existing employees. When small businesses get these contracts they must staff up to meet the increased demand. By increasing contracts to small businesses by just 1 percent, we can create more than 100,000 new jobs - and today, we need those jobs more than ever."

"Federal contracting opportunities have served as a vital tool for American small businesses, helping them to grow, expand, and hire," said Ranking Member Snowe. "Yet the ability of these companies to earn Federal contracts is frequently stunted by the egregious and repeated failure of Federal agencies to meet their statutory 23-percent small business 'goaling' requirements. Our bill, which is based on legislation I originally introduced as Chair of this Committee in the 109th Congress, will endow the SBA with additional and improved instruments to remedy this consistent underperformance and meet the myriad demands of an ever-changing 21st century contracting environment."

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Job Creation Will Be Administration's Main Focus In The Coming Months

From the Huffington Post:

One year in, President Barack Obama faces a perilous economic choice. He can't pull back the stimulus too quickly, despite the public's concerns about rising deficits, because that could kill a fragile recovery. If he steps too hard on the accelerator to create more jobs, responding to another voter imperative, he risks feeding inflation and restarting the dangerous cycle.

The GOP Senate upset in Massachusetts shows the political risks of any bold move are enormous.

Either way, the road ahead probably means painfully slow job creation accompanied by more government debt and higher taxes.

"Without significant changes to tax and government spending policies, the budget outlook will deteriorate rapidly even after the costs associated with the financial crisis abate," said Mark Zandi of Moody's Economy.com, a former adviser to Republican Sen. John McCain who now counsels congressional Democrats.

When Obama took office in January 2009, financial markets were teetering, jobs were evaporating and global economic activity was tanking faster than in the 1930s. A depression seemed imminent.

Now the economy is back from the brink, thanks largely to the most aggressive global government intervention in history.

"The economy is growing, albeit at an unsatisfactory rate," said Lawrence Summers, director of the White House National Economic Council. While chances of a depression are "remote," there is still "a long, long, long way to go," Summers acknowledged.

Permit Request Jump, Signaling Construction Increases

The number of new building permit requests unexpectedly jumped in the U.S. this past December. The U.S. Commerce Department made the announcement yesterday in Washington, signaling a good sign for the economy and job market alike. For more information, check out the following story from BusinessWeek.com.

Applications rose 11 percent to a 653,000 annual rate last month, the most since October 2008, the Commerce Department said today in Washington. Work began on houses at a 557,000 pace, down 4 percent from November.

Builders are probably anticipating sales will increase after the government extended a tax credit for first-time buyers through June and expanded it to include some current owners. Record foreclosures and unemployment near a 26-year high represent hurdles that may prevent the industry from strengthening much further.

“After a disappointing December, homebuilding may pick up in the current quarter,” said Ryan Sweet, a senior economist at Moody’s Economy.com in West Chester, Pennsylvania. “Housing has formidable headwinds to overcome, led by foreclosures and double-digit unemployment.”

A report from the Labor Department showed wholesale prices increased 0.2 percent after jumping 1.8 percent the prior month, indicating the economy is recovering without the immediate threat of inflation. Excluding food and fuel, so-called core prices were unchanged.

Continue reading at Business Week.com…

Shrinking U.S. Labor Force Keeps Unemployment Rate From Rising

From Bloomberg.com:

An exodus of discouraged workers from the job market kept the U.S. unemployment rate from climbing above 10 percent in December, economists said.

Had the labor force not decreased by 661,000 last month, the jobless rate would have been 10.4 percent, according to economists including David Rosenberg at Gluskin Sheff & Associates in Toronto and Harm Bandholz at UniCredit Research in New York.

“The actual unemployment rate is higher than shown by the official numbers,” Bandholz said yesterday after a Labor Department report released in Washington showed the economy unexpectedly lost 85,000 jobs in December while the jobless rate was unchanged.

About 1.7 million Americans opted out of the workforce from July through December, representing a 1.1 percent drop that marks the biggest six-month decrease since 1961, the Labor Department report showed. The share of the population in the labor force last month fell to the lowest level in 24 years.

December’s 10 percent unemployment rate matched the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. It was shy of the 26-year high of 10.1 percent reached two months earlier.

The so-called underemployment rate -- which includes part- time workers who’d prefer a full-time position and people who want work but have given up looking -- rose to 17.3 percent in December from 17.2 percent.

The number of discouraged workers, those not looking for work because they believe none is available, climbed to 929,000 last month, the most since records began in 1994.

Senate to Act on Tax-Extenders Package

Yesterday top lawmakers announced that they would be extending the $31 billion package of tax measures that are due to expire at the end of the year. It includes job creation efforts, renewable energy provisions, and state sales tax write-offs for taxpayers.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Senators Max Baucus (D., Mont.) and Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) informed Majority Leader Harry Reid that the Senate Finance Committee will set the path to extend the credits when Congress returns from a holiday recess in January.

"These provisions are important to our economy -- not only because they help create jobs, but also because they are used to address pressing national concerns," the lawmakers said in the letter. "We understand that the expiration of these provisions creates uncertainty and complexity in the tax law."

Messrs. Baucus and Grassley are the chairman and top Republican, respectively, on the panel charged with writing tax law.

They said they intend to extend the credits retroactively to the beginning of 2010, so there is no gap for recipients of the measures. The package includes a $7 billion research and development credit, as well as a number of renewable energy provisions and a state sales-tax write-off for individuals.

Continue reading at WJS.com…