Unemployment

[Gregzs]

How a 390-Year-Old Family Business Avoids Layoffs

How a 390-Year-Old Family Business Avoids Layoffs

When was the last time you heard this in an American factory?
"I've been here 26 years in June," Mark Lovell says, leaning toward me as telling a secret, "and I've never seen a layoff, ever."

Lovell is confident that the 70 workers on his production line will always have good-paying jobs, because no one competes with a machine. Whenever a task is automated, the employee who performed it is trained for another one worth equivalent pay.

"Taking a break while the machine's taking a break, huh?" The boss, Debbie Zildjian, laughs as she holds a door open for George Plaskas. The Greek immigrant has been retrained seven times in 40 years. Plaskas raised two kids in a solidly middle-class neighborhood.

American industry was built by such immigrants, who looked beyond quarterly profits. And today, the Zildjian cymbal factory in Norwell, Mass., still does.

For 15 years, Debbie Zildjian, has offered incentive pay, not just for working faster or producing more, but for jobs that are done right the first time. "There were only two months out of those 15 years where we haven't had a payout," she points out.

Every person on the line must approve the work they do. That's a big reason why Debbie's sister, Craigie, the CEO, has never outsourced a job overseas.
Take a look inside the production facility of Zildjian, America's oldest family business, and see how its renowned musical instruments are made.

"The notion of sending your quality, outsourcing your quality halfway around the world," Craigie says, "is unthinkable."

The Zildjian Company makes cymbals. Leon Chiappini has been testing them for more than half a century. "You're not going to find two of them that are the same," Chiappini says. "They're like snowflakes. Each sound is unique."

Cymbals were hardly heard at all in popular music before Craigie's and Debbie's grandfather made some of them thinner and found a rainbow of sound. He did this during hard times, the start of the Great Depression. Avedis Zildjian III began hiring as businesses all around him were firing. He lured good workers with a simple promise.

"It comes down to trust doesn't it?" Craigie says. "You take care of us, and we'll take care of you." That pledge has remained unbroken since the beginning.
The Zildjian Company has outlasted empires. It began in Turkey back in 1623, survived the move to Massachusetts, and thrives even during economic turmoil.

Matt Flynn, drummer for the band Maroon 5, sits down with TODAY's Bob Dotson to talk about Zildjian cymbals and the differences between individual cymbals.

Quality became more than a slogan. The 125 Americans in this little factory cornered more than half the cymbal market in the world. Who better to tell us how to create and keep good jobs than a company in business for 390 years?

"Our dad always said, 'follow the music,'" Debbie says. And they did, from big bands to the Beatles, classical to jazz. Debbie pointed to pictures of the legendary drummers who have used their product: Buddy Rich, Gene Krupa, Ringo Starr. They were invited to help the company innovate.

And musicians still do today. They can test their cymbals in a pressurized room that re-creates the acoustics of concert venues across the country, giving them a chance to hear how cymbals will sound before they perform.

Zildjian's success attracts people with deep pockets. "Have you ever been tempted to sell the company?" I asked Craigie.

"Oh, almost weekly. We could be quite wealthy. But we're not tempted." Because Debbie's 4-year-old granddaughter is in line to take over one day.
The CEO pushes back from her desk and asks the little girl: "Do you want to work at the company, Emilia?"

The job won't be handed to her when she gets bigger. Every Zildjian in the family business must first prove their worth working outside the firm. But Emilia doesn't hesitate. She answers emphatically: "Yes."

New electronic cymbals have already been named after her generation of Zildjians ? the 16th.

 

[Gregzs]

I saw an interview with Erin Callan that aired on NBC Friday after Grimm. This kind of stuff makes me sad.



http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/o...l=1&adxnnlx=1363547041-FTPW6y+Jx9P7+DP0xuIXhg

[h=1]Is There Life After Work?[/h][h=6]By ERIN CALLAN[/h]SANIBEL, Fla.

AT an office party in 2005, one of my colleagues asked my then husband what I did on weekends. She knew me as someone with great intensity and energy. ?Does she kayak, go rock climbing and then run a half marathon?? she joked. No, he answered simply, ?she sleeps.? And that was true. When I wasn?t catching up on work, I spent my weekends recharging my batteries for the coming week. Work always came first, before my family, friends and marriage ? which ended just a few years later.

In recent weeks I have been following with interest the escalating debate about work-life balance and the varying positions of Facebook?s Sheryl Sandberg, Marissa Mayer of Yahoo and the academic Anne-Marie Slaughter, among others. Since I resigned my position as chief financial officer of Lehman Brothers in 2008, amid mounting chaos and a cloud of public humiliation only months before the company went bankrupt, I have had ample time to reflect on the decisions I made in balancing (or failing to balance) my job with the rest of my life. The fact that I call it ?the rest of my life? gives you an indication where work stood in the pecking order.

I don?t have children, so it might seem that my story lacks relevance to the work-life balance debate. Like everyone, though, I did have relationships ? a spouse, friends and family ? and none of them got the best version of me. They got what was left over.

I didn?t start out with the goal of devoting all of myself to my job. It crept in over time. Each year that went by, slight modifications became the new normal. First I spent a half-hour on Sunday organizing my e-mail, to-do list and calendar to make Monday morning easier. Then I was working a few hours on Sunday, then all day. My boundaries slipped away until work was all that was left.

Inevitably, when I left my job, it devastated me. I couldn?t just rally and move on. I did not know how to value who I was versus what I did. What I did was who I was.

I have spent several years now living a different version of my life, where I try to apply my energy to my new husband, Anthony, and the people whom I love and care about. But I can?t make up for lost time. Most important, although I now have stepchildren, I missed having a child of my own. I am 47 years old, and Anthony and I have been trying in vitro fertilization for several years. We are still hoping.

Sometimes young women tell me they admire what I?ve done. As they see it, I worked hard for 20 years and can now spend the next 20 focused on other things. But that is not balance. I do not wish that for anyone. Even at the best times in my career, I was never deluded into thinking I had achieved any sort of rational allocation between my life at work and my life outside.

I have often wondered whether I would have been asked to be C.F.O. if I had not worked the way that I did. Until recently, I thought my singular focus on my career was the most powerful ingredient in my success. But I am beginning to realize that I sold myself short. I was talented, intelligent and energetic. It didn?t have to be so extreme. Besides, there were diminishing returns to that kind of labor.

I didn?t have to be on my BlackBerry from my first moment in the morning to my last moment at night. I didn?t have to eat the majority of my meals at my desk. I didn?t have to fly overnight to a meeting in Europe on my birthday. I now believe that I could have made it to a similar place with at least some better version of a personal life. Not without sacrifice ? I don?t think I could have ?had it all? ? but with somewhat more harmony.

I have also wondered where I would be today if Lehman Brothers hadn?t collapsed. In 2007, I did start to have my doubts about the way I was living my life. Or not really living it. But I felt locked in to my career. I had just been asked to be C.F.O. I had a responsibility. Without the crisis, I may never have been strong enough to step away. Perhaps I needed what felt at the time like some of the worst experiences in my life to come to a place where I could be grateful for the life I had. I had to learn to begin to appreciate what was left.

At the end of the day, that is the best guidance I can give. Whatever valuable advice I have about managing a career, I am only now learning how to manage a life.
Erin Callan is the former chief financial officer of Lehman Brothers.

 

[LAM]

yea it sucks. I know far too many people who are that they do. I can't say that I know what life is about but working yourself to the bone dam sure isn't it.

 

[Big Smoothy]

Gergz:

Is There Life After Work?'

I like my job. No, I actually like my job a lot. I am happy!

But I never talk about work after I'm finished.

I am proud of what I do now, but don't ask me "what do you do?"

It's nobody fuckin' business - even if - it's an ice breaker.

 

[Gregzs]

Keeping Up, Not Getting Ahead - NYTimes.com

 

[DOMS]

What happened in 2008?

 

[LAM]

What happened in 2008?

US household debt hit 100% of US GDP, that's what happened. the workers borrowed until they could borrow no more to fuel excess consumption. then demand declined and US large firms laid off far more workers than was needed which is why 50% of the total jobless in the OECD in 2008 was in the US alone, we have the least protected workers.

Household Sector: Liabilities: Household Credit Market Debt Outstanding (CMDEBT) - FRED - St. Louis Fed


http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/gdp/2009/pdf/gdp408f.pdf

 

[Swiper]

"The government counts as unemployed only those who are actively looking for new jobs. As people have given up, the unemployment rate has declined – not because more people are working, but because more people have stopped looking for work."
http://link.tapatalk.com/api/click?...s.com/&subId=0a979f021ded11b1db1a9468d6a65826

 

[Swiper]

If This is What Successful Stimulus Spending Accomplishes, Go Screw Yourself

Nick Gillespie|May. 3, 2013 2:37 pm

Via Instapundit comes the latest update of the unemployment rate chart from AEI's James Pethokoukis. The good news is that unemployment came in at 7.5 percent, which represents a four-year low. The bad news includes a lot of things, but let's just focus on two.
First, the U-6 measure, which tracks discouraged workers and part-timers who want a full-time gig, nudged upwards to 13.9 percent.
Second, the final cost of the Obama admin's stimulus program has come in somewhere north of $800 billion. By the administration's own estimation (see above), we clearly got less than nothing for all that extra spending (read: debt and future taxes).
If This is What Successful Stimulus Spending Accomplishes, Go Screw Yourself - Hit & Run : Reason.com

 

[LAM]

"The government counts as unemployed only those who are actively looking for new jobs. As people have given up, the unemployment rate has declined ? not because more people are working, but because more people have stopped looking for work."
?

and your point is? it's only been that way for 30 years now.

 

[LAM]

If This is What Successful Stimulus Spending Accomplishes, Go Screw Yourself

Nick Gillespie|May. 3, 2013 2:37 pm

Via Instapundit comes the latest update of the unemployment rate chart from AEI's James Pethokoukis. The good news is that unemployment came in at 7.5 percent, which represents a four-year low. The bad news includes a lot of things, but let's just focus on two.
First, the U-6 measure, which tracks discouraged workers and part-timers who want a full-time gig, nudged upwards to 13.9 percent.
Second, the final cost of the Obama admin's stimulus program has come in somewhere north of $800 billion. By the administration's own estimation (see above), we clearly got less than nothing for all that extra spending (read: debt and future taxes).
If This is What Successful Stimulus Spending Accomplishes, Go Screw Yourself - Hit & Run : Reason.com

LOL...AEI is a right wing neo-con think tank. is that what you call being a "free thinker"...nothing more than the standard right wing bullshit "pro-business" ideology...

 

[Swiper]

where are the hundreds of thousands of jobs that were lost?

1:50 min.

 

[LAM]

where are the hundreds of thousands of jobs that were lost?

1:50 min.

gee maybe that has something to do with the CBO using arcane (and discredited) multipliers from half a century ago in an economy which does not follow any traditional models of growth.

CBO | Automatic Reductions in Government Spending -- aka Sequestration

 

[Swiper]

835,000 people stopped looking for work in April.

 

[njc]

so taxpayer dollars should cover 2000 bucks of that?

should teachers collect unemployment during the summer?

why should I have to foot the bill for somebody who got into an industry knowing full well thats the way it works. just doesnt jibe with me

Teachers have the option to get paid throughout the summer or have all of their salary paid to them while they are working. Beyond that they make a set salary independent of how many months they are working in the year. Its all taken into consideration when determining their salary, so thats a bad example.

 

[heckler7]

shareholders basically store their cash in the stockmarket and are not consumers, companies care more about these leaches than their staff. They laid off their staff to save money and save their stock value but ended up putting the very consumers that purchase their goods out of work thus shooting themselves in the foot.
Some of the companies I worked at are having record proffits and are busier than ever but refuse to hire new employees, they would rather have us work a heap of overtime makes no sense.

 

[Zaphod]

shareholders basically store their cash in the stockmarket and are not consumers, companies care more about these leaches than their staff. They laid off their staff to save money and save their stock value but ended up putting the very consumers that purchase their goods out of work thus shooting themselves in the foot.
Some of the companies I worked at are having record proffits and are busier than ever but refuse to hire new employees, they would rather have us work a heap of overtime makes no sense.

Courtesy of the instant gratification expected out of the stock market.

 

[LAM]

Some of the companies I worked at are having record proffits and are busier than ever but refuse to hire new employees, they would rather have us work a heap of overtime makes no sense.

this is the increase in productivity that is seen after every recession in the US. employers squeeze more out of the employees that are left for fear of losing their jobs themselves and being forced into the low wage service sector which is a dead end. they know workers have no choices to exercise anymore. the days of telling your boss to "take this job and shove it" are long gone.

Joseph Stiglitz explains below how this cycle in the US is going to continue and will only get worst with time as rising inequality only makes the economy worst and worst.

The ?American Dream? Is a Myth: Joseph Stiglitz on ?The Price of Inequality?

 

[Swiper]

another reason for not hiring: obamacare

http://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/beigebook/beigebook201303.htm

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/201...plaining-obamacare-is-a-drag-on-sales-hiring/

 

[LAM]

another reason for not hiring: obamacare

FRB: Beige Book - March 6, 2013

Fed’s Own Report Says Businesses Complaining ‘Obamacare’ Is a Drag On Sales & Hiring | TheBlaze.com

and where in the report from the Beige Book does it name Obama-care directly? because healthcare costs have been increasing at double the rate of real GDP growth and the CPI for the past 3 decades.

 

[Swiper]

and where in the report from the Beige Book does it name Obama-care directly? because healthcare costs have been increasing at double the rate of real GDP growth and the CPI for the past 3 decades.

it's under employment, wages and prices.

"Employers in several Districts cited the unknown effects of the Affordable Care Act as reasons for planned layoffs and reluctance to hire more staff."

 

[Swiper]

Slow Recovery: Bad Policy or the Norm Following a Financial Crisis

By John P. Cochran
Saturday, May 4th, 2013
Reinhart-Rogoff Revisited

The recent release of GDP data continues to show a weak recovery which many who contribute here have attributed regime uncertainty and inappropriate policy. The Wall Street Journal (“A Jobs Fillip”) comes to a similar conclusion:

Left to its own devices, the U.S. economy will grow as individuals and businesses try to improve their lot and expand. The tragedy of the last four years is that Washington tried to supplant or interfere with those decisions with a wave of regulation, spending and taxation.

John B. Taylor also sees the slow recovery as caused by “ineffective policy interventions” in this comment on the data (“Another Take on Reinhart-Rogoff Controversy”) :

The updated charts below incorporate last Friday’s release of the first quarter GDP data. They continue to tell the story of a weak recovery which, in my view, is largely due to ineffective government policy interventions. There is, of course, an alternative view: that the recovery is weak because the recession and the financial crisis were severe.

This view takes the onus off bad policy as the cause of the slow recovery and bolsters the argument (erroneous in my view) that without stimulus things would have been worse. This alternative view is based on empirical work by Reinhart-Rogoff (This Time Is Different). Reinhart and Rogoff have been in the news recently because of errors in their empirical work on the impact on economic growth from large debt/GDP ratios (see here and here). This error has received lots of press lately, as Taylor points out, because the correction of the error provides data that can be used to “support more fiscal stimulus and less consolidation.”

Michael Bordo has provided strong evidence that Reinhart-Rogoff were also mistaken in their empirical research in This Time Is Different. U. S. data does not support the Reinhart-Rogoff conclusion that that slow recovery following a financial crisis is the norm. Despite the fact that “Bordo wrote about his findings (which are based on his joint research with Joe Haubrich of the Cleveland Fed) in a September 27, 2012 Wall Street Journal article, ‘Financial Recessions Don’t Lead to Weak Recoveries’”, this error has received minimal coverage in the press and the blogosphere especially compared to mountains of positive press of covering the exposure of errors in their work on debt and growth.

Bordo’s correction is, as Taylor speculates, largely ignored because it lends support to the bad policy–slow recovery causal link.

 

[Bowden]

The trade deficit related to globalization and offshoring manufacturing and imports of products has a lot to do with unemployment rates.
Many manufacturing jobs that used to be located in the U.S. have been relocated to offshore locations.
Entire manufacturing sectors like electronics manufacturing have been migrated to offshore locations.
Globalization has caused material shifts in the U.S. job market that is causing unemployment to be higher than normal.

It is common sense that when you offshore entire industries from a nation that there is going to be a resultant long term increase in unemployment numbers in that nation.

Another factor is computer automation factors related to impacts on employment numbers.
An example is now when you go in a grocery store, you see automated checkout lanes controlled by computers that prior used people to check you out.

As well Banks are shifting away from tellers, to computer bankiing transactions in which people do not interact with a person.
Another example of employment trends leading to a reduction in job opportunities for people.

The off shoring of jobs trend since the early 90s is striking in the IT industry, where major corporations like IBM decided to terminate tens of thousands of American workers by "knowledge transferring" the jobs to low cost resources in India.
Now approx. 1/2 of all IBM IT related jobs are located in India.
Great for the Indian job market, corporate profits and shareholder ROI.
Terrible for college educated Americans seeking IT jobs located in the U.S and former employed Americans that cannot find work in a field that they have experience in.

Major corporations are also off shoring research and development to foreign countries.

This type of "knowledge transfer" has negative impacts within National Security areas.

Most critical infrastructures like utilities, financial, commence ect. are controlled by computer systems/applications and the inability of a nation to be self reliant as to not having internal trained resources located in that nation during a time of war to support those systems creates serious national security issues.
China has developed a cyberwarfare division associated with it's military that's purpose is to disrupt American critical IT systems infrastructures during a time of war.

 

[Gregzs]

Why won't employers offer me a fair salary? - CBS News

Will the unfairness in salary range among employees ever end? I don't think so because there are always loops that these employers can jump through to justify why you are paid such meager wages. I have a degree and experience, but have been laid off. I worked hard for my degree. So now I am looking for a job and no one wants to pay enough.

The requirements they are asking for are not obtained from the schools for free -- we have to pay for them. How can an individual pay back student loans and live off of $15/hr and $17/hr? And employers are only doing that because they know people are desperate and need to feed their families -- not keep a roof over their heads -- but just feed them, since no one can pay a mortgage along with other things with that compensation.

I told one interviewer who was offering me a job for $17/hr that I won't be able to live on that. I will lose my home, and I have no where to go but at a shelter. The recruiter then fixed her mouth and asked me how am I living on unemployment. In other words, if I can make it on the unemployment check, I can make on $17/hr. I had to give her some choice words and educate her a bit ( we know she won't be offering me any jobs in the future).


The work place and the whole job search thing has turned into a circus, with employers exploiting the employees by not paying them what they are worth. You can't say that you won't get your degree and just look for menial job, no, these employees want an individual to have a degree to file documents or to answer the phone for $10/hr.

You see the government knows that NO ONE can survive on the little handout they call unemployment, therefore they offer programs to assist with your mortgage and utilities, and the criteria for these programs is that you must be on unemployment. The minute you get a job, all the assistance stops. Therefore, one has to get a job that will allow them to keep their head above water.


What is this society coming to? it's oppression right around -- in the workplace, and even when you're trying to get a job. Is there any one who can look into this?

There's no need to look into it. It's a matter of supply and demand. Businesses know that they can get a qualified worker to do the job for $17 an hour, so shy should they offer a penny more?

When you are shoe shopping, if two stores carried the shoe you wanted and one store was asking $17 for the shoes and the other was asking $35, we'd say you were a fool if you paid $35. Likewise, an employer is a fool for paying $35 an hour when he can get someone to do the job for $17.

I understand that you have student loans and a mortgage and other expenses. Welcome to adulthood. But it's not the employer's obligation to pay your mortgage. Salaries are not determined by that. Imagine if your coworker got a big raise purely because he went out and bought a bigger house? You'd be livid.

Now we can argue all day about whether the government should be offering benefits that make it more desirable to take the benefits than it is to take a job. But that's the reality we live in. It's up to you what you want to do,but keep in mind that it's not just about the original salary offer. It's about setting yourself up for the rest of your life.

It's easier to find a job when you have a job. And by taking a job, even one that doesn't pay very well, you're making it possible to get a better job later on. The longer you stay unemployed, the more difficult it is to find a job.

The job market will not get better tomorrow. It's not as if you hold out, there will be lots of $75,000 a year jobs waiting for you next week. I hope the market gets better. But even if it does, it will probably happen slowly and gradually. Which means that you may find yourself exhausting government benefits and still not finding a higher paying job.

Only those with jobs get promoted. I realize that statement sounds stupid. But if you want to climb up the corporate ladder you need to get on it. At the bottom.

We cannot expect paths to always go up. It would be awesome if you could always count on making more money today than you did yesterday. And that your house tomorrow is fancier or bigger or in a better neighborhood than your house today. But that's not real life. There are ups and downs. You may have to realize that the house you could afford last year is not the same one you'll be able to afford next year.

Many businesses are scraping by as well. Sometimes we have this picture of all business owners being like the CEOs we see on television. Yahoo CEO Melissa Mayer's salary is not normal, even for big businesses. For small businesses, there's nothing close. The average salary for a small business owner? In their first year of business, they can expect to make between $34,392 and $75,076 -- not a lot of wiggle room to increase employee salaries.

It's not a conspiracy against workers. It's the reality of a bad market with lots of unemployed people. Hopefully it will get better.

Have a workplace dilemma? Send your question to EvilHRLady@gmail.com.

 

[LAM]

The trade deficit related to globalization and offshoring manufacturing and imports of products has a lot to do with unemployment rates.
Many manufacturing jobs that used to be located in the U.S. have been relocated to offshore locations.
Entire manufacturing sectors like electronics manufacturing have been migrated to offshore locations.
Globalization has caused material shifts in the U.S. job market that is causing unemployment to be higher than normal.

another thing that many don't understand about the offshoring of US manufacturing is that it hides the real rate of inflation and loss of purchasing power of the USD. by offshoring manufacturing to low cost labor nations US large firms can still make plenty of profits and the people at the lower 2 income quintiles can still afford to buy most necessities (clothes and household products) in reasonable quantities. when the USD went completely fiat in the early 70's and OPEC doubled the price of a barrel of crude, that was the beginning of the end of the USD and they started cooking the books with bogus calculations for the CPI, unemployment, etc.

 

[Gregzs]

Top companies using banishment rooms to show employees the door - AJW by The Asahi Shimbun

With Japan's lifetime employment system in tatters, business circles are pushing to make it easier for companies to fire employees on full benefits who they view as lacking initiative and drive.

By the same token, companies, while keen to shed "redundant" employees, are reluctant to show them the door through outright dismissal.

The situation has given birth to so-called banishment rooms, where companies transfer surplus employees and give them menial tasks or nothing to do. Companies hope that targeted employees will become despondent and quit of their own volition.

Some big name companies have been found to operate banishment rooms. They include two subsidiaries of Panasonic Corp., Hitachi Ltd., Sony Corp., an NEC Corp. subsidiary, Toshiba Corp. and Seiko Instruments Inc.

The companies, however, deny they are exerting pressure on workers to resign by ordering them to perform menial tasks to hurry them out of the door.

The Asahi Shimbun recently learned that one of the two Panasonic subsidiaries also operates a section called "career development team" that a male employee said was just a fancy name for a banishment room, like the section known as the "Business & Human Resource Development Center" (BHC) at the companies.

"Employees come under enormous pressure to quit," said the man, who is in his 40s. "My section is simply another banishment room."

He was told his transfer was only temporary. That was four years ago. His main responsibility has been to find a new job via the Internet.

He was instructed to offer his assistance to another section that is busy.

In March, he was required to stare at a monitor for any irregularity in TV program footage for 10 hours at a stretch each day.

His boss told him he was lucky to still be on the payroll.

"Under normal circumstances, you should have been fired," his boss told him. "You ought to be grateful for being allowed to stay here and receive a salary."

The man built his career around planning in an Internet-related operation. But that window closed for him in 2008. He was unable to find a new position in or outside the company.

His employee performance evaluation was lowered year after year.

A bonus he received last year was a quarter of the sum he received five years ago.

The man said there were about 30 employees at his section, as of March.

A public relations official with Panasonic Corp.'s main office said, "The section is similar to the BHC in training employees to acquire new skills so they can work at different sections."

In April, the Panasonic subsidiary added 468 more employees to its BHC, most of them coming from sections that were performing poorly. It means that one in 10 workers at the company is with the BHC.

The expansion is aimed at "generating tangible results by securing a new source of income," according to employees, citing a management edict in March.

Internal documents obtained by The Asahi Shimbun show that there were 362 employees at the BHC last July, when it was established.

Thirty-five employees left the company, while 29 were transferred to other sections.

Rebounding from years of heavy losses, Hitachi is no longer in a situation in which it needs to implement large-scale cost-cutting.

In a recent interview, however, a Hitachi employee in his 50s said the ordeal he weathered over the past several months led him to believe he had been "singled out for dismissal."

"I feel like I was betrayed by Hitachi," the man said.

He recalled that his mind went blank when an instructor from a staffing agency spoke to him and 11 others from the company at the beginning of a two-week "career challenge program" last June.

"You are the ones who your company says are unnecessary," the instructor said. "You should find a different career path after taking this program."

The other participants, who are in their 40s and 50s, had worked in computer-related fields, where an increasing amount of production and programming work is outsourced.

The man was told to take the training course by his former boss.

After the session finished, the former boss summoned him and said: "We would like you to look for a new career path at a different company."

Thus his new routine began of going to a windowless room with only a desk and computer that was prepared by the staffing agency.

He looked for a job via the Internet and printed out his resume time and again.

An official with Hitachi's main office denied knowing of details of his situation.

"We have a program to prepare our employees for a life after retirement and to assist those who are opting for a career outside of Hitachi," the official said. "But few details of the program are available now."

The man felt he had a promising career ahead of him.

He was sent to study at a prestigious university overseas, the youngest Hitachi employee to do so at the time. The company clearly felt he showed promise.

After more than 10 interviews, the man landed a job with a midsize company.

A man with a software programing company within Konami Corp. is in the same boat as the former Hitachi employee.

He was told by his boss more than a year ago the transfer to the "career development section."

The man, who is in his 50s, stays home as his security pass to enter company premises was canceled.

He had been involved in the development of game software. The transfer came despite the parent company's robust sales of videogames in recent years. The man said few jobs are available for those older than 50 in the game industry.

"At our company, employees are expendable," he said.

In response to a request by The Asahi Shimbun for an interview, a publicity official at Konami said, "We cannot comment because the company structure is classified."

It is difficult to determine how widespread the practice of banishment rooms is in corporate Japan.

Business circles, meantime, have been clamoring for an overhaul of employment practices to make it easier for an employer to fire regular workers on grounds that companies need to move more swiftly to seize growth potential.

 

[Gregzs]

On GPAs and Brainteasers: New Insights From Google On Recruiting and Hiring | LinkedIn

?We found that brainteasers are a complete waste of time. How many golf balls can you fit into an airplane? How many gas stations in Manhattan? A complete waste of time. They don?t predict anything. They serve primarily to make the interviewer feel smart.?

That was just one of the many fascinating revelations that Laszlo Bock, Google?s senior vice president for people operations, shared with me in an interview that was part of the New York Times? special section on Big Data published Thursday.

Bock?s insights are particularly valuable because Google focuses its data-centric approach internally, not just on the outside world. It collects and analyzes a tremendous amount of information from employees (people generally participate anonymously or confidentially), and often tackles big questions such as, ?What are the qualities of an effective manager?? That was question at the core of its Project Oxygen, which I wrote about for the Times in 2011.

I asked Bock in our recent conversation about other revelations about leadership and management that had emerged from its research.

The full interview is definitely worth your time, but here are some of the highlights:

The ability to hire well is random. ?Years ago, we did a study to determine whether anyone at Google is particularly good at hiring,? Bock said. ?We looked at tens of thousands of interviews, and everyone who had done the interviews and what they scored the candidate, and how that person ultimately performed in their job. We found zero relationship. It?s a complete random mess, except for one guy who was highly predictive because he only interviewed people for a very specialized area, where he happened to be the world?s leading expert.?

Forget brain-teasers. Focus on behavioral questions in interviews, rather than hypotheticals. Bock said it?s better to use questions like, ?Give me an example of a time when you solved an analytically difficult problem.? He added: ?The interesting thing about the behavioral interview is that when you ask somebody to speak to their own experience, and you drill into that, you get two kinds of information. One is you get to see how they actually interacted in a real-world situation, and the valuable ?meta? information you get about the candidate is a sense of what they consider to be difficult.?

Consistency matters for leaders. ?It?s important that people know you are consistent and fair in how you think about making decisions and that there?s an element of predictability. If a leader is consistent, people on their teams experience tremendous freedom, because then they know that within certain parameters, they can do whatever they want. If your manager is all over the place, you?re never going to know what you can do, and you?re going to experience it as very restrictive.

GPAs don?t predict anything about who is going to be a successful employee. ?One of the things we?ve seen from all our data crunching is that G.P.A.?s are worthless as a criteria for hiring, and test scores are worthless ? no correlation at all except for brand-new college grads, where there?s a slight correlation,? Bock said. ?Google famously used to ask everyone for a transcript and G.P.A.?s and test scores, but we don?t anymore, unless you?re just a few years out of school. We found that they don?t predict anything. What?s interesting is the proportion of people without any college education at Google has increased over time as well. So we have teams where you have 14 percent of the team made up of people who?ve never gone to college.?

That was a pretty remarkable insight, and I asked Bock to elaborate.

?After two or three years, your ability to perform at Google is completely unrelated to how you performed when you were in school, because the skills you required in college are very different,? he said. ?You?re also fundamentally a different person. You learn and grow, you think about things differently. Another reason is that I think academic environments are artificial environments. People who succeed there are sort of finely trained, they?re conditioned to succeed in that environment. One of my own frustrations when I was in college and grad school is that you knew the professor was looking for a specific answer. You could figure that out, but it?s much more interesting to solve problems where there isn?t an obvious answer. You want people who like figuring out stuff where there is no obvious answer.?

 

[Gregzs]

3 Reasons to Hire Nervous Job Candidates

For many people, interviews are one of the most nerve racking things that they can do. It?s not surprising when you think about it, since there is a lot at stake: the job of their dreams, the ability to make the next mortgage/rent check, regaining a lost sense of self esteem, etc.

With so much being at stake, isn?t it perfectly understandable that many candidates may succumb to nerves during an interview? The problem is that these nerves can indeed impair their interview performance and hinder the interview process ? candidates can speak too quickly, slur their speech, have temporary memory loss and basically not give a true representation of their ability. This means that it is very easy to miscast nervous candidates as basket cases or incompetents who are not suitable for the job, when in truth they could be more appropriately skilled than some of the more outspoken and forward applicants.

In fact, three studies back up the idea that nervous candidates may be in fact disguising underlying brilliance.

The first was a study by Corinne Bendersky from UCLA?s School of Management. In her study she looked at MBA students and classified them as an extrovert and introvert (typically more neurotic and nervous) and she looked at the perceived status of these students. They found that those who were seen to be more extroverted were perceived to be of higher status and a better potential contributor to the effort. While neurotics were seen as lower status and they were expected to make a smaller contribution (this superficial first impression is an effect that is likely to be replicated in the interview room). But, what was most interesting was that at the end of the 10 week study/project period, the extroverts were seen to have lost status and to have contributed less than expected and neurotics were seen to have contributed more than expected and gained status as a result. Corinne concluded that extrovert traits that may them stand out from the crowd can fail in a team based situations. And the dull, uninspiring traits of introverts can make them effective on the job.

So, if you are hiring for roles with a collaborative element consider that the more nervous and neurotic may make a very positive contribution.

Corinne completed a second study which looked at team perceptions of neurotics and extroverts before and after working together and revealed that the general preconception is that the volatility and negativity of neurotics will be a drag on the team and that the enthusiasm and energy of extroverts would boost the team. But, in the studies the contributions of extroverts were not as good as expected and the introvert performed beyond expectations in a team environment.

A third study by Adam Grant from Wharton compared the sales performance of a group of 340 introvert and extrovert sales people. They found that the most successful employees were the ambiverts (halfway between introvert and extrovert) earning 24 percent more than introverts and 32 percent more than extroverts. So, in a purely sales capacity, this study (albeit isolated) has shown that extroverts are the worst performers.

Now, I am in no way suggesting that you exclusively hire introverts because you need a balanced team and introversion is just one of many qualities and skills which can lead to the employee being a higher performer. But, that is the point; while you should not hire someone just because they are introvert, equally it does not make sense to overlook someone because their introversion and neuroticism may have affected their presentation during the interview. Try and build selection processes that allow both introverts and extroverts to shine and develop interview techniques that relax candidates and which coach nervous candidates back into a state where they give an authentic demonstration of their ability, enabling you to make truer assessment of their abilities.

If you need help with effectively interviewing nervous candidates, watch out for the second part of this article titled, ?8 Tips for Interviewing Nervous Candidates.?

 

[Gregzs]

Why Underemployment May Be Worse Than It Looks

The level of underemployed workers looks bad on its face but even worse when it's not the government doing the counting.

When the Labor Department released its monthly nonfarm jobs report Friday, it was all sunshine and roses except for one glaring weakness: A big jump in the unemployment rate that includes those who have quit working as well as those who have had to take part-time jobs even though they'd rather work full-time.

That rate, which economists call the U-6, jumped from 13.8 percent in May to 14.3 percent in June?a 3.6 percent increase and indicative that the 195,000 new jobs created in the month weren't exactly of the highest caliber.

But what often doesn't get as much attention is the monthly labor count that the experts at Gallup conduct.

According to the pollster's results, the underemployment situation is even worse.

Gallup reports that 17.2 percent of the workforce is underemployed, a startling number compounded by its divergence from the government's count. While the rate is down from the 20.3 percent peak in March 2010, it has remained maddeningly high over the past three years even as economists tout the strength of the U.S. economic recovery.

From a broader perspective, the Gallup measure actually has increased from its 15.9 percent multi-year low in October 2012.


The potential significance of the recent trough is that it came a month before the Federal Reserve launched the third round of quantitative easing, the $85 billion a month bond-buying program that is supposed to help the central bank achieve its dual objectives of price stability?and full employment.

Amid questions of whether QE3 is about to come to end, and if it has been as effective as its predecessors, the underemployment rate will be one important metric to watch.

Aside from the Gallup numbers, the government's report was discouraging in its own right: A jump from 28.5 percent to 29.3 percent for the percentage of those working part-time for economic reasons in the labor force, and a year-over-year surge of 25.1 percent?1.027 million total?for those "discouraged workers" who have quit searching for jobs.

"It's a big deal. The labor market is far from healthy, so I don't want to minimize the fact" that underemployment is on the rise, said Joe LaVorgna, chief U.S. economist at Deutsche Bank.

"To me, it's something that bears watching," he added. "Given the month it occurred, we have tremendous exit and entry into the workforce?teachers and students. You really need to reserve judgment. You need another month or two to see if it's a new trend."

Indeed, some of the other Gallup metrics point to a bit brighter labor picture.

The firm's adjusted unemployment rate, which in the past has diverged substantially from the BLS count, stood at 7.6 percent in June, directly in line with the government's numbers and down substantially from May's 8.2 percent reading.

Also, its payroll-to-population gage was at 44.8 percent, a 2013 high though below the 45.7 percent in late 2012.

But the labor market faces clear pressure ahead, particularly from government sequestration spending cuts and uncertainty over the looming Obamacare implementation.

"We expect labor market pressure from the spending sequester in Washington to spread from reduced hours to job cuts," Ethan Harris, global economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, said in a report for clients.


For now, though, LaVorgna said he is attributing the data point discrepancies to an unusual jobs climate that will out the kinks in the months ahead.

"The labor market is so far from normal that it wouldn't surprise me that all these metrics are not necessarily moving in the same direction," he said. "There's going to be some incongruity between these two series. When things normalize, you would expect these things to rectify themselves."

 

[Gregzs]

Temporary jobs becoming a permanent fixture

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Hiring is exploding in the one corner of the U.S. economy where few want to be hired: temporary work.

From Wal-Mart to General Motors to PepsiCo, companies are increasingly turning to temps and to a much larger universe of freelancers, contract workers and consultants. Combined, these workers number nearly 17 million people who have only tenuous ties to the companies that pay them ? about 12% of everyone with a job.

Hiring is always healthy for an economy. Yet the rise in temp and contract work shows that many employers aren't willing to hire for the long run.

The number of temps has jumped more than 50% since the recession ended four years ago to nearly 2.7 million ? the most on government records dating to 1990. In no other sector has hiring come close.

Driving the trend are lingering uncertainty about the economy and employers' desire for more flexibility in matching their payrolls to their revenue. Some employers have also sought to sidestep the new health care law's rule that they provide medical coverage for permanent workers. Last week, though, the Obama administration delayed that provision of the law for a year.

The use of temps has extended into sectors that seldom used them in the past ? professional services, for example, which include lawyers, doctors and information technology specialists.

Temps typically receive low pay, few benefits and scant job security. That makes them less likely to spend freely, so temp jobs don't tend to boost the economy the way permanent jobs do. More temps and contract workers also help explain why pay has barely outpaced inflation since the recession ended.

Beyond economic uncertainty, Ethan Harris, global economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, thinks more lasting changes are taking root.

"There's been a generational shift toward a less committed relationship between the firm and the worker," Harris says.

An Associated Press survey of 37 economists in May found that three-quarters thought the increased use of temps and contract workers represented a longstanding trend.

Typical of that trend is Latrese Carr, who was hired by a Wal-Mart in Glenwood, Ill., two months ago on a 90-day contract. She works 10 p.m. to 7 a.m., helping unload trucks and restocking shelves. Her pay is $9.45 an hour. There's no health insurance or other benefits.

Carr, 20, didn't particularly want the overnight shift.

"I needed a job," she says.

The store managers have said some temps will be kept on permanently, Carr says, depending on their performance.

Carr isn't counting on it.

The trend toward contract workers was intensified by the depth of the recession and the tepid pace of the recovery. A heavy investment in long-term employment isn't a cost all companies want to bear anymore.

"There's much more appreciation of the importance of having flexibility in the workforce," says Barry Asin of Staffing Industry Analysts, a consulting firm.

Susan Houseman, an economist at the Upjohn Institute of Employment Research, says companies want to avoid having too many employees during a downturn, just as manufacturers want to avoid having too much inventory if demand slows.

"You have your just-in-time workforce," Houseman says. "You only pay them when you need them."

This marks a shift from what economists used to call "labor hoarding": Companies typically retained most of their staff throughout recessions, hoping to ride out the downturn.

"We clearly don't have that anymore," says Sylvia Allegretto, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley.

The result is that temps and contract workers have become fixtures at large companies. Business executives say they help their companies stay competitive. They also argue that temp work can provide valuable experience.

"It opens more doors for people to enter the labor market," says Jeff Joerres, CEO of ManpowerGroup, a workplace staffing firm.

But Houseman's research has found that even when jobs are classified as "temp to permanent," only 27% of such assignments lead to permanent positions.

About one-third of temporary workers work in manufacturing. Temps can be found on production lines, repairing machinery and stocking goods in warehouses. About a fifth are administrative.

Shortages of doctors and nurses have led some hospitals to turn to temp agencies. Staffing Industry Analysts forecasts that spending on temporary doctors will grow 10% this year and next.

Some school districts now turn to temp firms for substitute teachers. This lets them avoid providing retirement benefits, which union contracts might otherwise require.

Manufacturing unions have pushed back against the trend, with limited success.

"We run into this across all the various industries where we represent people," says Tony Montana, a spokesman for the USW, which represents workers in the steel, paper, and energy industries.

Todd Miller, CEO of software company Gwabbit in Carmel Valley, Calif., says about a third of his 20 employees are temporary. An additional one-third are contractors.

He says he's had no trouble filling such positions. People are "willing to entertain employment possibilities that they would not have six or seven years ago," Miller says.

If the economy were to accelerate, Miller says he might hire more permanent staff. But "I don't have tremendous confidence in this economy."

Only the health care and leisure and hospitality sectors have added more jobs during the recovery. But each is roughly five times as large as the temp industry. The proportion of all jobs in the temp industry is about 2%, just below a record set in 2000.

Temp hiring has accelerated even though the economy has 2.4 million fewer jobs than it did five years ago. Temp jobs made up about 10% of jobs lost to the recession. Yet they've made up nearly 20% of the jobs gained since the recession ended.

A survey of companies with more than 1,000 employees by Staffing Industry Analysts found they expect 18% of their workforces to be made up of temps, freelancers or contract workers this year, up from 16% in 2012.

Shane Watson, who in November lost a job providing tech support for Blackberry maker Research In Motion, says contract work has helped him recover. He's on his third such position. Still, Watson, 36, misses the security of a permanent job.

Wal-Mart says it's been hiring disproportionately more temporary workers. "Flexible associates," it calls them. Spokesman Dave Tovar says temps allow store managers to provide permanent workers with more reliable schedules.

Online competitors are seeking to upend the temp industry just as Amazon and eBay disrupted retail. Employers spent $1 billion last year hiring workers for short-term projects through online labor exchanges, such as oDesk and Elance, according to Staffing Industry Analysts. That's 67% more than in the previous year.

Freelancers in the online exchanges can be evaluated by employers, post portfolios and take online tests to demonstrate their abilities.

Gary Swart, CEO of oDesk, says his clients are mainly small or startup companies. But giants like AOL and Unilever are using the service, too.

When Hans Hess of Arlington, Va., was seeking a lawyer to do a trademark search for his Elevation Burger chain, he turned to Elance. He found a lawyer to do it for under $500.

"When I was using a big law firm, it could cost me $5,000 to get to the point of just filing a trademark," Hess says.

Gigwalk recruits temps for brief projects in retail, merchandising and marketing. Anyone who downloads Gigwalk's app can see pinpoints on a map signifying available jobs nearby.

Frito-Lay, a division of PepsiCo, used Gigwalk this year to hire workers to check in-store displays of its products to ensure that a seasonal promotion was being handled properly.

"You can hire 10,000 people for 10 to 15 minutes," says Gigwalk CEO Bob Bahramipour. "When they're done, those 10,000 people just melt away."