Syndi Blatt and Gail Fine from UnemployedWoman.com tell us about what their website does for out of work women.

The state unemployment rate rose to 9.3 percent, up .10 percent, despite the addition of 4,600 jobs, most of them in the areas of science, administration and other professional services.

The seemingly contradictory statistics reflect an ongoing challenge: although the number of jobs is increasing, so are people looking for them, because many people who gave up on hunting for a job are trying again.

“There’s a large number of people that are in that pool of workers that were discouraged or were part-time workers who really wanted a full-time job,” said Carl Van Horn, director of the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers. “In a recovery as the economy strengthens, people will come back in the labor force because the news is more encouraging.”

Nationally, the labor market recovered about 1 million jobs in the past year, Van Horn said, but the total number lost in the recession was nearly eight million.

“The trough we’re in is very similar to the rest of the country,” Van Horn said. “It will take many months of above minimum job growth in order to take those people back in the work force. It could be years.”

Both the state and the country face the challenge of putting the unemployed back to work while also dealing with an influx of new graduates, according to Van Horn.

State officials touted the net increase of almost 5,000 jobs as a sign of hope.

“The continuing gains in private sector jobs show that hiring by New Jersey firms is starting to develop some traction,” said Charles Steindel, chief economist for the state Department of Treasury.

The number of public sector jobs in the state went up in March because of a boost of 1,600 local government jobs, which more than countered a drop of 600 state government jobs.

Van Horn said that many of those local government jobs were likely funded by federal stimulus law funds, which will run out later this year.

New Jersey lost about 300 construction jobs in March, but Van Horn said that could actually be good news.

To read the full story: NJ.com

Fewer Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week, a sign that layoffs are dropping and companies may be stepping up hiring.

The Labor Department said Thursday that the number of people seeking benefits dipped by 6,000 to a seasonally adjusted 388,000 for the week that ended March 26. That’s the second decline in three weeks.

Applications near 375,000 or below are consistent with a sustained increase in hiring. Applications peaked during the recession at 659,000.

The four-week average of applications, a less volatile measure, rose to 394,250. Still, that figure has dropped by 35,500, or 8 percent, in the past eight weeks.

“The downtrend … is undeniable,” Joshua Shapiro, chief economist at MFR Financial Inc., said. “We believe that this improvement will continue in the weeks and months ahead.”

The department also revised the previous five years of data. The changes showed that applications in recent weeks were moderately higher than previously reported.

As applications have fallen, hiring has started to pick up. Economists forecast that employers added a net total of 185,000 jobs in March. That would be just below February’s gain of 192,000 — the most jobs added in nearly a year. The unemployment rate is expected to remain unchanged at 8.9 percent.

The March data will be released Friday.

Still, hiring must rise by about 300,000 per month to rapidly bring down the unemployment rate, economists say. The economy has gained more than a million jobs in the past year but still has 7.5 million fewer jobs than before the recession.

The number of people collecting benefits also dropped. It fell by 51,000 to 3.7 million in the week ending March 19, the latest data available. That’s the lowest figure since October 2008. But that doesn’t include millions of people receiving aid under the emergency unemployment benefit programs put in place during the recession.

All told, 8.8 million people received unemployment benefits in the week ending March 12, the latest data available. That’s slightly higher than the previous week.

There have been other positive reports about jobs and hiring this week.

To read the full story: Los Angeles

Legislation that proponents say would close loopholes in New Jersey’s law regarding mass layoffs may soon go before the full Assembly.

The measure began gathering steam about three months ago, after the company that operates Charlie Brown’s Steakhouses abruptly closed 47 restaurants in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania and filed for federal bankruptcy protection.

The closings left about 1,900 New Jerseyans suddenly and unexpectedly unemployed.

“The Legislature has been pushing hard to create jobs and improve our business climate, but employees have rights, too, especially when dealing with large franchisors who see fit to close without notice,” said Assemblyman Wayne DeAngelo, (D-Mercer). He’s one of the primary sponsors of the measure that could come up for a vote as soon as next month.

It would require franchisors or holding companies to provide 60 days notice of closing and mass layoffs at any of their sites. New Jersey currently only requires that such notice be made by single establishments with 50 or more full-time employees.

Firms that conduct mass layoffs would still be required to provide severance pay to full-time employees, who get one week of pay for each full year they worked. The pay rate is based on the average compensation they received during their last three years of employment or the amount they received in their final year, whichever is higher.

To read the full story: NJ.com

Are some companies weeding out job applicants just because they are unemployed?

After news accounts about the practice and requests from concerned lawmakers, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has jumped in, trying to figure out whether it’s a widespread tactic that could violate federal job discrimination laws.

Commissioners at an EEOC hearing Wednesday said they are investigating whether excluding the unemployed may have a greater effect on blacks, Latinos and other ethnic minorities that tend to have higher jobless rates. There are no specific legal protections for the unemployed.

“The potential for disparate impact is there,” said William Spriggs, assistant secretary for policy at the Department of Labor.

Overall unemployment is 9 percent, with nearly 14 million people out of work. The jobless rate is 15.7 percent among blacks and 11.9 percent among Hispanics, according the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Spriggs said the chances of an employer considering an ethnic minority are decreased by one-third if jobless applicants are excluded. The pool of disabled applicants would be reduced by nearly 50 percent, he said.

The EEOC, which enforces job discrimination laws, has not issued any guidance on the issue. But some on the five-member agency suggested that could be coming.

“I hope this gives our people in the field information to start thinking about a possible problem out there,” said Stuart Ishimaru, one of three Democrats on the commission. “For employers it raises serious question of liability if, in fact, there is a disparate impact.”

Spriggs said it would be difficult for the government to measure the problem because most job openings are not posted publicly. The Labor Department is aware of anecdotal reports that some recent company advertisements have discouraged the unemployed from applying.

He said officials are concerned the practice could hamper the government’s efforts to help millions of unemployed get back to work.

“It probably has a bigger impact in the current labor market” given the current unemployment situation, Spriggs said.

Helen Norton, a professor at the University of Colorado law school, said employers and staffing agencies have advertised jobs in fields from electronic engineers to restaurant and grocery managers with the explicit restriction that only currently employed candidates would be considered.

“Some employers may use current employment as a signal of quality job performance,” Norton said. “But such a correlation is decidedly weak. A blanket reliance on current employment serves as a poor proxy for successful job performance.”

To read the full story: Yahoo! Finance

The job market started 2011 on solid footing, according to two separate reports released Wednesday.

Payrolls among private employers rose by 187,000 in January, payroll processor ADP said. Analysts polled by Briefing.com were predicting 145,000 jobs added for the month.

A separate report showed planned job cuts increased in January, which is not unusual for the first month of the year. But it was the lowest number of January job cuts on record.

Employers announced plans to cut 38,519 jobs in January, a 20% increase over December, according to outplacement consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. The level indicates that the low downsizing rate from late last year may very well continue into 2011.

“It is not unusual to see job cuts increase in January. In fact, 2011 marks the fifth consecutive year and the tenth out of the last twelve in which January job cuts surpassed the December total,” said John Challenger, CEO of Challenger, Gray & Christmas in a statement. “What made this January figure so unusual is that it was so low.”

According to Challenger’s data, January is the worst month on the calendar for layoffs. From 1993 through 2010, employers announced an average of 104,560 job cuts to start the year.

The ADP and Challenger reports typically set the tone for the government’s highly anticipated monthly employment data, due Friday.

While both reports signal solid job growth for the month, economists still say the recovery will continue to be slow over the next year.

“You’re going to see a better hiring picture as a whole in 2011,” said Tim Quinlan, an economist with Wells Fargo. “We hired just over a million total jobs last year, and you’ll probably see that number creep up.”

“The problem is that improvement won’t be enough to make a substantial change in the unemployment rate this year,” he added.

To read the full story: CNN Money

Financial services company HSBC is laying off 500 people at its main Delaware center, leaving 700 on staff at the New Castle facility, a company spokesman said Thursday.

The company is “discontinuing” credit-card customer service and collections work at the center, but its insurance-related functions — underwriting and customer service — will remain.

“The decision was made after careful deliberation, and we considered a range of factors” in trying to balance changing business needs with staffing levels, said Rob Sherman, HSBC’s vice president of public affairs. “We greatly appreciate the dedication and contributions of our employees. Those impacted employees will have priority eligibility when applying for other positions at HSBC.”

An employee in HSBC’s collections department who wanted to remain anonymous because she feared losing her severance package said she and many co-workers will likely look for jobs outside the company.

“There’s not even 100 jobs available in the Delaware site for the 500 they let go,” she said.

Employees were given 60 days’ notice of the layoffs, and the 500 positions are expected to be discontinued by midyear. Severance packages include a week’s pay for every year with the company, she said, along with COBRA health insurance payments through the end of May.

Worker morale — which the collections employee said was declining before the announcement — paired with Delaware’s status as an “at-will” state concerning employee terminations, left a lingering note of uncertainty.

To read the full story: Delaware Online

The government is expected to report Friday that businesses stepped up hiring in December, a trend likely to gain momentum in 2011.

Economists are predicting that employers added a net total of 145,000 jobs last month and that the unemployment rate dipped to 9.7 percent.

Some are even more optimistic after a private payroll firm estimated this week that companies added nearly 300,000 jobs in December. Also encouraging was a report that fewer people applied for unemployment benefits over the past month than in any four-week period in more than two years.

A decline in layoffs has consumers feeling better about the economy and spending more freely. This past holiday shopping season was the best in four years.

And a payroll tax cut that goes into effect this month will give Americans even more money in the new year. Economists expect that will boost economic growth and give businesses more confidence to hire.

“Consumers are no longer as concerned about their job security, and that’s giving them a little more confidence to go out and spend,” said Ryan Sweet, an economist at Moody’s Analytics.

To read the full story: Yahoo! Finance

Acme Markets told workers this week that it will close five unprofitable Philadelphia-area stores by the end of February, three in South Jersey and two in Pennsylvania – locations that union officials said had been hurt by Wegmans and other competing chains.

The decisions “were made only after careful evaluation and were guided by what is best for Acme’s long-term growth and success as a whole,” parent company Supervalu Inc. said in a statement.

The sites are in Limerick, Wayne, Cinnaminson, Millville, and Moorestown.

In recent years, Acme, one of the region’s oldest supermarket chains, has struggled to reinvent itself as competitors have arrived with stores that sell groceries in new ways. On the higher end, for example, are Whole Foods and Wegmans, with stores popular among gourmets; on the other end are ShopRite, Wal-Mart, and Target, which lure more cost-conscious customers with aggressively low prices.

A top union official blamed bad management at the corporate level for the supermarkets’ failure to thrive.

To read the full story: The Philadelphia Inquirer

fter three years of economic pain, a growing number of economists think 2011 will finally bring what everyone’s been hoping for: More jobs and a self-sustaining recovery.

“We’re looking at some leading indicators on employment, and they’re all flashing green lights,” said Bernard Baumohl of the Economic Outlook Group, a Princeton, N.J. research firm.

Though most economists still expect a painfully high unemployment rate of about 9% at the end of this year, some think that stat masks more important signs of strength.

Economists surveyed by CNNMoney are forecasting an average of 2.5 million jobs added to the U.S. economy this year, which would be the best one-year gain in hiring since the white-hot labor market of 1999.

To read the full story: CNN Money