Chicago’s jobless rate in August fell to 9.7 percent, down from 10.1 percent a year ago. The unemployment figure for the Chicago-Joliet-Naperville area was reported Thursday by the Illinois Department of Employment Security. Get the full story »
Filed under: Jobs/employment
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Macy’s hiring more holiday help
Macy’s Inc. said it plans to hire about 65,000 seasonal staff for the holiday season — a slight increase from previous years. The rise in hiring reflects Macy’s expectation that same-store sales will grow 3-3.5 percent in the second half of fiscal 2010, the company said in a statement. Get the full story »
Highly educated less likely to be unemployed
Government data suggest that education is increasingly crucial in protecting workers from unemployment.
The difference in joblessness between the country’s least educated people and most educated people increased during the recession, according to statistics from the Labor Department. People without a high school diploma remain more than three times as likely to be unemployed than are college graduates. Get the full story »
Unemployment rises in 27 states; falls in Illinois
More than half of U.S. states saw their unemployment rates rise in August, the largest number in six months, as hiring weakened across the country. The jobless rate in Illinois, however, fell 0.2 percentage points to 10.1 percent last month.
Sep. 21, 2010 at 9:52 a.m.
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Filed under: Jobs/employment, Layoffs, M&A, Pharmaceuticals, Updated Abbott to cut 3,000 jobs globally, none in Lake Co.
Drug and medical product giant Abbott Laboratories said this morning it would cut about 3,000 jobs worldwide. But there will be no reductions in Lake County, home to the company’s sprawling Abbott Park headquarters.
The cuts, which amount to about 3 percent of its global workforce, come in the wake of its acquisition earlier this year of Solvay SA’s drug business. Abbott has 93,000 employees worldwide, including 13,000 in Illinois that are largely at its campus just east of the Tri-State Tollway. Get the full story »
Economic panel says recession ended in June 2009
Michigan residents at a job fair in Southfield, Mich., Aug. 25, 2010. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
The Great Recession ended in June 2009, according to the body charged with dating when economic downturns begin and end. But the news comes amid rising fears of a double-dip recession.
The National Bureau of Economic Research, an independent group of economists, released a statement Monday saying economic data now clearly points to the economy turning higher last summer. That makes the 18-month recession that started in December 2007 the longest and deepest downturn for the U.S. economy since the Great Depression. Get the full story »
Seasonal hiring could improve, but still lower
Though retail sales gains have improved, don’t expect holiday seasonal hiring to reach “pre-recession levels,” a new report indicates.
Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc., said retailers, thanks to two consecutive months of sales gains, “could portend stronger seasonal hiring in 2010,” the Chicago-based outplacement consulting firm said today. Get the full story »
GM to put $483M into Tennessee engine plant
General Motors Co. will invest $483 million in its Tennessee plant and call back 483 workers to ramp up production of 4-cylinder Ecotec engines, the company said Friday.
The deal, however, is contingent on GM securing state and local incentives. Get the full story »
Illinois jobless rate dips to 10.1%
The Illinois unemployment rate dropped by 0.2 points, to 10.1 percent, in August, making it the eighth consecutive month of steady or declining rates, according the Illinois Department of Employment Security.
In August, the national unemployment rate went up 0.1 point, to 9.6 percent. Get the full story »
New jobless claims fall to lowest in 2 months
The number of newly laid-off workers seeking unemployment benefits dropped slightly last week to its lowest level in two months, a sign that employers are cutting fewer jobs.
The Labor Department said Thursday that new claims for jobless benefits fell by 3,000 to a seasonally adjusted 450,000, the third decline in four weeks. Many economists had expected an increase. Get the full story »
Boeing: Airlines will need 1M new workers by 2029
Boeing says the airline industry will need to hire more than one million workers over the next 20 years to prepare for a wave of 30,000 new aircraft.
The airlines will need to hire 466,650 pilots and 596,500 maintenance crew workers between 2010 and 2029, the aircraft maker said Thursday — that’s an average of 23,300 new pilots and 30,000 maintenance workers annually from now until 2029, the company said. Get the full story »
Smurfit-Stone closing 2 Virginia plants
Smurfit-Stone Container Corp. is planning to close and consolidate several eastern Henrico County, Va. plants within two months. The Chicago-based paper products company will close two Virginia container plants it owns. According to a notice the company filed with state officials, the closures would result in 229 job cuts by Oct. 31. Get the full story »
Bread remains work in progress at Sara Lee
At its annual Meet the Management Analyst Day in New York Tuesday, Sara Lee presented itself as holding company-turned operating company with a string of successes in growing, high-margin businesses and a handful of struggling ones in need of work. The maker of Hillshire Farm sausage and Senseo coffee touted them its biggest successes — North American meats and European coffee — and laid out cases for fixing its problem areas, including International Bakery, North American Bakery and North American Foodservice. Get the full story »
