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The Spectrem Millionaire Investor Confidence Index fell to its lowest level in more than a year in August as wealthy U.S. investors worried about politics and unemployment, according to Spectrem Group.
The index fell 11 points in August to -18, its lowest level since June 2009, when it fell a record 18 points to -20 shortly after the S&P 500 index hit a 12-year low. Get the full story »
Hyatt Hotels Corp. faced the wrath of religious leaders Tuesday as hotel workers called for a boycott of three Hyatt branded Chicago hotels.
“I think it is immoral. It’s immoral. It’s immoral for Hyatt to be treating its workers the way they are treating them: A year without a contract,” Rev. Calvin Morris boomed into a microphone outside Hyatt’s downtown headquarters. “We’re going to boycott these hotels, and we do so with good conscience.”
The world’s largest group of Jewish Clergy, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, has pledged its support for the worker-led boycotts, which with the addition Tuesday of Hyatt Regency Chicago, Hyatt O’Hare and Park Hyatt in Chicago, now number 10 at Hyatt properties across the country. Approximately 250 rabbis, cantors and other Jewish leaders have also signed a pledge in support of the boycotts. Get the full story »
With support from hundreds of Jewish leaders, Chicago Hyatt workers are calling for a boycott of “one or more” Hyatt hotels in the Chicago area, according to Unite Here, the hotel workers’ union.
The properties will join seven other boycotts announced by the union at Hyatt properties. The union would not say which hotels are planned for the boycott, which is scheduled to be announced Tuesday afternoon in front of Hyatt Global Headquarters. Get the full story »
Caterpillar Inc. officials said Thursday they don’t expect a double-dip recession because the world’s central banks haven’t made major errors and the economy has been improving throughout 2010, especially in the developing world.
New CEO Doug Oberhelman and other executives met with analysts in New York and discussed the opportunities ahead for the world’s largest maker of construction and mining equipment. The Peoria, Ill.-based company also affirmed its long-term profit goals.
“We don’t think the world has ended,” said Oberhelman, who has been with Caterpillar since 1975. “We think there is going to be fantastic growth in our industry in the future.”
Illinois lost 20,200 jobs in July, but the numbers look worse than they are because of last month’s construction strike that shut down projects across the state.
The 19-day work stoppage ended around July 20 but not before the Illinois Department of Employment Security took its survey of the labor force. Get the full story »
The number of workers who died on the job fell by 17 percent last year to the lowest level in nearly two decades, as workers logged fewer hours during the recession, the Labor Department said Thursday.
The 4,340 workplace fatalities recorded in 2009 was the smallest total since the Bureau of Labor Statistics first began tracking the data in 1992. It’s the second straight year that fatal work injuries have reached a historic low, following a 10 percent drop in 2008. Get the full story »
Unions representing former employees of the Sun-Times Media Group Inc. are seeking information from the company in a dispute over termination of health-insurance benefits.
The unions have filed a motion in Delaware bankruptcy court seeking access to documents and other information from the company, which they claim has stopped paying for insurance coverage without court approval. Get the full story »
Walgreen Co.’s headquarters expects to outsource as many as 150 accounting jobs by mid-2011 to India’s Genpact, which recently acquired Walgreens’ 500-employee accounting office in Danville. Get the full story >>
Temporary workers in Will County working in warehouses tend to make poverty-level wages and are less likely to have basic benefits, according to a report released Monday by Warehouse Workers for Justice.
“Bad Jobs in Goods Movement,” an eight-month survey of 319 warehouse workers, painted a grim picture of the living situation of temporary workers in the region. Among the most troubling findings: one in three workers injured on the job were fired or disciplined when reporting the injury and only 4 percent of temporary workers had health insurance.
There are more than 30,000 warehouse employees in Will County, according to estimates by Warehouse Workers for Justice. Of those, 63 percent are hired as temporary workers and tend to earn less money than those who are hired directly by the company. Get the full story »
Glenview-based nutrition company Mead Johnson plans to move about 50 marketing and sales jobs currently in Evansville, Ind., to its Illinois location.
Chicago-based Tribune Co. said Monday it is establishing a Texas subsidiary that will consolidate the media conglomerate’s back-office operations such as financial responsibilities and systems administration. The company said it anticipates the move, anticipated in recent weeks as job openings were posted on various employment Web sites, “will save Tribune tens of millions annually.”
Brinks Hofer Gilson & Lione laid off 18 people Tuesday, including seven lawyers, its second round of cutbacks in eight months.
Fifteen of the 18 were based in the home office in Chicago, said Gary Ropski, president of the firm that specializes in intellectual property law. The layoffs affected 4.5 percent of the firm’s workforce of about 400. Get the full story »
New applications for unemployment insurance rose last week to their highest level in almost six months, a sign that employers are still cutting their staffs. The Labor Department says first-time claims for jobless benefits edged up by 2,000 to a seasonally adjusted 484,000. Analysts had expected a drop. That’s the highest total since the week of Feb. 20.
Initial claims have now risen in three of the last four weeks and are close to their high point for the year of 490,000, reached in late January. The four-week average, which smooths volatility, soared by 14,250 to 473,500, also the highest since late February. Get the full story »
A United Nations agency warned of a “lost generation” as more young people across the world give up the search for work. It reported that of some 620 million young people ages 15 to 24 in the work force, about 81 million were unemployed at the end of 2009 — the highest level in two decades of record-keeping by the organization, which is based in Geneva.
Company job openings fell for the second straight month in June, a sign that hiring isn’t likely to pick up in the coming months.
The data comes after a weak employment report Friday that showed businesses aren’t adding enough new workers to bring down the unemployment rate, currently 9.5 percent.
Wednesday’s report, known as the Job Openings and Labor Turnover survey, or JOLTS, suggests that won’t change anytime soon.
