Atlanta manufacturing jobs saw the second-largest yearly decrease in employment at the beginning of 2010.

Although Atlanta's January unemployment rate has not yet been released, the unemployment rate in Georgia as a whole increased from 10.3 percent to 10.4 percent, keeping it above the national rate of 9.7 percent. Atlanta had an unemployment rate of 10.1 percent during December 2009.

The Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta area had a total non-farm employment of 2,236,700 workers during January, according to the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics. This is down from 2,264,800 workers during January and a 4 percent decrease from last year.

Only two industries managed to see a monthly increase in employment, including education and health services by 2,600 jobs and government by 100 jobs. The education and health services industry also was the only industry that saw a yearly increase in employment.

The industry employed 271,800 workers during January, up from 269,200 workers during December and a 1.4 percent increase from January 2009.

The construction industry took the biggest hit when compared to last year. The industry employed 90,600 workers during January, down from 94,700 workers during December and an 18 percent decrease from last year.

The manufacturing industry saw the second-largest yearly decrease in employment. The industry employed 136,800 workers during January, down from 139,200 workers during December and an 11.8 percent decrease from January 2009.

Other industries that saw an over-the-year decrease in employment include:

• trade, transportation and utilities by 3.2 percent
• information by 5.3 percent
• financial activities by 6.4 percent
• professional and business services by 5.2 percent
• leisure and hospitality by .4 percent
• other services by .1 percent
• government by 2.2 percent

Labels: Atlanta manufacturing jobs

A local nonprofit will soon offer a space for those with Phoenix tech jobs (Click here) to come together.

The nearby City of Chandler recently announced that it plans to offer $400,000 to Gangplank, a technology-oriented nonprofit. The funding will help redevelop a historic building, accounting for the first project under the South Arizona Avenue Design Guidelines.

Gangplank provides a collaborative space where hundreds of technology-oriented professionals can come together to share ideas and develop products and business models. The company is working in Chandler because it has many of the ingredients to attract people in technology.

"For good ideas to take off, they have to build off other ideas," Gangplank Co-Founder Derek Neighbors told the East Valley Tribune. "We need density. Downtown Chandler is doing everything right to set itself up for the creative class in the next 10 years or so."

The company plans to renovate a building on South Arizona Avenue across from the new City Hall. Gangplank will use the funding for exterior facade renovations and to bring the ventilation system up to code.

The funding will come from a city fund meant to help private developers restore downtown buildings. In exchange for providing the funding, the city will receive a conservation easement guaranteeing the historic aspects of the building will be preserved and maintained for 20 years.

Gangplank will invest some of its own funding to add a second story to the building and renovate the interior. The building, which dates back to 1946, was originally used by the military and later became a meat processing plant, retail suites and home to the Gospel for Life Church.

The South Arizona Avenue Design Guidelines are aimed at creating an urban, pedestrian-friendly city center with tall buildings on each side of Arizona Avenue, transitioning downward to blend into adjacent residential neighborhoods.

The guidelines help support the $10 million South Arizona Avenue Corridor Area Plan, which will narrow Arizona Avenue from six lanes to four through Dr. A.J. Chandler Park and widen sidewalks to enhance the area's landscaping.

Labels: Phoenix tech jobs

Although it has been declining under the economic downturn, the manufacturing industry remains popular, and employers must be cautious when the economy rebounds it's time to hire new employees.

Maintaining a safe and accident-free workplace is vital to the success of any manufacturing company. Another important step is to reduce employee turnover. Both of these things can be accomplished by conducting background checks on potential hires.

Here are some sample background checks to conduct when hiring a new employee in the manufacturing industry:

• Social Security number trace - This procedure, which also includes an address history search, authenticates that the Social Security number an applicant provides is associated with an individual of the same name and birth date. The Social Security number trace reveals addresses that are used to select court jurisdictions in which to check for criminal records, and also will reveal any aliases.
• Employment verifications - This verifies information on an applicant's resume, including dates of employment, starting and ending positions and salaries, reason for termination, and eligibility for rehire. It also may include interviews with former supervisors.
• County criminal record search - This consists of an on-site manual search for the superior, upper, lower and municipal court records available in each county. These records will indicate whether or not a candidate has had a felony, misdemeanor or infraction within the last seven years or longer. The end result includes date of arrest, date of filing, charges, level of charges, disposition date, final disposition of charges and any sentence or penalty.
• National criminal record database search - These aggregate databases are comprised of millions of records from various sources, including county court houses, state departments of incarcerations, state record repositories, probation departments, townships and sex offender registries.
• Substance abuse screening - This can include physical exams and urine, hair or saliva testing for various substances.

Labels: Sample background checks

A new round of funding will help support Raleigh medical jobs that focus on children.

The State of North Carolina recently announced that it will receive a $9.3 million grant through the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act to develop technology that tracks and measures quality of care for children.

The NC Department of Health and Human Services, North Carolina Pediatric Society, and NC Office of Rural Health and Community Care worked together to secure the grant.

"This competitive grant is vital to ensuring that children in our state are healthy and ready to learn," Gov. Bev Perdue said. "This will help pediatric offices throughout the state make better use of technology so we can be sure that children, those with special needs in particular, are receiving the care they need."

Only 10 lead states received part of the $100 million in funding from CHIPRA. North Carolina plans to apply its funding toward three initiatives for youth who receive healthcare through NC Medicaid or N.C. Health Choice for Children.

Those initiatives include:

• Improve coordinated care for Children with Special Health Care Needs, focusing on children with developmental, behavioral and mental-health disorders. The effort will help narrow the gaps and disparities that special-needs children frequently encounter.
• Implement electronic health records for children.
• Implement and establish measures to increase the quality of care for children. Funding will be given to Community Care of North Carolina to create and evaluate methods for collecting and reporting data on health indicators specific to children.

"This will be a great opportunity for us to truly implement medical home standards and to coordinate care for kids, especially the ones who have special needs," Dr. Marian Earls, president of the N.C. Pediatric Society, said. "The focus now is on shifting to electronic patient records, and to integrate quality into practice, and this grant will help us move in that direction."

Labels: Raleigh medical jobs

A new Web site will make it easier for job seekers to conduct personal background checks and discover any potential problems before a potential employer does.

TransparentMe, a site that provides individuals' public records, allows candidates to perform an online personal background check in days or minutes, revealing everything from negative information to whether or not their identity has been compromised.

"In today's hyper-competitive job market, a background check can make the difference between landing a dream job or being cast aside in favor of someone else," Jason B. Morris, co-founder and principal of TransparentMe, said. "TransparentMe equips a job seeker with information so they can be proactive with a potential employer instead of defensive."

The site offers three service levels, including a basic package for $19.95, an enhanced package for $34.95 and a comprehensive package for $69.95. Basic level results are available within minutes, while enhanced and comprehensive level results are available in one to four days.

All three levels provide:

• Identity verification - This search conducts a social security number trace, ensuring that an individual's number isn't being used by anyone else. The trace also provides a history of addresses where a customer has applied for credit. Most employers use this type of search as a roadmap to determine which court jurisdictions should be researched for criminal records and what names to check.
• National criminal records database search - A search of databases that comprise millions of records from various sources in the United States. These records are obtained by commercial vendors from several different sources including: county court houses, state departments of incarceration, state record repositories, probation departments and townships.
• National sex offender registry search - This multi-state database search provides sex offender case information in an easy-to-read report. Extensive search capabilities will check registered sex offender data sources nationwide, including: bureaus of investigation, departments of law enforcement, departments of corrections, departments of justice, departments of public safety, sheriff's departments, state attorney general's offices and state police agencies in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

The enhanced level package additionally includes:

• Current county of residence criminal records search - An on-site manual search of the superior, upper, lower, and/or municipal court records in the user's current county of residence. A national network of professional court researchers covers the more than 3,500 county court jurisdictions and will indicate if a subject has a felony, misdemeanor and possibly an infraction filing within the last seven years or longer.
• Homeland Security search - This security check cross-references the user's name against more than 14 worldwide known terrorist and fugitive databases that include individuals, organizations and companies considered a threat to global and national security. The Homeland Security check database is updated daily as various lists are modified.

The comprehensive level package includes all five services listed above and allows users to conduct a criminal records search in up to five counties throughout the country.

Individuals also can purchase add-on services, such as employment verifications, education verifications, reference interviews and professional license verifications.

"More companies than ever are conducting background checks on their job candidates - as many as 85 percent of all employers," Nick Fishman, co-founder and principal of TransparentMe, said. "Also, identity theft is forcing candidates to find out the hard way that their character and personal information has been tainted. TransparentMe arms people with knowledge so they can avoid unpleasant surprises that might impact their future career."

The economic downturn caused many people to return to school, whether to gain more education for their current job or to pursue a new career path altogether. Once you complete your second round of schooling, using a resume builder can help you market both your educational and employment experience.

A good resume builder will allow you to either upload an existing resume and tailor it to your needs or start from scratch. Either option provides a great way for you to create the perfect marketing tool for your job search.

Here are five tips to keep in mind when using a resume builder, as compiled by FastWeb:

1. Highlight important dates - Many job seekers are afraid to include graduation or employment dates in their resume for fear that employers will automatically reject older candidates or those with significant time gaps. It's more likely that employers will be suspicious if you eliminate important dates. It's better to be honest up front than to leave employers thinking you have something to hide.
2. Use your resume as a marketing document - Instead of listing your entire career history, research the company you're applying to and feature what you can do for them in the future, instead of what you've done in the past.
3. Show employers how your past career experience will benefit them - Researching the company also can help you understand where it's going and what it's looking for, allowing you to highlight your experience in those areas. Keep in mind that the average person spends only seven seconds scanning a resume, so make sure what you have to offer stands out.
4. Consider using a functional resume - This type of resume, which often has a profile section at the top, offers you the chance to showcase your skills instead of your experience. Even more importantly, you can show how your style will fit in with the culture of the organization.
5. Have an "experience" section instead of an "employment" section - This is especially helpful if you think your previous work experience is irrelevant to the job you're seeking. An experience section also can include internships, class projects and independent study.

Labels: Resume builder

Anyone in the midst of a job search received some good news today.

The U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the national unemployment rate declined from 10 percent to 9.7 percent during January. However, another 20,000 jobs were lost during the month.

The total number of unemployed people decreased to 14.8 million during January. Teenagers saw the biggest unemployment rate, at 26.4 percent, followed by blacks at 16.5 percent, Hispanics at 12.6 percent, adult men at 10 percent, Whites at 8.7 percent, Asians at 8.4 percent and adult women at 7.9 percent.

Gulf War era II veterans had an unemployment rate of 12.6 percent, while non-veterans had a rate of 10.4 percent. People with a disability had a 15.2 percent unemployment rate, compared with 10.4 percent for those with no disability. Foreign-born people had an unemployment rate of 11.8 percent, while native-born people had a 10.3 percent rate.

The construction industry lost 75,000 jobs during January, with nonresidential specialty trade contractors losing 48,000 workers, accounting for the majority of the decline. Construction industry employment has declined by 1.9 million workers since December 2007.

Employment in transportation and warehousing decreased by 19,000 workers, mainly due to a 23,000 job loss among couriers and messengers.

After several months of severe declines, employment in the manufacturing industry only dropped by 11,000 workers, mainly because of 23,000 job gains in motor vehicles and parts, and 6,000 job gains in plastics and rubber products.

Temporary help services increased by 52,000 jobs, and has added 247,000 jobs since reaching a low point during September 2009. Retail trade employment increased by 42,000 jobs, mainly due to a 14,000 job gain among food stores, a 13,000 job gain among clothing stores and a 10,000 job gain among general merchandise retailers.

Employment in the federal government increased by 33,000 jobs, including 9,000 temporary positions for the 2010 Census. However, more jobs were lost in state and local governments. Healthcare employment also continued to increase, with ambulatory healthcare services adding 15,000 job over the month.

Labels: Job Search