Department of Labor offers some ideas

So call the press folks if you still have questions. It is, after all, why they get paid. And tell me what you think about the much-touted site.

Contact Name: Jennifer Coxe or Otto Heck
Phone Number: (202) 693-4676
Release Number: 08-1540-NAT

U.S. Labor Department economic resources on-line for workers
www.EconomicRecovery.gov is gateway for information and assistance

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Labor announced its participation in a one-stop Web tool offering a number of resources to assist those negatively impacted by the recent turmoil in the worldwide economy.

“We want to make information easily accessible and quickly available to American workers affected by the economic downturn,” said Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao. “The new www.EconomicRecovery.gov one-stop Web page gives workers easy access to Department of Labor resources including unemployment insurance, local job openings and retirement security information as well as help available at other government agencies.”

Affected workers and employers are encouraged to visit the federal government’s Economic Recovery Web site at http://www.EconomicRecovery.gov. Useful information and links will assist Americans with questions about benefits, eligibility, locations of operating One-Stop Career Centers and career service centers, unemployment insurance information by state, and available assistance from other government departments and agencies.

Workers can call the department’s toll-free number at 866-4-USA-DOL (487-2365) to obtain the latest information on where to file a claim and access temporary job information. Impacted workers can place their calls from anywhere and will be directed to sites near them that can take their claims.

The kinds of records that shouldn’t be broken

Jobless claims jump unexpectedly to 16-year high
November 20, 2008
FROM THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — New claims for unemployment benefits jumped last week to a 16-year high, the Labor Department said Thursday, providing more evidence of a rapidly weakening job market expected to get even worse next year.

The government said new applications for jobless benefits rose to a seasonally adjusted 542,000 from a downwardly revised figure of 515,000 in the previous week. That’s much higher than Wall Street economists’ expectations of 505,000, according to a survey by Thomson Reuters.

That is also the highest level of claims since July 1992, the department said, when the U.S. economy was coming out of a recession.

The four-week average of claims, which smooths out fluctuations, was even worse: it rose to 506,500, the highest in more than 25 years.

In addition, the number of people continuing to claim unemployment insurance rose sharply for the third straight week to more than 4 million, the highest since December 1982, when the economy was in a painful recession.

Dodging the Pink Slip Club in the Star-Ledger Mailroom

Buyout-Depleted ‘Star-Ledger’ Reassigns Two Journos — To Mailroom 
By Joe Strupp 
Published: November 19, 2008 10:55 AM ET 

NEW YORK When a newspaper cuts its staff, those who remain in the depleted newsroom become valuable. But as The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J. slowly says farewell to 151 newsroom folks who took buyouts last month, at least two longtime journalists have been reassigned to the mailroom.

Reporter Jason Jett and Assistant Deputy Photo Editor Mitchell Seidel have been filing, sorting, and delivering mail for more than a week, according to sources.

Jett and Seidel, who could not be reached for comment, apparently declined to take one of the buyouts offered this fall as part of a companywide move to cut costs.

Read more here. On the one hand, the mailroom’s a job. With benefits. On the other hand, the mailroom’s the entry point to a company, when, in days long gone, one could get a foot in the door and then move up.

Pink Slip Club: Even a Pulitzer can’t guarantee a reporting job

From The Reader’s Michael Miner in a post here:

On Wednesday the Tribune’s editor, Gerould Kern, and associate managing editor for national news Joycelyn Winnecke dropped in on the Washington bureau and laid (John) Crewdson off. They also laid off national correspondents Bay Fang and Stephen Hedges, national security correspondent Aamer Madhani, and, I’m told, a fifth Washington staffer who worked part-time.

At the same time, I hear, eight Washington staffers from the Los Angeles Times lost their jobs too.

As Chicago’s own Barack Obama prepares to move into the White House, Tribune journalistic talent is in increasingly short supply in Washington. Bureau chief Michael Tackett resigned last summer, and acting chief Naftali Bendavid quit the other day and is heading to the Wall Street Journal. Last week the Tribune Company appointedCissy Baker vice president of a consolidated Washington bureau serving the Tribune,the LA Times, and the rest of the company’s newspaper, broadcasting, and new media operations. Since 2003 she’d been a vice president of Tribune Broadcasting.

Crewdson won a Pulitzer in 1981 for his reporting while at The New York Times on illegal immigration. Hurry up and read his DC stuff for the Tribune here before they take it down.

Job losses looming

Mayor Daley said Wednesday he’s been warned by a parade of corporate CEOs that a blizzard of job cuts are about to bury the souring Chicago economy.

“Huge layoffs are coming in November and December. And next year, there’s going to be [even more] huge layoffs. All the corporation CEOs have come in to tell me. That’s just the beginning. It’s not their end result,” Daley told reporters after a City Council meeting.

Read the rest here in the Sun Times.

Ugh.

New jobs in the White House

Recently reemployed: Barack Obama.

Pay raise, better digs all company funded, impressive title. 

But a lot more responsibility.