Business Pundit

Is 2009 the year of the layoff? According to the recent employment figures, in December 2008 alone more than 500,000 U.S. workers lost their jobs. That number is almost 2 million for the last four months of the year. If the trend continues, you… Read more

The AFP reports on Australia’s attempt to pull in tourists by offering “the best job in the world”: An Australian state has launched a global search for candidates for “the best job in the world” — earning a top salary for lazing around a… Read more

Spiegel describes an unusual attempt at government job creatio: A Berlin politician has come under fire for suggesting that poor people should be encouraged to catch rats by offering them €1 per dead rodent. There’s something Dickensian… Read more

The Wall Street Journal has good tips on how to respond to lowball job offers, which are a trend in the bad economy: Rather than immediately reject or accept a lowball deal, you should mount a careful counterattack, experts recommend…. Read more

Switching jobs more frequently has become more accepted, but is it good for your career in the long term? Job hopping has benefits, especially in the short term, but the long term consequences could go either way. How Often Do You Hop? According… Read more

I wish there were more layoff trackers like this one from TechCrunch. Bad news comes in every day, but it’s hard to get a sense for the layoff situation as a whole. I am really curious as to what people who have been through layoffs are… Read more

Like a Vegas casino, many of this week’s jobs are hard to navigate. Most–like a Vegas casino–are also located in Vegas. See how many of the first four gigs from this list you can actually comprehend: 1. Las Vegas: I need a animal to market… Read more

The other night I had some extra time for Donny Deutsch. How I love that guy… Anyway, his guest was a woman who had spent over two decades working for herself in real estate. She’d been doing alright until recently. Now she’s looking at… Read more

Laurence Shatkin, Ph.D., recently released a new book entitled 150 Best Low-Stress Jobs, which helps people with different personalities find low-stress jobs matching their temperaments, interests, and skill sets. Shatkin (quoted from Yahoo)… Read more

When I was a a kid, we didn’t have the stringent child labor laws we do today. In grade school I worked the strawberry fields and in high school I graduated up to the raspberry farm, where I got to interact with actual machinery. There’s a lot to… Read more

Sports contracts over the years have gotten so extreme that they make even wealthy people envious. It wasn’t always like this, this era of contracts started in the late 80’s with Kirby Puckett being the first player to receive a $3 million dollar… Read more

Psychology Today has a must-read article on the mental health crisis affecting China’s youth. The problem has its roots in Mao-era parents who, after giving up on their own dreams of transcending the working class, put all of their energy… Read more

Here are certain jobs that nobody dreams of doing when they grow up. “Somebody’s gotta do it”, but that doesn’t stop people from praying that “someone” won’t be them. What’s surprising, however, is how much money some of these stigmatized jobs… Read more