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The outlook is promising for those searching for an auditor job.

An auditor is a type of accountant that verifies financial records. Auditors study a company or government’s accounting and bookkeeping methods to help them cut costs, save on taxes and increase profits, according to an article by StateUniversity.com.

You can work as an internal or external auditor, the difference being that external auditors work for public accounting firms or are self-employed, while internal auditors work for a specific company.

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According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployment in Illinois reached a 15 -year high during the final month of 2008. While the national average rose 2.2 percentage points from 6.8 percent to 7.2 percent, the state’s jobless rate went from 5.3 percent in November to 7.6 percent. This means that, due to greater competition, finding a job in Illinois will likely be more difficult for the time being. Only 8 other states and the District of Columbia had jobless rates that were significantly higher than the national average.

When compared to the rest of the country, Illinois saw the fourth largest month to month decline in employment. According to the state’s Department of Employment Security, businesses did way with approximately 36,000 jobs in Illinois. Altogether, the U.S. lost a total of 524,000 jobs in December.

The largest decline in jobs in Illinois during the month of December occurred in the construction industry. This sector saw the loss of 13,400 jobs, which goes to show that the credit problem and the housing market slump have yet to end their effect of the job market. Although this industry usually sees some decline during the holidays, the decreased demand for new building projects only served to make it much harder to find work of the sort. Illinois Department of Employment Security spokesperson Greg Rivara said that the industry has now seen four consecutive months of notable decline, which has caused a 10 percent drop in the number of jobs the sector provides.

Other areas of employment that saw a significant decline in the number of Illinois jobs they provide included trade, transport and manufacturing, according to Rivara. He says that this is a direct reflection of the nationally experience slowdown in the demand for many products. Since many people are now without work or are saving incase they are laid off, fewer people are spending money on unnecessary purchases. This in turn causes the need for workers to manufacture such goods to decline, which results in even less money being spend. It’s a vicious cycle that many experts don’t expect the country to fully recover from until sometime in 2011.

Several large companies that did away with a significant number of jobs in Illinois during December included: Home Depot Inc., General Motors Corp. and Caterpillar Inc. Caterpillar cut employment at their Mossville, Illinois engine assembly plant by 800 workers near the end of 2008. A spokesperson for the company recently announced that more layoffs are on the way. These job cuts are expected to be spread out throughout the company’s global operations and will result in an overall decline in employment by around 20,000 jobs.

Currently, unemployment offices across the state are experiencing a problem with jammed phone lines. So many individuals are trying to file new claims that many are struggling to get through. As a result, the Illinois Department of Employment Security is in the process of upgrading its automated telephone system in hopes of providing better service.

With money tight, many companies are looking for more effective ways to find the best workers. For many businesses looking to hire new employers, there isn’t the budget to spend on expense vacancy advertising measures as there was before the economy began to suffer. Because of this, highly efficient recruiting software is more popular that ever.

Hoping to be able to offer their clients a cost effective way to attract new truck drivers, Hightower Advertising Agency has recently designed new a new addition to its own recruiting software option.

Companies that utilize Hightower’s OPUS Suite will now have access to a new tool geared toward making recruiting new workers much easier. Before now the company has offered its clients the services of its AdManger and PhoneManager. Now a third product, WebManager, has been added to Hightower’s lists of services.

According to a recent press release, this new recruiting software tool handles online drive application immediately and allows the user to view credible and non-biased reports that can be tailored by the user. It also allows subscribers to evaluate each Website’s performance level, enabling the user to view the exact amount spent per hire through each particular Website.

By doing this, companies will be able to see just how effective each site they use really is. They can then chose which ones work best for them and discontinue use of those that do not perform. This stands to drastically increase the efficiency of HR departments and eliminate unnecessary costs.

“With WebManager, recruiters don’t waste time working unusable applications from unqualified drivers. Their time is spent much more efficiently, resulting in more time interviewing and hiring the best drivers. The bottom line is it saves our clients time and money,” said Hightower’s Chief Executive Officer Eddie Hightower. “The current economy has resulted in decreased business for the transportation industry. But companies are still hiring, and we expect the industry to take a positive turn soon. This product positions our clients and Hightower to be prepared as the industry improves,”

WebManager may have been developed with truck drivers in mind, by Hightower says that the program is extremely flexible. Because of this, it may be useful to any profession that does a lot of recruiting. Some of the businesses that are expected to benefit from the program include hospitals, nursing services and customer service providers.

With its headquarters in Madison, Hightower is considered one of the largest advertising agencies in Mississippi. For the last 18 years it has been working to help connect companies with experienced truck drivers and is considered an industry leader in this area of recruitment.

Pre employment tests are beginning soon for those interested in a job as a school bus driver.

Student Transportation of America, Ltd., is hosting an online job fair from February 1 to 22 to fill school bus driver positions in California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont and Ontario, Canada.

STA is one of the country’s largest school transportation providers. The online job fair is part of the company’s plan to continue growing. STA currently has more than 6,000 employees who operate more than 5,600 school vehicles, according to an article by Fox Business.

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Governor Timothy M. Kaine has announced that LASCO Bathware, Inc. will invest $1.7 million to expand in Halifax County — good news for Virginia jobs. The company, which will expand its manufacturing operation to include an additional line of upscale bathware marketed under their “Aquatic” label, will create 50 jobs and save an existing 280 jobs. Virginia successfully competed with Michigan, Texas and Washington for the project.

“I am thrilled that LASCO chose its Halifax County location for this expansion, retaining 280 jobs and adding an additional 50 positions,” Governor Kaine said. “It is also noteworthy that the average annual salary of these jobs will be above the prevailing wage for the region. The continuing success of this existing industry will have significant impact on the future economy of Halifax County.”

LASCO Bathware, Inc. is the largest manufacturer of bathing fixtures in the United States, producing nearly a fourth of bathing fixtures sold. LASCO, headquartered in Anaheim, California, began doing business in 1965.

“We are pleased to be moving forward with the expansion of our manufacturing operations in Virginia,” stated Gary Anderson, President of LASCO Bathware. “Ultimately, the track record at our existing Virginia facility of producing quality product and providing excellent service is what led us to choose this site for expansion over alternatives in other states. We owe our reputation for quality and service in large part to the talent of the workforce in Halifax County.”

The Virginia Economic Development Partnership worked with Halifax County and the Halifax County Industrial Development Authority to secure the project for Virginia. Governor Kaine approved $60,000 from the Governor’s Opportunity Fund to assist Halifax County with the project. The company is eligible to receive state benefits from the Virginia Enterprise Zone Program, administered by the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development. The Virginia Department of Business Assistance will provide training assistance through the Virginia Jobs Investment Program.|

The Virginia Tobacco Indemnification and Community Revitalization Commission approved $200,000 in Tobacco Region Opportunity Funds for the project. The Tobacco Commission has, as a significant part of its mission, the promotion of economic growth and development in tobacco-dependent communities. To date, the Commission has awarded 1,068 grants totaling more than $518.9 million across the tobacco region of the Commonwealth.

Chairman of the Halifax County Board of Supervisors William Fitzgerald said, “We are very proud to partner with LASCO Bathware in retaining important jobs in our community.Business retention is a critical element to surviving in a difficult economic downturn.Keeping our industries strong is a primary focus to continue moving Halifax County forward.”

Massachusetts-based Bose Corporation, which built its reputation creating high-performing audio products, announced that it will cut 1,000 jobs worldwide – ten percent of its workforce. The privately held company founded in 1964 by Dr. Amar G. Bose, would not reveal just how many Boston jobs would be lost in the downturn. According to the Boston Globe, the company issued a statement saying it was “restructuring its operations in response to the decline of the global economy, and its impact on consumer spending.”

Retailers are an important part of Bose Corporation’s customer base and with one of its top patrons, Circuit City announcing its certain closure of all 567 stores this month, the electronics industry has certainly been hit hard.

According to NPD figures, consumer electronics sales dipped 5.7 percent over the holidays.

As part of an effort to decrease one hospital’s budget by 7 percent an unknown number healthcare jobs in Chicago will be cut. The University of Chicago Hospital recently announced that it will be reducing its expenses by at least $100 million and restructuring several departments. This decision came about as a way to combat problems caused by economy, including an ever-growing number of unpaid Medicare bills the state has yet to handle for the city’s poor.

Although the total number of Chicago Jobs that will be axed are still unknown, hospital officials have state that 15 senior executives will be losing their positions. President-elect Barack Obama’s wife Michelle Obama previously held one of the jobs that will be eliminated. In 2005, she collected a salary of more $300,000 before she switched to part-time. After this, she continued to make $100,000 a year.

The responsibilities of many of the higher-level positions will be shifted to other workers. According to the Chicago Tribune, the duties that used to be handled by Michelle Obama will now fall to Dr. Eric Whitaker. Officials say that the staff changes will not cause a decline in patient care.

Many hospitals throughout the nation are finding themselves in similar situations. With unemployment on the rise throughout the nation, the number of patients with health insurance is falling, which means that many lack the ability to pay the bills they accrue.

Despite the announcement that the hospital needs to decrease its spending, officials say that their plans for expansion will continue to move forward. The $700 million hospital pavilion that has been scheduled to open in 2012 will not be affected.

This new addition is expected to span the two-block area located on East 57th Street, which is north of Comer Children’s Hospital and the Duchossois Center for Advanced Medicine in the neighborhood of Hyde Park. It will have 80 private rooms and 24 intensive-care beds on each of its three top floors. The number of jobs in Chicago this will create is unknown at the time.

Thanks to a multitude of social networking websites, companies no longer have to limit their online recruitment efforts. Instead of only being able to post job announcements on career sites and their own WebPages, businesses now have options that are more eye catching and more appealing to Generation Y.

One website that has begun to make a difference in online recruitment is Facebook. Companies are beginning to create their own pages that allow users to find out about available jobs. By doing this, friend’s of people who are already employees at the business in question and even users who have no connection find themselves with information about getting a new job.

Another thing that Facebook is now doing is allowing businesses to buy ad space to announce that they are hiring. This helps to recruit users from within a certain area fairly easily. All someone interested in finding work has to do is click the ad when it pops up and they will be able to get more information about available positions.

Social networking site Twitter is also beginning to play a role in the recruitment process. Employers can create their own accounts. Users then sign up to receive status updates from the company. Whoever is managing the account can then use it to send out job announcements directly to the cell phones of everyone who is subscribed to their feed.

Blogs have also begun to have a place in recruiting new employees. A HR manager can either create an account for the company and post jobs as they become available or they can send their announcements to other blogs that list available jobs from multiple employers.

For the most part, these new recruiting ideas are just beginning to play apart in the hiring process. With younger workers preferring to use the Internet when searching for a job, businesses will find that new options for attracting employees will continue to pop up.

Although many industries are suffering throughout the nation, medical jobs continue to be in abundance. In many areas, this is the only area of employment that continues to create new jobs while other businesses are constantly laying off workers. Because of the necessity of the services this sector supplies, this area of the job market never seems to have a shortage of available positions. What it does have, however, is a shortage of workers.

One of the major problems this sector is facing is finding people to fill all of the jobs in medicine that are currently vacant. Because of this, existing staff members often have to work longer shifts and are constantly being offered the opportunity for overtime. Job security and plenty of chances to earn extra money make this the perfect field for someone who wants to get ahead in this time of economic strife.

The shortage of professionals for jobs in healthcare isn’t expected to end any time soon. With the population growing and the elderly making up a larger portion of it, there always seems to be a need for new workers. To make matters worse, many of the baby-boomers who currently hold jobs in this industry will be retiring in the next few years. Add to this the fact that, for many positions, schools are unable to train enough new workers to put a dent into the staffing shortage and you have a hiring managers worst nightmare.

The lack of people to fill healthcare jobs is particularly significant for certain positions such as nursing and general surgeons. According to the Washington Post, only 972 new general surgeons were certified in America during 2008. That is only 18 more professional that became qualified than were certified in 1980, when only 945 received the go-ahead to begin practicing medicine. This is extremely troubling when one considers the growth rate of the U.S.’s population.

The Post went on to say that in 1994 there were 7.1 general surgeons in America for every 100,000. Now there are only five for every 100,000 citizens.

In an employment market that is already struggling, finding entry level jobs becomes even more difficult. For the most part, businesses are hiring fewer new workers than they usually would. In addition to this, they are receiving a record number of applications for an increasingly smaller number of positions. To make matters worse, many employers prefer experience and are, therefore, hiring workers who have been in the field for longer instead of new graduates who are trying to start out.

With the job market as it is, internships have become even more important. Graduates who have participated in one of these programs have a much large chance of finding work within the first six months, because they have both the degree and some experience in their field of choice. When faced with the choice between an applicant from a more prestigious college with no background in the industry and a job seeker from a lessor known academic facility who has participated in an internship program, the intern has a higher chance of being offered work.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, having a college degree is no longer enough to secure an entry level job. Unemployment amongst the portion of the population with at least a bachelors degree recently hit 3.1 percent, which is the highest it’s been since 2003. Since this data tends to be a lagging indicator, the Washington Post says that experts now believe that 4 percent of graduates are currently without work, which is the highest this figure has been since the Bureau began tracking such things in 1970.

Statistics like this only drive home the point that education and experience are both necessary to find an entry level job in today’s employment market. Thankfully there are still plenty of internship opportunities to be had. Anyone who is expecting to be finishing school in the near future should do their best to find one of these programs to participate in.

Would-be interns will be glad to know that they are not limited to only finding this sort of opportunity during the Summer. Many companies are now providing a variety of different programs. New options include such nontraditional internships as those offered in the off season, shorter internships and telecommute programs. There are also paid internships still out there to be had, although these may be more competitive than ever before.