In 2004, Connecticut’s healthcare industry employed more than 218,000 workers, 15.5 percent of total private employment within the state. From 1994 to 2004, the state’s healthcare industry created more than 34,000 jobs. According to an article by the Connecticut Department of Labor, the increase in the healthcare industry support the idea that both Connecticut and the nation as a whole have shifted from a goods producing economy to a service providing economy.

“The healthcare industry was one of the few industries that experienced significant employment growth throughout our most recent statewide recession (July 2000 to September 2003),” the article notes. “As the recession came to a close, the industry created over 8,000 new jobs, as the demand for services and the need to replace retirement-age healthcare workers increased.

“Looking towards the future, the Connecticut Department of Labor’s 2002-2012 industry forecast shows that the majority of new growth will stem from the state’s hospitals, nursing and residential care facilities, and social assistance industries,” the article adds.

As of 2008, 13.4 percent of Connecticut’s population consists of people 65-years and older, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, suggesting a significant portion of the state could require extensive medical care in the near future. Also, the Connecticut Hospital Association found 27,140 more patients were admitted in 2003 than 1994.

Connecticut’s healthcare occupations with the most annual openings include:

• registered nurses with 1,181 annual openings and an average annual salary of $57,283
• licensed practical and licensed vocational nurses with 208 annual openings and an average annual salary of $45,594
• pharmacists with 105 annual openings and an average annual salary of $80,392
• radiologic technologists and technicians with 100 annual openings and an average annual salary of $47,278
• dental hygienists with 88 annual openings and an average annual salary of $58,760
• physical therapists with 84 annual openings and an average annual salary of $66,269
• pharmacy technicians with 84 annual openings and an average annual salary of $26,416
• emergency medical technicians and paramedics with 68 annual openings and an average annual salary of $30,826
• dentists with 65 annual openings and an average annual salary of $131,810

Cardinal Health, a global healthcare provider based in Dublin, OH, has announced it will consolidate its businesses into two primary operating and reporting facilities in an effort to reduce costs and align resources. The changes, however, will result in job cuts for hundreds of employees, according to an article by Healthcare Finance News.

The company plans to cut 600 jobs, about 160 of which are currently open and will not be filled. Employees effected by the job losses will be offered severance benefits.
Healthcare Supply Chain Services will be comprised of the company’s network of pharmaceutical and medical product distribution centers and nuclear pharmacies. With an annual revenue of more than $80 billion, this segment serves customers in North America with distribution services for prescription medicine and medical products.

The Clinical and Medical Products segment will house the company’s products for infusion, medication dispensing, respiratory care and infection prevention. This segment brings in an annual revenue of $5 billion and serves global customers with clinically differentiated products used in hospitals and other primary care facilities.

“Through this restructuring, we sharpen our focus on two distinct, large and growing segments of the healthcare industry by aligning our resources, reducing costs and helping to speed decision making for our customers,” R. Kerry Clark, chairman and CEO of Cardinal Health said in the article.

“In many ways, these changes formalize the organization we began to put in place 18 months ago and will make us a stronger company that has a greater focus on both our supplier-customers and provider-customers, with a goal of creating more value for shareholders,” Clark added.
The company also plans to separately report results for Pharmacy Services, Tecomet, Medsystems and Medicine Shoppe International. The company says it plans to conduct a 12-month review of how these companies fit in the segment structure.

The State of Michigan recently announced it’s investing $6.5 million into the Michigan Nursing Corps, which will help expand nursing education and meet the growing demand for medical care providers by providing Michigan citizens with well-paying jobs.

“Michigan needs more nurses to meet our immediate and developing health care needs,” Governor Jennifer M. Granholm said in a State of Michigan article. “And we need a thriving health care sector that provides our citizens with good-paying jobs. Our Michigan Nursing Corps is making sure we achieve both of these important goals.”

The Michigan Nursing Corp was created to help rapidly produce nursing educators so schools can admit more nursing students and reduce waiting periods. In 2007, 4,400 people were turned away from Michigan nursing programs because of a lack of space.

“So each of these strategies will help move nurses into the workforce quicker,” Granholm added in the article. “It’s all a part of our No Worker Left Behind initiative that is training workers for jobs that exist in the 21st century economy.

The funding is expected to help such institutions as: Saginaw Valley State, Oakland, Wayne State, Northern Michigan and Detroit Mercy Universities and Oakland Community College.

Many hospitals in Michigan are currently hiring Canadian nurses because they can’t find enough qualified workers in Michigan. By 2010 it is expected the state will lack 7,000 registered nurses, and that number is projected to increase to 18,000 by 2015. It is estimated the funding will result in 42,000 more nursing jobs throughout the next five years.

According to the United States Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics, Michigan employed 606,100 people in the education and health services industry in July 2008, an increase of 1.8 percent from last year.

While the rest of the country is suffering from the cost of oil and gas, Houston has been able to stay stable because of the strength of its economy and the rising price of energy.

In July, Texas ranked No.1 on CNBC’s 2008 list of America’s Top States For Business, surpassing Virginia for the first time. Texas also has 58 Fortune 500 companies, the most in the country, topping New York.

According to U.S. News & World Report, Houston has the second-most entry level jobs for recent college graduates, with more than 2,500 jobs, coming in second to New York’s 3,600 jobs.

According to an article by KPRC Local 2, the top entry level jobs in Houston are engineers, nursing occupations and hotel positions.

“People know they can come to Texas,” Governor Rick Perry said in the article. “They can risk their capital and the chance of having a good return on an investment, it’s pretty good.”

The natural gas industry has fueled many jobs in Texas and Houston, and the labor market as a whole is continuing to grow. According to an article by the Texas Workforce Commission, the Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown area employed a total of 2,619,300 people in June 2008, a 2.1 percent increase from last year.

The area added a total of 13,200 jobs during the month, surpassing the five-year average growth for June by more than 5,000 jobs. Of all the industries in the Houston area:

• education and health services showed no growth as seasonal losses in education offset employment gains in health services
• professional and business services reported a small monthly gain, while annually there was an increase of 2.2 percent or 8,500 jobs
• leisure and hospitality increased slightly over the year and added 4,400 jobs for the month
• retail trade added 3,300 jobs, with clothing and clothing accessories as the major contributor
• wholesale trade added 1,000 jobs, mainly due to a 70-percent growth by merchant wholesalers and durable goods
• and the industry grew by 2.6 percent, or 3,500 jobs, from last year

So how can a company implement recruiting software into its everyday human resources practices? According to an HR Management article, the first step is to figure out who you want working for your company.

“All too often, companies set out on an executive search without even realizing what they’re looking for,” the article states. “Don’t make this mistake. Outline a list of metrics that pinpoint the skills and qualifications needed, and match those up to applicants recruited. Software that is specialized in the recruitment process is ideal for helping you to effectively identify the ideal job candidate.”

Once a model has been established, the real recruiting process can begin, and many companies are taking the next step to the Internet. This can be fundamental in finding the right talent as an increasing number of potential employees seek jobs using online services. Also, high-tech companies will be likely to find more potential employees online.

A lot of recruiting software allows companies to integrate online job portals so potential employees can have their information instantly processed by the software. The Internet can be used to establish an applicant portal on the company’s Web site and to search job sites.

“Especially in larger enterprises where the corporation is inundated with employment applications, having an efficient software solution that can sit between your website and your human resources database is the most effective strategy,” the article states.

Companies may want to consider using multiple resources, such as recruiters and headhunters, to make their employee search more effective. Just as important as the way the company finds new employees is the way the company views and markets itself.

“While these active pursuit techniques are crucial to any successful employee recruiting effort, it should also be noted that the company must make sure to brand itself as a good place to work,” the article adds. “In addition to managing the workforce in such a way that positive word-of-mouth employee referral spreads, a company should launch an extensive PR campaign in order to brand the organization as, simply, the best.”

According to an article from the Illinois Department of Employment Security, overall employment in the agricultural production industry is expected to continue to decline through 2014.

“The trend toward larger farms and more technological advances will limit the job opportunities to the point that almost all job openings will be due to the need to replace workers,” the article states. “However, employment in agribusiness and in the natural resource sector is expected to moderately increase. Many job openings will be in the landscaping and grounds maintenance sector, as the public is demanding these services to free up time for other activities and many older people are physically unable to perform these duties.”

It is expected job prospects in Illinois will be best for agricultural workers employed by nurseries and greenhouses. Employment of agricultural managers, especially in livestock, is projected to rise, but more slowly than the average for all occupations. Applicants with required education also should be able to find ample opportunities given the limited supply of people pursuing careers in this field.

Possible careers in the agricultural production industry include:

• farmers with 458 annual openings and a median salary of $44,130
• landscaping and groundskeeping workers with 1,654 annual openings and a median salary of $21,225
• sales reps for wholesale and manufacturing and technical and scientific products with 670 annual openings and a median salary of $57,486
• farmworkers and laborers with 343 annual openings and a median salary of $20,510
• first-line supervisors landscaping, lawn service and groundskeeping workers with 161 annual openings and a median salary of $35,153
• farm, ranch and other agricultural managers with 92 annual openings and a median salary of $54,727
• non-farm animal caretakers with 150 annual openings and a median salary of $18,170
• veterinarians with 80 annual openings and a median salary of $65,431
• veterinary technologists and technicians with 65 annual openings and a median salary of $25,972
• farmworkers with 30 annual openings and a median salary of $16,492
• agricultural and food service technicians with 16 annual openings and a median salary of $32,912

So while other Illinois jobs are on a strong and steady path, a career in agriculture could soon be hard to find.

That being said, the discussed change in pay may possibly cause DC teachers to lose their tenure. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee believes that the best way to fix the metro’s floundering education system is by increasing teacher accountability. She believes that the current seniority system protects ineffective educators from being fired.

Instead of simply increasing a teacher’s salary in relationship to the number of years experienced they have in education, Rhee wants to create a direct correlation between the amount of money an educator receives and their results in the classroom. For the most part Washington Teachers’ Union officials have been resistant towards the idea due to the fact that there too many outside influences that factor into a student’s success in the classroom. Because of this and several other concerns, Union leaders have said that the proposal is still considered a work in progress, not a tentative agreement.

Currently there are two separate payment plans on the table that teachers would be able to chose from. The first of these scenarios would increase educators’ pay by 28 percent over the next five years. Teachers would also receive two $5,000 “reform stipends” each in 2009 and 2010 for being willing to work during the transitional period. Under this plan, an educator with a bachelor’s degree and 10 years of experience would go from making $56,000 to $73,800 after bonuses by 2012. Teachers who have been working the same amount of time, but have masters’ degrees would make somewhere around $84,400.

The second option would entitle educators to a 20 percent pay increase over the next five years, the reform stipends and annual performance bonuses of up to $20,000. The criteria to receive these bonuses is still being discussed.

Educators who accepted this offer may stand to make as much as $122,500, but they would also be taking a greater risk. Scenario number two requires current teachers to spend a year on probation and those new to the system are expected to spend as many as four years under that status.

According to a Privacy Rights Clearinghouse article by Donald Carrington Davis, social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook have changed the way Americans socialize.

“Employers have begun to tap into these online communities as a simple and inexpensive way to perform background checks on candidates,” he states. “However, a number of problems arise when employers base adverse employment decisions upon information obtained through these online searches.”

Davis says profile searches can lead to unfair employment decisions because of inaccurate, irrelevant or false information. There also is a lack of accountability when searching these sites, tempting employers to make illegal hiring decisions, and employer searches of online sites can violate a potential employee’s right to privacy.

Some people think because of the potential risk involved for employers and potential employees, the Fair Credit Reporting Act should be expanded to ensure fairness when employers search social networking sites.

“Because searches of online social networking services, such as MySpace and Facebook, only stand to become more prevalent among employers, the law must expand to ensure adequate protection to users of these Web sites from unfair, illegal or arbitrary employment decisions,” Davis notes. “Employers also stand to gain from such an expansion of legal protections because they will be accountable to make good employment decisions.”

The Fair Credit Reporting Act is an American federal law that regulates the collection, dissemination and use of consumer credit information. If a consumer report is a factor in an adverse hiring decision, the consumer must be given a pre-adverse action disclosure, a copy of the Fair Credit Reporting Act summary of rights and a notification of adverse action letter. Consumer also are entitled to know the source of any information used against them, including a credit reporting company.

“Lawmakers and policymakers must begin to reconsider the traditional physical conceptions of privacy (i.e., thinking about privacy within physical boundaries, such as a home or an automobile) in order to meet the demands of the members of this new techsavvy generation that have proven much more apt to share and communicate in the world wide web than their ancestors,” Davis adds. “In a world where maintaining absolute discretion in every aspect of one’s life seems both impossible and impractical, Congress must begin to respond by adopting reasonable privacy protection measures. These measures should conform to the modern concept of an employee’s expectation of privacy—an expectation that is as strong as ever—but now with virtual boundaries rather than purely physical ones.”

Although retailers as a whole are suffering, certain areas of the industry aren’t feeling the backlash of consumers’ belt tightening as strongly as others. Those that deal in discount merchandise and goods necessary to daily life continue to stay above water, making these employers the first places someone looking for a Baltimore job in retail should go.

One such employer is retailer A.J. Wright, which will open the doors to it’s newest location near downtown Baltimore on August 7th. The company deals in apparel and footwear, home fashions and other merchandise at an up to 70 percent discount, which gives the store an extra appeal to today’s money conscious shopper. Aside from bringing reasonably priced goods to the area, A.J. Wright will also create 50 new jobs in Baltimore with the opening of it’s newest store.

The store, which is offering a variety of incentives to entice residents to stop by on opening day, will go into business as of 9 am on Thursday, August 7th. If consumers take to the store there is a chance that they may see the need to up the number of individuals they employee.

Despite conscious consumers and unstable economic conditions, Maryland’s unemployment rate held steady in June at 4 percent, which is below the nationally average. According to state Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation, the seasonally adjusted work force decreased by approximately 3,000 from May to June. The number of people employed also shrunk by around 5,000 during the same period of time. Those claiming unemployment benefits increased by about 1,900.

In 2007, 9.5 percent of the individuals screen for work related purposed by Kroll had a criminal conviction in their past. This figure is up four-tenths of a percentage point since the previous year and a full percent since 2005 when only 8.5 percent of applicants had been found guilty of committing a crime.

President of Kroll’s Background Screening division, Michael Rosen says that “background screening is as important as ever, as evidenced by the trifecta effect of 1) the U.S. job market becoming more competitive for positions, 2) a need to fill positions as quickly as possible, and 3) an increasing trend in criminal hit ratios.”

The industries that had background checks with the highest occurrence of criminal activity included construction, automotive, and retail. Education was found to the lowest, possibly because more individuals in these professions expect to have to undergo pre-employment screening. This may deter those with tarnished records from even applying for such positions.

The report also found that the occurrence of “red flags” on the food services industry’s background checks went from 12.1 percent in 2006 to 13.4 percent last year. The manufacturing industry also jumped significantly, going from 11.6 percent to 12.6 percent.

All of these increases were potentially effected by the fact that employers are now screening candidates for a larger number of positions and conducting background checks into the pasts of temporary employees, vendors and consultants. Employers are also conducting background checks that are more thorough than ever before.

There was also a rise in the number of multi-jurisdictional background checks conducted. As companies branch out further in search of the best workers, the complexity of pre-employment screening intensifies. According to Rosen, “it is now common for a job applicant to have been raised in Japan, educated in the UK and now seeking employment in the U.S.”

Kroll handles both domestic and international background checks along with executive-level screening, drug screening, and physical exams.