Lotus Partners Blog

New goverment report on job figures came out this morning.  There are several Wall Street Journal articles today reflecting on this new data.  Here are the links and some excerpts -

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Recession Jobs Losses Top 5 Million

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123876121625986405.html

Unemployed Lose Fallback Options

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123870904496284141.html

Some Employers See Hiring Opportunity

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123698758917225799.html

The U.S. continued to shed jobs at an unrelenting clip in March, pushing total losses since the recession started 16 months ago past five million.
 
The figures, which included another sharp rise in the unemployment rate to a 25-year high, are a sober reality check on the economy after some mildly encouraging news on housing, automobiles and manufacturing.
 

January’s decline (741,000) is the third-largest on record. However, the other two — a 834,000 decline in 1949 and a nearly two million plunge in 1945 — were driven by one-time events including a large coal and steel strike and by the end of World War II.

The economy has shed 5.1 million jobs since the recession started in December 2007, with over two million of those losses occurring in the last three months alone.

Layoff announcements continued last month across sectors that included: United Technologies Corp.; General Dynamics Corp.; National Semiconductor Corp.; and Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

The unemployment rate, which is calculated by using a survey of households as opposed to companies, jumped 0.4 percentage point to 8.5%, the highest since November 1983.

In its latest report on the U.S. economy, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said it expects the jobless rate to reach 10.5% by the end of next year.

By broader measures, the labor market is already there, and then some. When marginally attached and involuntary part-time workers are included, the rate of unemployed or underemployed workers hit 15.6% last month, up from 14.8% in February and more than six percentage points higher than it was one year ago.  That underscores how many people are searching for work or merely settling for something less than satisfactory.

The unemployed are also staying idled much longer. According to Friday’s report, the number of people unemployed 27 weeks or more climbed 265,000 to 3.2 million, or almost one-in-four of the total. That’s the highest ratio since 1983.

The growing ranks of unemployed Americans are turning to the traditional fallbacks — retail, restaurants, customer service — to ride out a rough economy. The bad news is job openings there are growing scarce, too.

Despite what objectives they may have put atop their resumes, when asked to describe the work they really wanted, the job seekers largely had the same goal: “I’ll take anything right now.”

In many cases, that desperation means that even educated workers must trade down to jobs below their potential and with lower pay. That results in painful, long-term effects, from hurting their own career advancement to displacing those with less education or experience.

Employment is down in every industry except health care, education and government.

Savannah Red restaurant in Charlotte, N.C., received nearly 200 applications for a part-time server job that, six months ago, drew only five applicants.

Cancer Treatment Centers of America Inc. received 19,000 applicants for 100 jobs at a new hospital near Phoenix, opened in December.

Even though the recession is bad for business, it can be good for those who are hiring.   Strategically hiring skilled, productive employees can help employers boost efficiency and save money. 

A recent posting for a New York City store manager drew 700 applications in two days. A listing for a human-resources manager drew more than 100 applications in 24 hours.

But hiring in a downturn can be tricky. Job seekers are not only more numerous but more desperate, hiring managers say. Weeding through hundreds of resumes is time consuming, and mistakes can be costly. Some employers are trying to screen out applicants who are merely seeking a paycheck until the economy recovers.

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These words are a great reality check and set the foundation on how to move forward.

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Yesterday’s WSJ had a good article on star performers - “The Myth of the Lone Star: Why One Top Performer May Not Shine as Brightly as You Hope”

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123740508141175095.html#articleTabs%3Darticle

 

If you’re in that great position to be thinking about using this downturn as an opportunity to recruit some star performers, you should definitely read this article.  To cut to the chase -

* The more stars you have, the better they will perform, and the more likely they are to stick around.

* Make sure you have top people in different functions throughout the firm, not clustered in a single function.

* Hiring, developing, motivating and retaining good people remains the best security any company can hope for, especially in tough times.

 

There is another related MIT Sloan Management Review article that’s also worth reading - “Getting the Right People at the Top”

http://sloanreview.mit.edu/the-magazine/articles/2005/summer/46412/getting-the-right-people-at-the-top/

 

Happy reading!

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This picture was the on front page of WSJ yesterday (2/3/09).  The title was “Sign of the Times: A Thousand Line Up for 35 Jobs in Miami.”  The caption was “Gloomy Prospects: People began lining up Saturday to apply for Miami firefighter jobs Monday.  Consumer spending fell in December for the fifth month in a row, and a Federal Reserve survey finds banks are keeping a tight grip on lending.”

Need I say more?

(ps.  An example of great photo journalism work. )

Announcements firefighter jobs, Getty Images, image, job search, jobs, Joe Raedle, long line, miami, photo, picture, sign of the times, unemployment, Wall Street Journal

I just highly recommend this article in last weekend’s New York Times Magazine, The Big Fix (What can Obama do to transform an economy that can no longer count on Wall Street or Silicon Valley?), by David Leonhardt -
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/01/magazine/01Economy-t.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

It’s a very sightful article and it triggered me to think about a few things specifically relate to Lotus Partners’ work and my personal beliefs -

• What tomorrow’s economy will look like depends on how today’s education system produces. A quote from this article, “Education may not be as tangible as green jobs. But it helps a society leverage every other investment it makes, be it in medicine, transportation or alternative energy.“
• In the section, “A Matter of Norms”, in this article, the author talked about “The norms of the last two decades or so - consume before invest; worry about the short term, not the long term - have been more than just a reflection of the economy. They have also affected the economy.” We should do our part to not accept “norms” in our society that we know are not healthy and don’t make sense. Better yet, start establish new “norms” are make sense and have long lasting values.
• David Leonhardt said this about Green Jobs - “Like so much in the economy, our energy policy has been geared toward the short term. Inexpensive energy made daily life easier and less expensive for all of us. Building a green economy, on the other hand, will require some sacrifice. In the end, that sacrifice should pay a handsome return in the form of icecaps that don’t melt and droughts that don’t happen - events with costs of their own. … But all those benefits will come later. The costs will come sooner, which is a big reason we do not already have a green economy - or an investment economy.”

Let’s now ask ourselves - Are we going to stay in the status quo and the comfort of current “norms” - being fearful of short term costs?

I know my answer - let’s challenge the accepted “norms” from the past that have taken us to this dismal state of ecosystem and economy. Let’s rebuild a new economic foundation that’s based on long term thinking to take us on a healthy and sustainable growth.

Announcements david leonhardt, economy, education, green jobs, new york times, the big fix

This evening I went to a talk by Mario Livio (author of The Golden Ratio and Is God a Mathematician?).  I walked away with this awesome quote by Bertand Russell -

Philosophy is to be studied, not for the sake of any definite answers to its questions since no definite answers can, as a rule, be known to be true, but rather for the sake of the questions themselves; because these questions enlarge our conception of what is possible, enrich our intellectual imagination and diminish the dogmatic assurance which closes the mind against speculation; but above all because, through the greatness of the universe which philosophy contemplates, the mind also is rendered great, and becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes its highest good.

Announcements general, mario livio, math, philosophy, talk

“The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act - not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth.”President Obama’s inauguration speech, ‘09. 

 

Welcome to Lotus Partners.  We founded Lotus Partners with deepest commitment, crystal clear vision, and greatest passion in doing our part to build the New Economy, a sustainable Green Economy, in the face of a global financial breakdown.  

We have laser sharp focus to work with our clients to maximize Green Economy’s triple bottom line - People, Planet, and Profit.  We look forward to being your partner to embark on the Green Journey to Prosperity.

Be Green and Thrive!

Announcements economy, gree jobs, green economy, lotus partners, triple bottom line