MarketWatch (03/21/12)

A nationwide survey from ASA corporate partner CareerBuilder provides encouraging news and tips from employers to help unemployed workers land new jobs. The vast majority of employers—85%—reported they are more understanding of post-recession employment gaps. Some 94% said they wouldn’t think less of a candidate who took a position during the recession that was at a lower level than the one he or she previously held.

When asked what can help job seekers increase their marketability, employers stated they should pursue a variety of activities to build, expand, and strengthen their skill sets, such as take a temporary or contract assignment (79%), take a class (61%), or volunteer (60%).

The City Wire (03/20/12) Scarlet Sims

As the economy slowly recovers, the number of traveling nurses is rising, says Becky Kahn, senior vice president of client sales and services at AMN Healthcare. In 2008, there were 25,000 traveling nurses, but that number dropped dramatically to 4,500 in 2009, Kahn says. Currently there are between 9,000 and 10,000 traveling nurses. Some nurses are leaving the traveling nurse industry for permanent jobs, and hospitals are reducing the number of temporary nurses they use, Kahn says.

The Atlantic Cities (03/19/21) Richard Florida

Austin, TX, and San Jose, CA, led U.S. cities in job growth in 2011, according to an analysis of data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Houston, Charlotte, NC, and Nashville, TN, round out the top five. The cities with the biggest gains are a mixture of knowledge-driven and creative regions (Austin, TX, San Jose, CA, and Raleigh, NC); regions with significant natural resources (Houston and Oklahoma City); transitioning industrial regions (Detroit and Pittsburgh); and the country’s leading center for popular music, Nashville, TN. Despite their reputations for resilience, the Washington metro region and the greater New York area ranked just 29th and 25th, respectively. The analysis covers the 51 U.S. metro areas with populations of at least one million people.

USA Today (03/20/12) Gregg Zoroya

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that 30% of male veterans between the ages of 18 and 24 were unemployed in 2011, versus 17.6% of their civilian peers, while 36% of female veterans in the same age group were out of work, versus 14.5% of civilian women. Experts say it is a challenge to train veterans in nonmilitary skills, but an Obama administration initiative that includes tax credits for employers, corporate hiring pledges, and job fairs is helping to lower unemployment rates among veterans. According to a January survey by the Society for Human Resource Management, companies hiring veterans rose to 64% from 53% in 2010.

However, 154,000 veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were unemployed in February, and the number is expected to rise as the military sheds troops now that the conflict in Afghanistan is coming to an end. Michael Aitkin, a vice president at SHRM, says companies are “getting buffeted by a lot of résumés from (nonveteran) folks that are unemployed, that have the skills and everything else.” He says aggressive outreach is necessary, given that 67% of employers say they are unaware of programs by the U.S. Department of Labor to link veterans with jobs and that 20% of those familiar with the programs do not use them. Experts say initiatives to link veterans with jobs may be most successful at the community level.