Conference Board News Release (07/09/12)

The Conference Board Employment Trends Index dipped to 107.47 in June, down from the revised figure of 108.23 in May. The June figure is 5.6% higher than a year ago. The drop was driven by negative contributions from four of the eight components. The declining indicators were percentage of firms with positions not able to fill right now; ratio of involuntarily part-time to all part-time workers; initial claims for unemployment insurance; and percentage of respondents who say they find “jobs hard to get.”

“The Employment Trends Index has been flat since February, suggesting that slow employment growth is likely to continue through the summer,” says Gad Levanon, director of macroeconomic research at the Conference Board. “Since there is little hope of acceleration in the pace of economic activity any time soon, these weak labor market conditions are likely to persist for the coming months.”

Sacramento Bee (07/09/12)

Freelancer.com, the largest outsourcing and crowdsourcing marketplace in the world, has acquired Toronto-based Scriptlance, boosting its users to more than four million worldwide. Scriptlance is the fifth-biggest freelance marketplace in the world and the largest in Canada, with more than 360,000 enterprise and professional users.