State and local governments have expanded their payrolls and added 110,000 jobs whereas the private sector has cut 6.9 million jobs since the start of the recession, according to a report issued Thursday by the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government.

This report was based on an analysis of federal jobs data, found out that state and local governments steadily added jobs for eight months after the recession started in December 2007, with their employment peaking last August. They have since lost 55,000 jobs, but from the commencement of the recession till last month they added a net of 110,000 jobs, the report revealed, partially due to the federal stimulus program.

Government jobs are always more stable as compared to the private sector jobs during downturns, but their ability to acclimate the current deep recession startled Donald J. Boyd, the senior fellow at the institute who wrote the report.

“I am a little surprised at the fact that state and local government has remained as stable as it has in the nation as a whole, given the depth of the current recession,” Mr. Boyd stated in an interview. The report suggested several possible explanations for the difference between the private and public sectors. It noted that there can be a short lag between an economic downturn and the time it hits states in the form of lower tax collections, and an even longer delay before the problems hit local governments in the form of reduced state aid and lower property tax collections.

It pointed to the slow moving of decision-making in many states, and the power yielded by politically influential unions. On the contrary, it also noted that the demand for many government services increases in a recession, and stated that billions of dollars of federal stimulus money sent to states assisted them avert layoffs.

The expansion, coming as many states and localities are raising taxes, troubled Tad DeHaven, a budget analyst for the Cato Institute, a libertarian research group in Washington. “That is disturbing,” Mr. DeHaven stated. “Basically what you have is your producers in society losing their jobs and looking for work, and their tax burden isn’t necessarily going down — and as a matter of fact they are likely to face tax increases going forward — and government growing.”

States are likely to shed more jobs this year. Many have already inflicted furloughs on their workers, reducing their pay, and with states facing record decrease in tax collections, several are planning to cut their work forces. The report noted that some hard-hit states had already made deep cuts, led by Arizona, which shed its state government employment by 8.6 percent starting from the spring of 2008 to this spring.

The difference between the public and private sector job market is hitting in places like Boise, Idaho. Since the recession initiated, the area’s unemployment rate has more than doubled, to over 10.1 percent in June, as big employers, especially in the technology sector, laid off workers. The Boise area only, lost 20,000 jobs in the year ending in June, the Idaho Labour Department stated, and noticed real additions only in government, which had an increase of 1,400 jobs, majorly in the public schools.

Jon Hanian, a spokesman for Gov. C. L. Otter, a Republican in his first term, said employment in state government other than education were declining. The new state budget, which took effect last month, cuts agencies across the board by 5 percent, Mr. Hanian stated, but let these agencies decide whether to inflict furloughs, cut wages or terminate positions.

Kerry Korpi, the director of the research and collective bargaining department at the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, a union representing government employees, said the public sector often dawdled behind the economy in both downturns and recoveries. Ms. Korpi said that an increasing number of government jobs were being terminated now, and that many government workers had been coerced to take pay cuts and pay more for benefits. And she noted that government workers were providing services that are required in a downturn.

“At a time like this,” she said, “it’s really hard to lay people off at your unemployment office or your food stamp office, where they’re having trouble keeping up with what they’ve got.”

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal research group in Washington, recently reported that 30 states had increased taxes since January, and that at least 40 states were furloughing workers or terminating jobs through attrition or layoffs. Many are cutting vital services, the center said.

“Crunch time is still to come for the states,” stated Jon Shure, the deputy director of the center’s state fiscal project.

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A call for 1,350 employees to assembly lines by General Motors on Tuesday in order to boost production to meet surging requirements for fuel-efficient vehicles.

Five weeks after raising from bankruptcy protection, GM said that it would increase production at several North America assembly plants, by doing overtime, adding shifts, and cancelling scheduled plant shutdowns.

The Detroit, Michigan-based automaker stated that it would add about 60,000 vehicles in the third and mainly the fourth quarter production forecast, “ensuring a wide selection of high-quality, fuel-efficient cars, crossovers and trucks for customers.”

Production shifts will be added to its plants in Lords town, Ohio, and at CAMI Automotive Inc., a joint venture with Suzuki Motor Corporation headquartered in Ontario, Canada.

The extra shifts will add on the number of employees represented by the United Auto Workers and Canadian Auto Workers unions.“This will bring approximately 1,350 UAW and CAW employees back to the assembly lines,” stated GM, the former world leader in auto manufacturing that is presently 60 percent owned by the US government.

GM stated that the government’s popular “cash-for-clunkers” program of sales incentives had produced substantial requirement in July and August for a broad range of its fuel-efficient vehicles.

The “cash-for-clunkers” program pays consumers up to 4,500 dollars to trade in a gasoline-guzzler in exchange for a “greener” vehicle.

“This latest round of production increases will go a long way in rebuilding dealer inventories to help us meet strong consumer demand,” the company said.

GM, which raised from bankruptcy protection on July 10, has been primarily downsizing its operations over the last four years as it strives to compete with bleeding balance sheets and a steady loss of market share to Asian rivals.

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Hundreds of health care job hunters lined up at a River Rouge employment fair organized on Tuesday, only to find out many of the 1,400 positions marked as available for people with more training and clinical job skills than they had.

The lesson: If you wish to get an immediate entry-level job in health care, aim at searching for jobs on a daily basis as they may be the toughest to get, as thousands of job-seekers flood the market.

In order to get better-paying jobs, ranging from medical billing clerks and surgical technicians to physical therapists and registered nurses, you have to be up and ready to return to school and most people will even have to pay for it themselves, unless they come from an industry where they lost their jobs out of foreign competition and qualify for federal help.More than 500 people attended the event sponsored by U.S. Rep. Carolyn Cheeks-Kilpatrick, a Detroit Democrat, at River Rouge High School.

“I hope to get something that’s recession-proof,” stated Mark Brisker, 50, of Dearborn, who is out of work after a 10-year military career and working on a job as a chemical plant operator. He left with gaining information regarding medical billing courses.

Ruth Hoskins, a nurse recruiter from Botsford Hospital, Farmington Hills, was among the few receiving résumés. She stated she had nearly ten openings for entry-level jobs, such as nursing assistants and patient transporters.

Reginald Stewart, a job development manager at the University of Phoenix’ Southfield campus, encouraged job-seekers to get some more courses particularly for two-year programs in health care management so students have more chances to rise in health care ranks.

Brittany Oden, 21, a freshman at Eastern Michigan University, hoped to look for a job to help her get her foot in the door of a hospital while she attends school.

“I came here for a job and didn’t get one,” she said.

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The now antiquated notion of retirement as one last long vacation before we die is ultimately dead. For evidence, browse the shelves of any large bookstore or look online for new titles exploring the emerging trend of post-retirement work.
Here are three we liked:

“Encore: Finding Work That Matters in the Second Half of Life”

A book by Marc Freedman, founder and president of Civic Ventures, a San Francisco-based think tank. The author is also co-founder of Experience Corps, the largest not-for-profit national service program engaging Americans over 55, and The Purpose Prize, the nation’s first prize for social innovators over 60.

From appeals lawyer to community pastor, health care executive to advocate for the homeless, truant officer to critical-care nurse, Freedman fills the book with “encore stories” of people who successfully found work that mattered in their second half of life. By 2030, he predicts Boomers will provide the “backbone of education, health care, nonprofits, the government and other sectors” important to our national well-being.

To be certain, not everybody will possibly want to work after retirement and, among those who look for work, many will do it just for the money. “Encore” does provide a list of resources to find new jobs but its main purpose is to inspire, not guide by the hand.

“Don’t Retire, REWIRE!”

A revised and expanded second edition of a 2002 book, we liked them and like even more now.
Authors Rick Miners and Jeri Sedlar, who are husband wife, share 25 years of executive search and counselling experience. Getting hundreds of interviews with pre-retirees and working and non-working retirees, they explored the happiest are those who knew what they were retiring to, not simply retiring from.

People tend to underestimate the things they like about their work, the authors contend, from the structure work provides to the social and emotional needs that it fills.
As they approach and even enter retirement, many people also have never gathered the time to figure out what they want (and couples have not taken the time to talk about what each person wants). Through real-life stories, self-scoring quizzes and exercises, this smartly-written and rationally organized book greatly assists us discover our primary “drivers” or motivators. (A big driver for us, for example, is to have accomplishments).

“Working After Retirement for Dummies”

A helpful reference guide listing numerous resources and chock-full of practical advice (although more real-life examples would have helped).

The book is almost four in one – from a discussion of assessing one’s talents to a primer on retirement finances (this is the weakest part), another on Medicare and Social Security, and finally on finding or creating your dream retirement job.

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