US economy added 114,000 jobs in July in significant dip from June while unemployment increased to highest level since October 2021
The US labor market cooled significantly last month as unemployment unexpectedly rose, sparking fears of a slowdown across the world’s largest economy.
American employers added 114,000 jobs in July – short of the 180,000 additions expected by economists, and a marked decrease from the 179,000 added in June.
Continue reading...The same percentage of employed people who worked remotely in 2023 is the same as the previous year, a survey found
Don’t call it work from home any more, just call it work. According to new data, what once seemed like a pandemic necessity has become the new norm for many Americans.
Every year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) releases the results of its American time use survey, which asks Americans how much time they spend doing various activities, from work to leisure.
Continue reading...Academics at Columbia College in Chicago are in a fierce dispute over cuts to courses and poor working conditions
The longest strike of adjuncts in US labor history is still ongoing, with academics at Columbia College in Chicago remaining in a fierce dispute over cuts to college courses and a host of complaints over poor working conditions.
The fierce dispute began when Columbia College leadership suddenly announced plans to implement significant cuts to courses and course sections, and consolidating classes which have ballooned class sizes, citing a $20m budget shortfall.
Continue reading...More Americans have been working two or more jobs over the past few decades, census data shows
Millions of Americans are currently working two or more jobs in order to make ends meet, as global inflation and corporations jacking up prices have sent prices of food, gas, housing, health insurance and other necessities soaring in the past year.
Cashe Lewis, 31, of Denver, Colorado works two jobs and is currently trying to find a third job to cover the recent $200 monthly rent increase to her apartment. She works days as a barista at Starbucks, but claims it’s been difficult to get enough hours even with taking extra shifts whenever she can due to scheduling cuts as part of the crackdown on union organizing by management.
Continue reading...Revealed: UPS workers tell the Guardian that intense quota pressures, injuries, an unclean and unsafe environment and understaffing take a heavy toll
The article includes details surrounding a suicide.
The gargantuan UPS Worldport is the largest automated packaging sorting facility in the world. Covering 5.2m sq ft in Louisville, Kentucky, with 70 aircraft docks and 155 miles of conveyor belts, the site is larger than the Mall of America, employs about 11,000 workers and is capable of handling 115 packages a second.
Continue reading...Kentucky man says former employer ignored his request not to celebrate his birthday due to his anxiety disorder
A Kentucky man was awarded $450,000 in a lawsuit against his former employer, after the company disregarded his wish not to be given a birthday party.
In August 2019, Gravity Diagnostics, a medical laboratory, ignored Kevin Berling’s request not to celebrate his birthday due to his anxiety disorder.
Continue reading...When the pandemic hit, I realized the work that would take me a few hours in the office drags on at home. Discovering a site that forced me to be accountable saved me
The first thing I did when I sat down to write this piece was to have a conversation with Ben. Ben is a polite clean-cut white American thirtysomething with a 5 o’clock shadow sitting against a plain blue wall. The only thing hanging in his study is a white frame with “less.” on it in lower-case serif, which makes me think he’s a graphic designer. But the only thing I really know about Ben is he’s too easily distracted, and so am I.
I have been randomly assigned to work with Ben on a website I use every day called Focusmate, which uses a sense of accountability to help you focus. The homepage kind of looks like a Google calendar: you book in a 50-minute session and the site matches you with someone else who wants to work in that time slot (this is mostly done randomly although brand new users are matched with more experienced ones). When the time comes, you and your buddy get placed on a video call. You politely and briefly tell each other what you’re planning to use the time to do and then you get on with it.
Continue reading...The reason why so many of us are at the end of our rope? We allowed work to be what gave our lives meaning
The rich are irrational when it comes to work. Out of everyone in our society, they have the least need to earn more money, but they work the most.
Billionaire tech-industry titans brag about their hundred-hour work weeks, even though their labor isn’t what boosts their companies’ stock prices and enriches them further. Americans with advanced degrees have the highest average earning power, but typically work more and spend less time on leisure than people with less formal education. The children of rich parents are twice as likely to have summer jobs as poor kids are. And many older American professionals with plenty saved for retirement keep showing up at the office.
Continue reading...Two dozen conspirators forced workers to pay fees for travel and housing while forcing them to work for little to no pay
In June, a farm worker from Mexico, who requested to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, was transported through a trafficking network from Monterey to work on farms in Georgia.
They paid the traffickers 20,000 pesos, about $950, loaned from their mother, taking frequent trips back and forth to Monterey, before being told it was safe to leave. Then they were finally transported across the border.
Continue reading...Millions of workers have been leaving jobs that offer long hours and low pay – and for many the release has been exhilarating
One morning in October, Lynn woke up and decided she would quit her job on the spot that day. The decision to quit was the climax of a reckoning that began at the start of the pandemic when she was first laid off from a job she had been in for three years.
“I’ve always had the attitude of being a really hard worker,” Lynn said, explaining that she believed her skills made her indispensable to this company. “That really changed for me because I realized you could feel totally capable and really important when, really, you’re expendable.”
Continue reading...The pandemic has forced many of us to rethink our lives, not least of which is how we work. For me, it meant returning home
Ten days before our birthday, I drove my 2005 blue Nissan Sentra over the Verrazano Bridge and let the tears roll out. He didn’t know it, but I was almost home. The Verrazano spills into Brooklyn, where Scott and I entered the world.
We were born a little after 11am on 28 July 1994 in Maimonides hospital, fraternal twins. “Two boychiks!” my father boasted, still in his blue scrubs, as he burst into the waiting room. The cheering section – two grandmas, two grandpas – erupted.
Continue reading...Deemed ‘astrology for businessmen’ for some, lauded as life-saving by others, the personality tests are a ‘springboard’ for people to think about who they are
I am a born executive. I am obsessed with efficiency and detached from my emotions. I share similarities with Margaret Thatcher and Harrison Ford. I am among 2% of the general population, and 1% of women.
People like us are highly motivated by personal growth, and occasionally ruthless in the pursuit. We make difficult partners and parents, but good landscape architects. We are ENTJs: extroverted, intuitive, thinking, judging – also known as the executive type or, sometimes, “the Commander”.
Continue reading...Companies have a rare moment to reset working models. But climate calculations of remote v office work are complex
Stacy Kauk was finalizing Shopify’s 2019 sustainability report when the pandemic forced the company into remote work.
“I kind of stopped in my footsteps and went, ‘Uh oh, what’s going to happen if we’re closing our offices during Covid and staying remote in the long term? What does that mean for Shopify’s corporate carbon footprint?’” said Kauk, who directs the Canadian e-commerce company’s $5m annual sustainability fund.
Continue reading...Drop in quarterly gross domestic product comes as 1.43m people file for unemployment benefits, a second week of increases, amid Covid-19 pandemic
The US economy shrank by an annual rate of 32.9% between April and June, its sharpest contraction since the second world war, government figures revealed on Thursday, as more signs emerged of the coronavirus pandemic’s heavy toll on the country’s economy.
The record-setting quarterly fall in economic growth compared to the same time last year came as another 1.43 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week, a second week of rises after a four-month decline.
Continue reading...Dow Jones loses more than 1,800 points while S&P down 5% after US coronavirus infections hit 2m
Stock markets tumbled in the US and Europe on Thursday amid growing fears over the long-term economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
The sell off started after the US labor department announced another 1.5 million people had filed for unemployment benefits and the number of coronavirus infections passed 2m even as states across the US continued to relax their quarantine measures.
Continue reading...The employee-activists accuse the company of attempting to quash employee organizing, in violation of federal labor laws
The four worker-activists who were fired by Google during Thanksgiving week plan to file federal charges alleging that their former employer fired them to quash worker organizing, in violation of federal labor laws.
Google told its staff of approximately 100,000 last week that the employees were fired for “clear and repeated violations of our data security policies”, according to a memo obtained by Bloomberg. But in defiant interviews with the Guardian on Monday, the workers rejected that justification as a pretext.
Continue reading...Billy Foister died last month after a heart attack at work. The incident was just one in a series of recent accidents and fatalities
In September, Billy Foister, a 48-year-old Amazon warehouse worker, died after a heart attack at work. According to his brother, an Amazon human resources representative informed him at the hospital that Billy had lain on the floor for 20 minutes before receiving treatment from Amazon’s internal safety responders.
“How can you not see a 6ft 3in man laying on the ground and not help him within 20 minutes? A couple of days before, he put the wrong product in the wrong bin and within two minutes management saw it on camera and came down to talk to him about it,” Edward Foister said.
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