Investigative Voice: Marylanders apply for unemployment benefits in record numbers

JOBLESS — Marylanders apply for unemployment benefits in record numbers

Wednesday, 13 January 2010 16:26

43.5 PERCENT SURGE OVER 2008 By Stephen Janis

Marylanders seeking unemployment benefits from the state applied in record numbers in December, state officials said this week.

Even as the national economy begins a faltering recovery, the number of Marylanders applying for unemployment benefits surged at the end of 2009 to more than 48,000 — the highest number since 1974 — according to Bernie Kohn, spokesman for the Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation, the agency that administers the state’s unemployment insurance fund.

“We had more claims in the month of December than any month since 1974,” Kohn said.

The December surge caps a year (2009) when roughly 416,000 Marylanders applied for unemployment benefits, a 28 percent increase over the same period the previous year (2008) when roughly 290,000 state residents applied. The surge comes as the state prepares to tap $125 million in federal aid to keep the fund solvent through April.

The total 2009 increase in applications represents a 43.5 percent surge over figures for calendar year 2008.

Read the entire article here: JOBLESS — Marylanders apply for unemployment benefits in record numbers

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20100113 IV Jobless Mders apply for unemploy bens record Bus Econ Unemployment, Maryland Business, Maryland Unemployment, Media Investigative Voice

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COLUMN ONE: Hit 'send,' then hit the door By Robin Abcarian February 23, 2009

LAT Column One Hit send then hit the door

From the Los Angeles Times

COLUMN ONE: Hit 'send,' then hit the door By Robin Abcarian February 23, 2009

Farewell e-mails become an art form in this age of pink slips. Some are funny, some are sad -- and some are just plain furious.

It was not the most eloquent subject line for a farewell e-mail to 5,000 co-workers: "So long, suckers! I'm out!"

But Jason Shugars worked at Google, whose off-center corporate culture is more forgiving than that of your average buttoned-down investment bank. In the rest of his goodbye, Shugars, a senior sales compliance specialist, reminisced about workplace moments that included putting cake down his pants at a sales conference, stealing a boss' $8,000 leather couch and singing "Hit Me Baby One More Time" in a miniskirt and braids.

[…]

That's a good question these days, now that thousands of people are finding themselves with pink slips and the need to let colleagues and contacts know they are moving on and -- perhaps more important for job seekers -- how they can be reached.

The farewell e-mail has suddenly become commonplace, a new art form in the electronic age. Yet like so many aspects of the Internet era -- how to unfriend on Facebook, how much to reveal on a personal blog -- the technology has gotten ahead of the etiquette. There are, quite simply, no rules.

[…]

In May, lawyer Shinyung Oh was let go from the San Francisco branch of the Paul Hastings law firm six days after losing a baby. The seven-year associate, who said she was told her previous, glowing evaluations may have been "overinflated," composed a blistering e-mail to the partners and fired it off to about 1,000 colleagues around the world.

She accused the firm's partners of "heartlessness" and of blaming her for failing to generate business "that should have been brought in by each of you."

"If this response seems particularly emotional," she wrote to the partners, "perhaps an associate's emotional vulnerability after a recent miscarriage is a factor you should consider the next time you fire or lay someone off. It shows startlingly poor judgment and management skills -- and cowardice -- on your parts."

Within an hour, Oh said, her e-mail was posted on a widely read legal affairs blog, then made its way into the mainstream media.

[…]

Will Schwalbe, coauthor of "Send: Why People E-mail So Badly and How to Do it Better," said the farewell e-mail was a reflection of two intersecting trends: the universality of e-mail and the confessional spirit of the times, which have resulted, as he put it, in "the democratization of the process."

In the pre-computer world, Schwalbe said, "Personnel wrote something -- a memo, Xeroxed -- generally, you didn't get to do it. They did it. But what had been an HR function is now a personal function." That, he said, leads to a different sort of message.

Read the entire article here: COLUMN ONE: Hit 'send,' then hit the door By Robin Abcarian February 23, 2009

20090223 LAT Column One Hit send then hit the door

http://www.latimes.com/news/la-na-farewell-emails23-2009feb23,0,4893360.story?track=rss

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