An unemployment rate that ticked below 4% in 2018 did not help wages to rise with a pace that is expected from a tight labor market. San Francisco Federal Reserve published the report on Monday and also said that the wages are not expected to rise even if the unemployment rates tick down by few more notches. The 3% annual wage growth is ill-paced with the productivity and inflation rates. The sluggish wage growth led the Fed to pause rate hikes to allow the markets to tighten further giving people to earn better. While the inflation remains contained the slow wage rate may be indicative of a sluggish market than calculated. The local low unemployment rate can bring down the average national rate creating a possible mirage in this case.
With a tight labor market and turnover hitting an all-time high, employers are keen on checking-in daily with their employees. HR professionals are particular about maintaining the golden rule of responding to the applicants within 72 hours of the first contact to increase the probability of procuring the best talent. The talent retention part is also getting a facelift with HR intently focusing on engagement and development drives. Keeping a tab on employee activities and daily check-ins are the tasks, which would have attracted a lot of blank stares from the HR for being too taxing. But, technology has stepped into uncomplicated this task at hand.
As the Amazon HQ2 facility ship sails towards Northern Virginia more than half of the workers in Washington DC are all set to board this ship if the chance arrives. The 1000 worker strong survey by Eagle Hill Consulting Survey found that three/fourth of IT people and 60% of the Millennials will bid adieu to their current employers to join Amazon. The tech giant has taken the fancy of IT professionals as a whopping 92% say that Amazon is good for job seekers and an 88% of them opine that it will boost the local economy. The IT professionals also pointed out the commute might be a dark horse with 77% thinking that Amazon is bad for local traffic. The biggest reasons for choosing Amazon over the existing employers is the pay followed by the progressive and interesting work culture.
Canada air traffic controllers are passing some serious dough to their fellow American counterparts quite literally by buying hundreds of pizzas as a show of solidary as US government’s partial shutdown hits 23 days mark. Peter Duffey, Head of the Canadian Air Traffic Control association said that the initiative is a snowballed version of the drive that started as Edmonton’s Control Center collected to buy pies for their peers at Anchorage, Alaska last Thursday. The U.S. government shutdown has left about 10,000 air traffic controllers working without pay in the country. As per Duffey’s estimation about 300 pizzas have reached U.S. controllers so far over the past few days.
Bill de Blasio, Mayor New York City has proposed to bring a legislature that grants private employees 10 days paid personal time. The proposed legislation will impact companies with 5 or more staff. The said 10 days for personal time can be used for family time, bereavement, religious rituals or vacation. The Mayor’s office said that around 500,000 full and part-time employees do not get a paid personal time out and the legislature if enforced will positively impact 3.4 million employees. The opposition to the bill is the cost it will incur given the current shortfall of employees.
Geisha Williams, CEO PG&E Corp stepped down from her post as the company is reeling from the impending liabilities and a probable bankruptcy as an aftermath of the November California Camp fire that took 86 lives and is touted as the most destructive fire in the history of the state. John Simon, General Counsel will take on the interim charge as the company is looking for a strong safety and operational expertise. The companies is looking at $ 30 billion in liabilities, litigations and government investigation of the Camp fire and the blazes of 2017. The management rumble comes as the company is in middle of discussion bankruptcy financing package that could total between $3 billion and $ 5 billion with banks. The employee notification declaring bankruptcy for the $18 billion debt riddled company is yet to come.
Disability, even when covered by Americans with Disability Act aka ADA cannot be the ground for an employer putting up with a rude employee with a taste for unprofessional behavior. This pretty much sums up the mood and the verdict of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia Columbus Division in Kassa v. Synovus Bank case. Synovus Bank fired Tony Kassa who worked as a technician, over his “nothing personal, I hate working with women” comment on a female colleague while interacting with a second woman over the phone. The court held up that the Federal law does not oblige the bank to put up with the employee outburst even if caused by a disability. Kassa, a U.S. Army veteran was under treatment for over a decade for a host of neurosis, alcohol addiction and paranoid personality disorder, which he had disclosed to the employer as a request to not to put him in an interactive setting.
BlackRock Inc. plans to trim down 3% of its Global Employee count, its largest since 2006. Morgan Stanley is letting underperformers go, State Street Corp. is planning to cut its leadership positions by 15% and the Polish unit of Banco Santander SA plans a workforce 11% less than today. These are just some of the big names in finance and banking who are turning to the good old job cuts in the wake of a possible tumultuous 2019 market. The $3 trillion Hedge Fund Market will be the one to take the worst hit with a sinking performance. The slowdown in UK hiring is due to the cloud of uncertainty over Brexit and on larger scale firms are turning to technology for cost reduction. Economists forecast a hiring slowdown or even a recession at this point.
The partial shutdown of the U.S. government has left 800,000 federal employees on furlough. The 20th day of the shutdown over President Trump’s demand for border wall funding saw hundreds of employees marching towards the White House chanting “We want Pay” in a cold winter morning. The shut down due to the stand-off between Democrats and President Trump over wall funding is the second longest since the mid-1970. And with President Trump saying that the shout-down can go up to months or years, the federal employees who were told to be at home or work without pay are out of their wits. There is uncertainty over rationing food, housing, and other needs. People are forced to break into their retirement funds to sustain in the phase of indefinite furlough.
The world’s largest online social network takes its stance a little too literally, according to CNBC’s new report. According to former employees, the company has a ‘cult-like’ work environment where the staff is under pressure to socialize with colleagues for furthering their careers. A leading cause of this was said to be the company’s performance review system, where anonymous reviews on performance can either get an employee zooming ahead or being terminated. When asked about the report, the spokesperson from Facebook denied it, although they did hint that ‘collaboration’ is given a high order of priority at the Menlo Park tech giant.
Karan Bhatia, who is currently the head of policy leading the search engine giant’s stance on issues ranging from AI and user privacy to EU regulations, has initiated a stringent and complete revamp of the company’s public policy department. On the heels of Susan Molinari, who is currently moving to a consultant role based out of Washington and is all set to make her exit from Alphabet shortly. Bhatia joined Alphabet in June last year and has reportedly sent out an organogram to his staff with empty cells, sending out the fear of being laid off. Bhatia was earlier with GE and has served in the government.
The ride-sharing leader has faced lawsuits in many markets it has entered but has often chosen to settle most of them. In a relief to more than 5000 drivers in North Carolina however, a settlement has come late, but sure. Uber paid $1.3mn in settlements in its oldest class lawsuit till date. The incumbents will be receiving anywhere between $50 and $5000 dollars. The lawsuit, originally filed by Michael Hood, blamed Uber for bypassing basic minimum wage laws by labeling their driver partners as independent service providers. The lawsuit was filed in 2016 and was later supported by thousands of drivers.
Indeed, the job posting platform is indeed asking recruitment companies in the U.S. and Canada to pay for aka sponsor their job listing. The October 2018 announcement is now in effect from this January and will impact the headhunters, recruitment firms, staffing and hiring agencies. Indeed says that the move is to curb down the problem of duplication, location blasting, inaccurate job descriptions. The focus for the now expanding job posting platform is to create equity and give the job search experience a boost for the users. The sponsored jobs will be up-listed and the users are free to click or not to click on them. Experts believe that the announcement is a large scale ripple effect of low unemployment and talent crunch in the industry.
Britain’s impending divorce with the EU has dried up the permanent recruitment rates in the country. The recruitment rate in December 2018 was the slowest since April 2017 and all fingers point at the Brexit conundrum as the main culprit. This finding is a part of a report by Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC), supported by accountants KPMG report that sees a slowdown in the growth of the starting salaries for three months in running. Neil Carberry REC, Chief Executive opines that it is no surprise given the economic uncertainty giving a classic cold stare to hiring initiatives, a club that with talent shortage and the scene for a slowdown is set.
Compliance kept the HR on their toes and was pretty much a primary prerogative through the entire length of 2018. This New Year too will see compliance taking a big dole of the HR headspace. While many of the deregulation promises by The Trump Administration has held solid ground, there are others who have taken the throne of slack, as a direct response. The state and government bodies are pushing for employee-friendly laws, but with #Metoo, high-profile and viral walkouts and third-party assistance as mediums to expose alleged wrongdoings, the HR is walking the tight rope of compliance. With a rather foggy stance of Washington on Compliance, the road ahead looks challenging.
“Binge gamers”, “me me me millennials” and “unfocussed office prankster” that is what The British Army wants. The words are from The U.K. Ministry of Defense call for service in a $600 million multiyear advertising campaign. Major Gen. Paul Nanson says that the advertisement is a part of poster, video and radio campaign that wants to put aside the stereotype and rebrand Generation Z and millennials as compassionate, focused and confident. The target age group for the recruitment drive is 16 to 25 and the campaign is facing the flak from the politicians for being humiliating to the young people. The British Army is looking at the campaign to fill the recruitment gap as per NPR.
Bjorn Erland, VP of People and Experience at Yum Brand’s Taco Bell Chain says, “The last 18 to 24 months, it’s been very competitive, no matter what time of year”. And his counterparts in other food and restaurant business have to agree as they are having a run for their money to compete with the high minimum wages set by Amazon, Target and other retail giants. The cycle of hiring the retail temps at half the wage as the holiday rush gets over is broken this year. 2018 saw just 19% of 15 to 17 years old with a job compared to a whopping 50% in 1968. 18 to 21-year-olds too did not paint a jolly picture with just 58% employment compared to 80% in 1968. Increased wages and a lack of potential employees can be a tall mountain to climb as many of the fast food franchisee do not favor raising wages to keep the menu prices down.
In recent research conducted by more than 1,000 enterprises in the US, Microsoft emerged as the winner as a fair and just company/ employer in North America. This research combined several functions such as higher compensation over market pay and included metrics like environmental fines (the top companies paid the least) and Equal Employment Opportunity fines. Microsoft beat the likes of IBM, VMWare, Alphabet, and Intel. The rankings are largely considered as one of the most comprehensive in their rankings of large companies as corporate citizens who care the most about the matters and issues that matter the most to US citizens.
Ex Personnel Analyst of the Disney Cruise Line, Anthony Mc Hugh, recently dragged the media giant’s arm to court over sex-based discrimination and sexual harassment. According to the plaintiff, his female supervisor constantly undermined him, indulged in sexual relationships with multiple other employees and even stole his ADHD prescription drugs. Mc Hugh also claims that he was ignored for promotion which was instead given to female staff, alongside being called a “stuffy old fart” by several senior members of the organization. He stated that when he complained to the HR department about his predicament, he faced severe retaliation and was eventually fired.
The world’s largest online professional network has been known to publish some of the most comprehensive researches ever, in the corporate world, and this time, the focus was on the soft skills that are the most in-demand among American employers, even as the nation faces one of the tightest skilled labor markets in its history. Creativity topped the list, followed by the ability to persuade stakeholders and customers, team playing and collaboration and adaptability to technologies and newer roles, in that order. Time management and multi-tasking, though not on the top of the list, remained some of the other crucial skills in demand.
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