Firms recently surveyed by PricewaterhouseCooper shared some good news which had 78% of executives saying that they expect their company to show positive growth over the next 12 months.   54% of executives questioned stated that they planned to hire over the next year, with only 3% planning to trim their workforce...

According to a report from the Associated Press, the number of jobs waiting to be filled rose in December, thanks to hiring in factories, retail and business services.   This number hit almost a three year high, marketing more good news for the economy.

According to the Labor Department's Job Openings and the Labor Turnover Survey, there were 3.4 million jobs open at the end of December, compared to 3.1 million at the end of November...

As the US struggles to accelerate a sluggish recovery, a deeper look needs to be taken at the reasons for the slow recovery.  According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the federal government’s official source of employment statistics, in October 2011, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for Americans 25 years and older who had at least a bachelor’s degree was 4.4 percent. For those who graduated high school, the unemployment rate was 9.7 percent in October 2011.  However, for those without a high school degree the rate is 10.6 percent, and for those aged 25 and over, the unemployment rate was 13.8 percent.   These are staggering numbers.   How are we supposed to compete on a global scale when we have almost a quarter of high school students dropping out each year, or in other terms, over 340,000 students a year? In fact, the Education Database recently reported that high school dropouts are not eligible for 90% of the jobs in our economy and we have 40 million high school dropouts in the US today...

I stumbled upon a great article on msnbc.com the other day that talked about the steps to take after you lose your job. After the dust settles, there is a lot to be accomplished and this article laid it out in order. I may not agree with everything listed, but they certainly put everyone on the path of forward movement.

Step 1 according to the article was contacting a career coach. Yes, it’s true that most don’t charge for the initial meeting, but depending on your career or your coach, these costs can quickly mount. I suggest checking out your local SBA office or Department of Labor office to see if they have a career coach or career counselor on staff who can help you formulate a plan for your job hunt...

Tonight at 7pm, President Obama will address a joint session of Congress to lay out a jobs package estimated to be worth more than $300 billion dollars.  Obama will present tax cuts for middle-class families and businesses; these cuts are the cornerstone of his plan and will push for new spending to repair roads, bridges and other deteriorating infrastructure to help create jobs and improve our country’s worsening substructure...

The jobs report came out last Friday and folks, the news is not great. Zero new jobs were added in August, a rare occurrence in US history. In fact, this is such a rare occurrence that the last time the government reported that zero jobs were created was February of 1945.

The national unemployment rate remained unchanged at 9.1%, but what does zero jobs added actually mean? Economists usually estimate that to keep up with population growth, the country needs to add approximately 150,000 jobs each month. To actually grow, we’d need to add about 300,000 jobs a month or more to recover the 8.8 million jobs lost during the recession.

What’s behind these numbers?

On Friday, the August Employment Situation Report was released and I had the opportunity to give my insight on this report in order to help entrepreneurs. Watch the discussion on the finalized statistics and their effects on our economy and small business. Let me know how you feel about these jobs numbers by commenting below.