Pacific Standard March-April 2013 Cover

Things Aren’t Looking So Good for the Graduating Class of 2013

May 15, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
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Stacey Kalivas should be celebrating her graduation from college later this week. Instead, the 22 year-old is getting ready to move back home with broken dreams and in debt. Kalivas is a member of the class of 2013, the fifth successive wave of students to enter into a stubbornly weak U.S. labor market—marked by high unemployment, a large number of part-time workers, and many who have given up the hunt for jobs. "It's kind of tough to be graduating and not having anything," said Kalivas. The finance major will graduate from Bryant University in Smithfield, Rhode Island, on May 18. It has ... Read More

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Benefits of Bowling Alone

May 7, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
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Thanks to Robert Putnam, we tend to think amassing social capital is a good thing to do. Thanks to Sean Safford, we know that too much of a good thing can do a world of harm. Can a community have too much trust? Europe's geographic mobility problem: According to documents seen by the Financial Times, the E.U. is working on plans to combat the problem by extending the period during which economic migrants can receive unemployment benefits from their home country from three months to six months. This, it is hoped, will make it easier for citizens to move around the bloc in search of work, a ... Read More

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A Simple Way to Ace That Job Interview

March 4, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
(PHOTO: STOCKLITE/SHUTTERSTOCK)

Job applicants are wise to follow a few common-sense rules. Be on time for an interview. Look presentable. Do your research, so you know something about the organization and can explain how you would contribute to its success. Newly published research suggests your preparation regimen should include one additional step: Give some thought to the last time you truly took control over a situation. In two experiments described in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, both job-application letters and in-person interviews were far more effective if the applicant had just recalled a ... Read More

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Could Water Bring Jobs Back to the U.S.?

May 8, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
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Have you gotten the memo yet? You can stop worrying about peak oil: the United States is sitting on centuries of natural gas and Canada is full of tar sands. But then there is water. No less than Morgan Stanley Smith Barney declared “peak water” the challenge of the century last December in a report upholstered with authoritative graphs showing the heating of the world and the shrinking of water resources. Words almost failed report writers as they declared, “Water may turn out to be the biggest commodity story of the 21st century, as declining supply and rising demand combine to create ... Read More

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Scarcity of Men Impacts Women’s Career Choices

April 9, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment

Many factors can influence a woman’s choice of career. Cultural, or family, traditions. Her specific skill set. Her interests and passions. And whether she senses an abundant supply of available men. That’s the conclusion of newly published research, which finds the mating market, not just the job market, impacts the way women pick their professions. The finding, which is rooted in evolutionary biology, has fascinating implications given the rapid rise of women both on college campuses and in the workplace. “Does the ratio of men to women in the local population influence ... Read More

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Ten Tips for Business Success in 2012

December 31, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment

In a time of significant upheaval in corporate America, “climbing the corporate ladder” may be quite different than it was even a few years ago. Vast changes in the workplace have made corporations as we know them flatter and nimbler, with more employees located offsite than in office towers, many working part time. The very nature of work may have been altered forever by economic crisis, increased technology, and globalization. At a time when the income disparity in the U.S. is among the highest in the world, when people are finding it difficult keeping jobs or finding good jobs, and ... Read More

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Do the Rich Really Make All the Jobs?

September 22, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment

In Washington shorthand, many politicians have begun interchangeably substituting the phrase "people who have a lot of money" with the more hopeful term "job creators." With every new debate over raising taxes or lowering the deficit, the two meanings seem to move closer. All job creators, this rhetoric implies, are rich. And all rich are job creators. But are these two groups really one and the same? "Everything I've studied says the answer is yes," said Tim Kane, a senior scholar with the entrepreneur-oriented Kauffman Foundation. He adds, though, that there isn't a single data set ... Read More

More like this: Business & Economics, The Idea Lobby
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California May Be Next to Limit Employer Credit Checks

August 31, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment

John Greenya wrote for Miller-McCune.com in June about the vicious cycle that employer credit checks can create for job seekers. If you're unemployed and you're behind on some credit card bills or you have a bad mortgage, suddenly your credit report* might be another barrier to finding a new job and getting back on your feet. Businesses that use credit checks as an employee screening tool may argue that it helps them pre-emptively weed out bad apples. Organizational psychologist Michael Aamodt told the U.S. Equal Opportunity Commission last year that a meta-analysis of the tiny amount of ... Read More

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Perhaps Veterans Don’t Need Special Job Help

August 12, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment

Young male veterans, aged 18-24, have historically had higher rates of unemployment than other men their age. This has been true during peacetime and in war since 9/11, but also before. In 2010, these vets had an unemployment rate of about 22 percent, a figure not statistically different from other young men but still more than twice the national average. That number has understandably startled politicians and the public. Last week, President Obama unveiled a host of job proposals aimed at doing right by America's war vets at a time when it seems many of them are facing graver challenges in ... Read More

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Political Polarization Grows as Job Security Falls

July 19, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment

The debt ceiling drama under way right now in Washington — or, more specifically, the dramatic inability of Republicans and Democrats to reach compromise and the cheerleading of many who don't want them to — is the latest testament to an odd phenomenon in American politics. It goes by a couple of different names: increasing partisanship, political polarization, the disappearing center. And political scientists don't have a single winning theory to explain it. "This political polarization is something that's fascinated me as a political scientist quite a bit because it's so strange," ... Read More

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