Finding a job in a struggling economy can come down to whether of not you possess certain skills. Being bilingual, for example, can make you much more marketable than other job seekers. This is particularly true if the language skills you have are in Spanish.

Due to a continuously growing Hispanic population, the need for people who can speak both Spanish and English is ever increasing. Positions range from customer service and call center work to jobs at hospitals acting as an interpreter to improve patient care. These jobs may it possible for the employer to reach customers they would otherwise not be able to communicate with.

Looking for these job listings amongst all of the other available positions can take some time. Because of this, one new job search site has decided to make this easier on bilingual workers.

According to a recent press release, MySpanishJobs.com launched on July 17th. This website hopes to give job seekers the convenience of finding bilingual positions without having to waste time surfing through irrelevant job advertisements. It combines listings from several reputable job boards, enabling workers to find all of these positions in one spot. Despite the fact that it does focus primarily on positions for Spanish speakers, it does have listings for English speakers, too.

On top of this, the website offers information for job seekers so that they can better improve there chances of finding employment. Both articles and relevant links are made available.

In order to increase the number of jobs available on the site, MySpanishJobs.com has been set up in a way that allows employers to post new positions in a matter of minutes. Since the website offers this level of convenience, trying to recruit new workers for bilingual positions won’t cut in to the office place efficiency.

Individuals who are interested in finding a bilingual job should know that there is a high chance that they will be asked to prove their skills through a proficiency test before being hired. Simply receiving an A in an entry level college class is not enough.

Those who think they may enjoy having this type of job but lack the language skills should know that classes are available in variety of places. There are even computer programs that can be purchased to assist in learning Spanish. If followed through with discipline, investing in such things can really pay off.

Labels: job search, Jobs

With the economy suffering, unemployment continues to rise. In March, 8.5 percent of the country was collecting jobless benefits. Another sign that finding work has become difficult for many is the fact that job listings online continue to decline.

According the Conference Board, which uses job listings to determine its Employment Trends Index (ETI), the ETI fell once again in March. In February the Index stood at 92.2 percent. Last month it dropped 2.3 percent to stand at 90.1 percent. Only a year ago, the ETI was 22.1 percent higher than it is now.

Despite the fact that the ETI continues to fall, some experts believe that the report may have actually shown that there is some improvement in the economy.

“While we see a continued sharp fall in the ETI, the decline was not as strong as in the previous four months, suggesting that the most intense stage job losses may be behind us,” said The Conference Board’s Senior Economist Gad Levanon in a recent press release. “However, the drops in each of the eight components of the ETI in March signal that many more jobs will disappear over the next several months.”

The Conference Board has seen a consistent decline in its ETI over the last 20 months, which ahs been marked in all of its 8 components. This decrease has been particularly significant over the course of the last six months. The most notable area that this has been in is the declining number of temporary help and part-time workers hired by employers for economic reasons.

In order to be able to remove non-significant findings, The Conference Board uses 8 different labor-market indicators, which have all been proven important markers in their own right. By using all of these indicators together, The Conference Board is able find out which underlying trends are most important.

The eight labor-market indicators utilized by The Conference Board are; the percentage of job seekers who respond that they are finding jobs are hard to come by (The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Survey), initial claims for unemployment benefits (U.S. Department of Labor), the percentage of businesses that report having positions they are unable to fill at the moment (National Federation of Independent Business), the number of workers hired by the temporary-help industry (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics), part-time workers hired by companies for reasons grounded in economics (BLS), current job listings and openings (BLS), Industrial Production (Federal Reserve Board) and Real Manufacturing and Trade Sales (U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis).

The Conference Board releases its Employment Trend Index every month at 10 a.m on the Monday after the Bureau of Labors Statistics puts out its employment situation report. The report on April will be released on May 11th.

Labels: Job Listings, Jobs

Although the technology industry has lost jobs amidst the current economic recession, the losses haven't been as bad as those seen in some other industries.

TechAmerica recently released its 12th annual Cyberstates report, which showed a .6 percent decrease in Q4 2008 technology employment, compared to a 1.3 percent decline in all private sector jobs, according to an article by InformationWeek.

During the last four years, the high-tech industry has created 382,900 jobs, with 77,000 of those jobs created in 2008. That's only a slight decrease from the 79,600 jobs created in 2007 and the 139,000 jobs created in 2006. The industry currently has 5.9 million workers in the United States.

Last year marked the fifth consecutive year of gains in software services and engineering and tech services, the industry's two strongest sectors. Software services created 86,200 new jobs last year, while engineering and tech services gained 26,600 new jobs.

"The U.S. high-tech industry continued to add jobs in 2008; however, future growth is clearly jeopardized as a result of the current economic downturn and the volatility of global financial markets," TechAmerica CEO Christopher Hansen said in the article.

"While we suffered losses in the fourth quarter, our industry has weathered the storm better than most, and the results of our report indicate that the tech industry is well positioned to help lead America's economic recovery," Hansen continued.

However, some sectors did lose jobs. The semiconductor industry lost 10,900 jobs last year, while communications services lost 12,700 positions.

The report showed that 39 states experienced net tech job growth in 2007, with the greatest gains in Texas at 14,700job, Georgia at 13,100 jobs, Washington at 11,300 jobs, North Carolina at 5,500 jobs and Virginia at 5,300 jobs. Virginia also had the highest concentration of tech workers for the fourth year in a row. For every 1,000 private sector employees in that state, 92 of them work in the tech industry.

In 2007, California ranked highest for the number of tech jobs, with 942,700. Texas had 474,100, while New York counted 304,200. Florida ranked fourth, with 280,300 tech jobs and Virginia had 276,100 tech jobs.

Labels: Jobs