Yes, there are some Paul Krugman fangirls in my office, swapping podcasts and his books, wanting to friend him on Facebook. So this just made my Friday.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
TARP to Main
According to this story from NPR, TARP money is making its way to regular people, through banks, helping to make credit available to business people.
Nice to have some good news about TARP.
Now for some bad news: some banks are threatening to give their TARP money back. Keep in mind, they plan to; they haven't yet.
Maybe the major bad banks should learn from the smaller or regional banks that are distributing their TARP to Main, and hire some PR to get the word out.
Nice to have some good news about TARP.
Now for some bad news: some banks are threatening to give their TARP money back. Keep in mind, they plan to; they haven't yet.
Maybe the major bad banks should learn from the smaller or regional banks that are distributing their TARP to Main, and hire some PR to get the word out.
Suggested capping exercise: Create a directory of jobs that don't need a college degree
One of my friends sent me this post from ZenHabits, Land Your Dream Job: Ditch School and Get a Library Card, and it made me think about one possible capping exercise topic for a library school student (too late for this year, I'm afraid), creating resources for people who don't have college degrees to find a good job.
There's lots of ways to run with this project:
This is an area (finding good jobs without a degree) since many of the people in this situation need a job now and don't have time to return to school for retraining, or need work to support their families while they are transitioning. It is also an area that needs to be explored because information will be so hard to come by. For example, if some of the forecasts are correct and job growth will occur in education, government and health services, many of those jobs require a college degree (teacher, nurse, administrator, doctor, all need 4 years, maybe more) so finding jobs in other sectors of low growth will require some strong research know-how. Public librarians and special librarians who work with job searches can certainly show the way in this area.
There's lots of ways to run with this project:
- Create a pathfinder for library users to find out about careers that don't require college and indicate where the books are in the library that help people with this topic;
- Educate yourself about job boards: which ones are good for people with college degrees, where are the jobs posted for people who don't have college degrees, and prepare an educational program at the public library level that teaches people how to use job boards. This is a good one for online learning since chances are people are already on the Internet trying to figure out how to use a job board and could use the library as a reference point;
- Do a survey in your community to find out how people use the library to find jobs. Find out how, and if, they turn to the library for job searching needs or if they use other resources.
This is an area (finding good jobs without a degree) since many of the people in this situation need a job now and don't have time to return to school for retraining, or need work to support their families while they are transitioning. It is also an area that needs to be explored because information will be so hard to come by. For example, if some of the forecasts are correct and job growth will occur in education, government and health services, many of those jobs require a college degree (teacher, nurse, administrator, doctor, all need 4 years, maybe more) so finding jobs in other sectors of low growth will require some strong research know-how. Public librarians and special librarians who work with job searches can certainly show the way in this area.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Pay gap between childless women and women-with-children
Statistics Canada released a study today about the earnings of women who have and don't have children (the release on the Daily, the full text of the study is available on Perspectives on Labour and Income).
From the summary of the study:
On average, the earnings of women with children were 12% less than those of women without children, and this gap increased with the number of children: with one child, the gap was 9%; with two children, it was 12%; and with three of more children, 20%.
The study also looked at the differences between single mothers, singletons without sprouts, and partnered women with children. And yes, it was worse to be a single mother:
A comparison between single mothers and childless single women showed that the average earnings gap was close to 20%. But for married/common-law mothers versus childless women in couples, the gaps was only about 10%.
Other interesting findings from the study included that the less time off with children (a gap) could positively influence earnings, as well as delaying a family.
Since so many librarians are women, I thought the study would be interesting; maybe we should just be interested in the results since so many of us know women.
We should also be interested in this study, especially in light of this post that I saw on Appetite for Equal Rights, Bad economy causing women to get naked.
From the summary of the study:
On average, the earnings of women with children were 12% less than those of women without children, and this gap increased with the number of children: with one child, the gap was 9%; with two children, it was 12%; and with three of more children, 20%.
The study also looked at the differences between single mothers, singletons without sprouts, and partnered women with children. And yes, it was worse to be a single mother:
A comparison between single mothers and childless single women showed that the average earnings gap was close to 20%. But for married/common-law mothers versus childless women in couples, the gaps was only about 10%.
Other interesting findings from the study included that the less time off with children (a gap) could positively influence earnings, as well as delaying a family.
Since so many librarians are women, I thought the study would be interesting; maybe we should just be interested in the results since so many of us know women.
We should also be interested in this study, especially in light of this post that I saw on Appetite for Equal Rights, Bad economy causing women to get naked.
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