Archive for Economic Life
State caught in troubling jobless trend
Almost half of Michigan’s unemployed in 2012 were jobless for at least six months. And the average jobless Michigan resident went without work for more than 10 months. As Michigan’s economy improves and job openings proliferate, [...]
State looks to turn trickle of returning college grads into a flood
Laura VanHolstyn graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in communications in 2009, a year in which the state’s jobless rate averaged 13.9 percent. “I went on interview after interview,” said VanHolstyn, who is from [...]
MSU expert has surprising advice about liberal arts degrees, job hunting
Phil Gardner is the director of the Collegiate Employment Research Institute at Michigan State University. For the past 23 years, he has overseen MSU’s annual college labor market study, a much-watched barometer of the job market [...]
Is shortage due to skills or wages?
Steve Lowe Jr. is scrambling to find more than a dozen skilled machinists, experienced engineers and laborers after his company recently won a multimillion-dollar contract to build giant camshafts for diesel locomotive engines. He said he’s [...]
Average Michigan wage earner is $5,000 behind other Americans
When politicians talk about Michigan’s “lost decade” of the 2000s, they usually focus on the huge number of jobs shed by the state. Michigan lost 863,300 payroll jobs between April 2000 and July 2009, at the [...]
Jackson businesses try DIY job-training to create skilled workers
After voters turned down a millage request in 2003, Jackson Community College dropped its skilled trades training program, leaving area manufacturers without a key source of future talent. So, they decided to do some DIY job [...]
In turnaround, suburbs lose business to Detroit after years of flight
I don't see it as a "zero-sum game" at all. When businesses move back
Why are Michigan’s child abuse/neglect rates so high?
Not only is the trend related to the gross lack of employment & in
Schoolchildren shuttle across SE Michigan, raising questions about funding, community identity
There's much to unpack here, but most notable is that the figures and
Pipefitter’s daughter from Downriver becomes potent advocate for Michigan prisoners
Thank you Attorney LaBelle, for all of your non-ending, burdensome wor
Schoolchildren shuttle across SE Michigan, raising questions about funding, community identity
"It's the continuing self-segregation of groups," said Booza, an assis