Convinced that many unpaid internships violate minimum wage laws, officials in Oregon, California and other states have begun investigations and fined employers. Last year, M. Patricia Smith, then New York’s labor commissioner, ordered investigations into several firms’ internships. Now, as the federal Labor Department’s top law enforcement official, she and the wage and hour division are stepping up enforcement nationwide.

Many regulators say that violations are widespread, but that it is unusually hard to mount a major enforcement effort because interns are often afraid to file complaints. Many fear they will become known as troublemakers in their chosen field, endangering their chances with a potential future employer.

TO CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THIS LINK FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES: Growth of Unpaid Internships May Be Illegal, Officials Say – NYTimes.com.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicts that Obama’s budget plans would generate deficits over the upcoming decade that would total $9.8 trillion. That’s $1.2 trillion more than predicted by the administration.

The agency says its future-year predictions of tax revenues are more pessimistic than the administration’s. That’s because CBO projects slightly slower economic growth than the White House.

The deficit picture has turned alarmingly worse since the recession that started at the end of 2007, never dipping below 4 percent of the size of the economy over the next decade. Economists say that deficits of that size are unsustainable and could put upward pressure on interest rates, crowd out private investment in the economy and ultimately erode the nation’s standard of living.

Still, the Feb. 1 White House budget plan was a largely stand-pat document that avoided difficult decisions on curbing the unsustainable growth of federal benefit programs like the Medicare health care program for the elderly and Medicaid, which provides health care to the poor and disabled.

TO CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THIS LINK FOR MONEYNEWS.COM:

Moneynews – Congressional Report: Deficit Will Be Much Worse Than Obama Says.

“It’s definitely on the rise,” says Rob Wilson, president of Employco Group, a Chicago-area staffing firm.

Temporary jobs jumped by 48,000 in February to 2 million and are up 284,000 since September, the government said Friday. That’s a good sign: Employers typically hire interim workers before beefing up permanent staff.

Unlike in previous economic recoveries, temporary spots so far have been slow to segue to more full-time positions. While layoffs have slowed substantially, economists say businesses are hesitating to hire permanent employees until the recovery is firm. Unemployment remains near 10%.

TO CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THE LINK BELOW FOR USA TODAY:

More temp workers are becoming permanent – USATODAY.com.

On Friday, Obama’s jobs agenda stalled on both ends of the Capitol. In the House, leaders delayed a vote until next week on a Senate plan to extend tax breaks to employers who hire new workers. Liberals called it weak medicine for a 9.7 percent jobless rate, and conservatives said that it would worsen a deficit projected to approach $1.6 trillion this year.

In the Senate, Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) blocked a vote on a House-passed bill that would have extended emergency unemployment benefits past Sunday, arguing that lawmakers should come up with a plan to pay for it. As lawmakers left town for the weekend, more than a million people, by one estimate, were in danger of losing federal aid by the end of March.

Leaders in both chambers hope to return to the issue next week, and aides expressed confidence that a jobs bill in some form would soon be approved. But the intense squabbling over even modest initiatives cast doubt on Democrats’ ability to deliver on Obama’s request for another big dose of tax cuts and spending, which many economists say are needed to push the recovery into high gear.

FOR CONTINUATION OF THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THIS LINK FOR THE WASHINGTON POST: Workers wait on promise of jobs as Obama agenda stalls on Hill – washingtonpost.com.

One likely explanation for the difference: Big banks rely on automated credit scoring to make loan decisions, while smaller banks rely on relationships and more labor-intensive credit analysis, says Bob Seiwert, senior vice president of the American Bankers Association Center for Commercial Lending and Business Banking. The group represents banks of all sizes in Washington.

Less than 30% of small businesses that bank at the 18 largest institutions reported having their credit needs met in 2009, compared to 50% at other banks, according to the survey, which sampled 750 employer firms with fewer than 250 workers. “It appears that the nation’s largest banks have not filled the credit needs of their small business customers nearly as well as smaller institutions have filled the needs of theirs,” the NFIB report says.

Smaller banks, where loan officers have relationships with customers and personal knowledge of their businesses, are more likely to make loans that large banks’ credit scoring models reject. “Credit scoring uses statistical techniques to determine the probability that a borrower will repay a loan or won’t repay a loan,” based on the applicant’s industry, location, and credit history, Seiwert says. “It doesn’t analyze the cash-flow generating capability of the borrower’s specific loan request.”

TO CONTINUE READING THIS STORY, CLICK THIS LINK TO BUSINESS WEEK: Largest Banks Less Likely To Meet Business Credit Needs – BusinessWeek.

Is your industry on the decline? The federal government projects that a number of industries will lose jobs from 2008 to 2018.

“You can’t sit around and wait for news to come out about what’s going to happen to your industry,” said Alexandra Levit, author of “New Job, New You.” “You have to be proactive about this.”

Disappearing Jobs

Here’s a list of the top 10 industries expected to lose the most jobs by 2018 — and what to do if you’re working in one of them:

1. Department stores: Projected to lose 10.2 percent of the 1.56 million jobs they had in 2008.

TO CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE, CLICK THIS LINK TO YAHOO! JOBS: 10 Job Sectors in Decline- Yahoo! HotJobs.

• High-risk students may have better success at small banks, credit unions.
• Community bank loans don’t offer the same benefits as student loans.
• Shop around and ask big and small lenders for the full cost of a loan.