EmploymentGuide.com, a division of Dominion Enterprises,  has launched a nationwide job fair series, “Putting Americans Back to Work,” that aims to help 10,000 Americans find jobs. Based on The Employment Guide’s already successful job fair series, this new series invites only companies with immediate hiring needs to participate. The job fairs are free and open to all job seekers.

The current economic situation has caused dramatic business changes and a nearly-unprecedented level of layoffs.  However, many businesses in retail, food service, health care and transportation are making structural changes to adapt to the economic climate, and are hiring both part-time and full-time workers on a national scale.

“More than 400 job offers were made at our first job fair of the series last month in Omaha. With numbers like that, we are confident that we will ultimately put at least 10,000 Americans back to work.  By doing so, we hope to provide economic solutions to our communities and to job seekers,” said Jeff Littlejohn, vice president and general manager of The Employment Guide and EmploymentGuide.com.

Todd Simon, CEO of Omaha Steaks, attended last month’s Omaha job fair where his company made approximately 15 hires. Simon noted, “Our business was founded on serving our customers…One of the things we know is that Americans aren’t going to stop eating and they still enjoy a great steak. We have to keep our phones staffed and we’ve got to keep our plants running in order to satisfy our customers’ needs.”

Adding to the success of this new job fair series is support from associations interested in supporting their members including: the AARP Foundation, the National Urban League, the National Job Corps Association, the American Hotel and Lodging Association, AMVETS, and myStaffingPro. 

Ford Motor Company is continuing its successful job fair partnership with The Employment Guide and EmploymentGuide.com, which provides Ford employees who are considering buyout offers the opportunity to transition to new careers. Ford will promote the “Putting Americans Back to Work” job fairs to employees who have previously accepted buyout packages.

Listed below are the kick-off events to the “Putting Americans Back to Work” Job Fair Series.  For a complete list of the more than 50 job fairs currently scheduled visit: http://www.employmentguide.com/browse_jobfairs.html.   

Austin                        February 3, 2009

Detroit                       February 4, 2009

San Antonio              February 4, 2009

Houston                    February 10, 2009

Salt Lake City           February 10, 2009

Chicago                    February 11, 2009

Cincinnati                  February 11, 2009

About The Employment Guide and EmploymentGuide.com

The Employment Guide is a division of Dominion Enterprises. The Employment Guide and EmploymentGuide.com offer businesses a comprehensive recruitment solution for hourly workers through a nationwide series of publications, award-winning Web sites, and series of job fairs. The free weekly publications are published locally in more than 75 markets with a combined circulation of 2.8 million copies nationwide. The job board, www.EmploymentGuide.com, attracts more than 1 million unique visitors each month and features a candidate database and job postings. Niche Web sites www.careersingear.com, www.healthcareerweb.com, and www.wiserworker.com have been developed to serve in-demand industries and demographics. Face-to-face recruitment is available through The Employment Guide’s job fair program, with more than 250 job fairs conducted nationwide each year. For more information about The Employment Guide, visit http://www.EmploymentGuide.com. 

About Dominion Enterprises

Dominion Enterprises is a leading marketing services company serving the automotive, enthusiast and commercial vehicle, real estate, apartment rental, and employment industries. The company’s businesses provide a comprehensive suite of technology-based marketing solutions including Internet advertising, lead generation, CRM, Web site design and hosting, and data management services. The company has more than 45 market-leading Web sites reaching more than 16.7 million unique visitors, and more than 450 magazines with a weekly circulation of 4.3 million. Headquartered in Norfolk, Va., the company has 5,400 employees in more than 200 offices nationwide. For more information, visit http://www.DominionEnterprises.com.

According to AARP, the mature work force is one of our greatest national assets.

Two important trends are making a big difference in today’s work force.

1. More and more people are expressing a desire to continue working later in life well past the normal retirement age.

2. Boomers are starting to turn 60 this year. Many of them are taking advantage of early retirement or looking to make other shifts in their careers. As a result, some industry sectors are experiencing labor shortages. Retiring workers often take with them irreplaceable institutional knowledge and experience.

Increasingly, companies are viewing older employees as a solution to their workforce needs. Many are developing effective strategies for appealing to older workers.

This coincides with the major reasons for working in retirement (according to research by AARP):

–need the money (61%)

–desire to stay mentally active (54%)

–need the health benefits (52%)

–desire to stay physically active (49%)

–desire to remain productive or useful (47%)

Older workers offer a potentially attractive solution to both short- and long-term staffing challenges. Making use of this growing pool of talent, of the collective experience and knowledge of veteran workers, is sound business–a plus for employers and employees alike.

So, what should you do if you’re at the point where you’re entertaining retirement employment? Here are three important preliminary steps:

1. Take the time to explore all your options. This is the time in your life to think outside the box.

2. Identify a variety of desirable employment opportunities. Don’t think only in terms of your resume.

3. Get introduced to decision-makers in those opportunities to discover firsthand what’s going on. Those non-interview, informal discussions can lead to job offers.

The final good news is that there is a proven system that can walk you through the job search process step-by-step and have you entertaining your next job in a matter of days. Turn your job search into the career adventure of a lifetime!

The Outlook

Over the next 7 years, baby boomer will begin retiring in large numbers. Millions of highly skilled, experienced workers will be lost. The number of workers leaving the workforce will greatly exceed the number of younger replacement workers. While jobs are expected to increase, labor force growth is expected to fall. Of course, the outlook would be improved if older workers would consider working longer.

There’s Gold In Them Gray Hairs

Call on the gold mine of gray-haired workers who either want to continue working, or retirees who want to return to work. Sara Rix, a senior policy adviser for AARP, the nation’s largest advocacy group for seniors, said that in one recent poll for the organization, 70 percent of those between ages 45 and 75 said they expected to work beyond their traditional retirement years.

Here are some points of interest from research conducted by Barbara McIntoch, Ph.D, for her report, Supervisor’s Guide: Managing Aging Workers:

• Employers consistently find older workers to be experienced, dependable, responsible, and productive and dental insurance

• Corporations, including Grumman Aerospace, Walt Disney World, The Travelers Corporation, A&P, Honeywell Corporations, and Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., have already recognized the value of older workers as a resource.

• The customer base is aging along with the labor force. Older employees are needed to help redesign products and services for this segment of the market.

• Older workers are a resource pool that, up to this point, has been largely untapped, and savvy management could benefit both employer and employee and cosmetic dentists

She further states, “Retention tomorrow is dependent upon management practices TODAY. Studies have repeatedly shown they are interested in part-time work, and they want interesting, challenging opportunities. They see themselves as having experiences that they would like to share with younger workers.”

Additionally, Social Security laws have changed to allow retirees to earn more money, without being penalized. Older workers often retire, and later find they have too much time on their hands. Why not tap this gold mine of talent, knowledge, and mentoring capabilities? Since many retirees are only interested in part-time employment, and some don’t even care about the benefits (a good number of this workforce segment has Medicare and other retirement benefits from previous employment). The part-time older worker might actually save your organization benefit costs associated with younger workers.

Quality Workers

Information from leading sources, American Business and Older Employees, AARP, and Bureau of Labor Statistics, shows the “Top Qualities of Older Employees include:

• Loyalty and dedication to the company

• Commitment to doing quality work

• Someone you can count on in a crisis

• Solid experience in job/or industry

• Get along with coworkers

• Total sick days per year of older workers is lower than other age groups

• Older workers take few risks in accident prone situations, therefore they have few accidents

And if you think older workers are adverse to technology, think again. The fastest growing group of internet users is people over 50.

Make Staying Attractive

Inducing older workers to work longer would be more feasible if phased retirement programs were a routine employee benefit. Such programs would permit workers to make a gradual— rather than an abrupt—transition from work to retirement, and provide them with an opportunity to work longer while working less.

Phased retirement programs are frequently available to state and local government workers and tenured faculty in higher education. But they are rare today in the private sector. Many employers express interest in phased retirement but only a small minority try to implement it. There are many aspects of phased retirement that must be considered before it is a viable solution for both employers and retirees. The IRS and Medicare regulations are two important aspects. Until proposed reforms are implemented, both employees and employers will need to carefully consider the ways in which they continue to employ or rehire previously retired workers.

To expand the reach of phased retirement programs will require a 180 degree shift in traditional benefits thinking. Traditionally, benefits packages have been designed to ease older workers out of the workforce. However, phased retirement programs facilitate a gradual transition to full retirement through adjusted work hours and responsibilities. To address the impending workforce void, the necessary shift in benefits thinking must begin now.

Presently, there are a lot of changes occurring with employment law governing us. These changes may have dramatic impacts on us and other various areas. What the courts are handling down now can create a whole lot of different scenarios.

Although on a daily basis we will not exactly bother ourselves with employment laws and their implications, it will do well if we take a look at them. There are sites which offer an overview with these employment laws- they provide the necessary summary and meaning of these laws. Summaries can be very useful rather the official versions of these laws. They tackle the laws directly and provide the highlights on the matter.

Here we provide some of the highlights of some employment cases. For further details on the cases you could look for AARP v. EEOC (3rd Cir. 2007).

In reality, employers and employees should be able to create and make health plans for retirees and other rewarding programs for early retirement so that the retirees would be able to enjoy the Medicare benefits when they are still most suited to. This matter can be very important to anyone even you for the fact that more and more employers are providing benefits for retirees especially on health. Companies are resulting to this for higher profit. Health care costs are becoming increasingly expensive nowadays. The gist is that if they would be able to lessen these health benefits without stepping on some federal age discrimination laws.

There are many cases that are available are normally old and thrive more on ratio decidendi - meaning the precedents they set for case law across the nation. Ratio decidendi is the reason behind most of the decisions of a case.

Another major employment case that is now gaining attention is when key employees go up against the firm they left. There is a significant verdict in this area in this case: Aero Fulfillment Services, Inc. v. Tartar (Ohio 2007). This set for the rights as well as the limitations of employers have when these key employees leave. With this employers are granted steps where they can take when their employees leave. These steps are: company trade secrets, confidential information and customer retention/fishing. These cases can help you learn a lot when it comes with US labor laws and the likes. It may not be useful for this time but chances are you can would be able to make use of it in the future.

Retiring just got a lot more interesting! That’s because many retirees are considering retirement employment as an activity rather that just riding off into the sunset.

Some have to consider retirement employment as a financial necessity. Others see it as a way of staying active and alert. Or as a way of saving for that vacation of a lifetime.

Whatever your status or motivation, the news is very good!

According to AARP, the mature work force is one of our greatest national assets. Two important trends are making a big difference in today’s work force.

1. More and more people are expressing a desire to continue working later in life well past the normal retirement age.

2. Boomers are starting to turn 60 this year. Many of them are taking advantage of early retirement or looking to make other shifts in their careers. As a result, some industry sectors are experiencing labor shortages. Retiring workers often take with them irreplaceable institutional knowledge and experience.

Increasingly, companies are viewing retiring or retired employees as a solution to their workforce needs. Many are developing an effective retirement jobs strategy for appealing to older workers.

This coincides with the major reasons for working in retirement (according to research by AARP):

–need the money (61%)

–desire to stay mentally active (54%)

–need the health benefits (52%)

–desire to stay physically active (49%)

–desire to remain productive or useful (47%)

Older workers offer a potentially attractive solution to both short- and long-term staffing challenges. Making use of this growing pool of talent, of the collective experience and knowledge of retiring workers, is sound business–a plus for employers and employees alike.

So, what should you do if you’re at the point where you’re entertaining retirement jobs? Here are 4 important preliminary steps:

1. Take the time to explore all your options. This is the time in your life to think outside the box.

2. Identify a variety of desirable employment opportunities. Don’t think only in terms of your resume.

3. Get introduced to decision-makers to discover firsthand what’s going on. Those non-interview, informal discussions can lead to job offers.

4. Establish and follow a success plan. Look, things have changed a lot since the last time you were in the job market. More than ever you have to understand and master the ins and outs of today’s fast-paced marketplace.

The problem is that, even though you’re retiring with loads of experience, you’re up against some very tough (and younger) competition. So you need a job search system that can walk you through the job process step-by-step. That way you can turn your job search into the career adventure of a lifetime!