Results tagged “jobs”

Hundreds of New Yorkers fought on Thursday to become Times Square "restroom ambassadors" — a highly coveted gig that pays $10,000 for just six weeks of employment. The toilet paper manufacturer Charmin is looking for five hosts and hostesses who will direct an estimated 500,000 loo-users to the temporary public bathrooms between Nov. 23 and New Year's Eve, when Times Square itself becomes a massive public bathroom. The ambassadors are expected to be "outgoing and enthusiastic" and detail their experiences on Twitter and Facebook.

The NYC economy added 130,000 jobs during the Bloomberg administration— but most of them are in low-paid, un-fun professions like "retail, food service, and home health care." Good luck paying off your student loans on $20K per year!

Ugh, the economy. America lost 263,000 jobs in September, far more than analysts expected, and the national unemployment rate rose to 9.8 percent, according to the Labor Department's monthly report. (Last month it was announced that 10.3% of NYC is unemployed, the highest rate since the Dinkins administration.) State and local governments across the country slashed 47,000 jobs last month, and now the unemployment rate is at a 26-year high.

Yesterday, the NY State Department of Labor revealed that statewide unemployment rose from 7.7% in April to 8.2% in May, while NYC unemployment hit 9.0% in May, after being at 8.0% in April: "The state's private sector job count has now dropped for nine consecutive months. Since the state's private sector job count peaked in August 2008, New York has lost 212,200 private sector jobs, erasing more than half of the 400,000 jobs added during the state's last economic expansion from 2003 to 2008."

Seems a lot of folks are looking to runaway with the circus, or at least make the current financial climate less harsh with a new job at Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus. The NY Times reports back from the job fair held yesterday for the 150 positions open for their new set-up on Coney Island. Over 500 applicants turned up (alongside some animal rights activists) even though the job would only be temporary, lasting around 3 months. The circus wasn't looking for carnival barkers or occupants for the clown car, rather "ticket takers, ushers and custodians" who will work for minimum wage. Lynn B. Kelly, president of the Coney Island Development Corporation said of the turnout, “It may be a function of the market. Or it may be that, how often in life do you get a chance to say you’ve worked at the circus?” We're guessing it's the former. One 16-year-old local told the paper, “A lot of jobs don’t hire teens. But I’m not like everybody else. I’m mature, plus I have a child. I need a job.”

Guess what? With the government cracking down on the multi-million dollar bonuses given to employees of bailed out financial firms, some top executives are thinking maybe they don't want to work for the big firms. The NY Times reports on the exodus of "top talent...leaving Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and others in rising numbers to join banks that do not face tighter regulation, including foreign banks, or start-up companies eager to build themselves into tomorrow’s financial powerhouses." They're also heading to firms that didn't take bailout money, like Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank. One boutique firm's chief executive says, “We have the opportunity to step into the shoes of a Bear Stearns or a Lehman." Um, remember what happened to Bear and Lehman? Still, NYU Stern School of Business professor of finance Matthew Richardson says, "If the risk-taking spreads out to these smaller institutions, it is no longer a systemic threat. And innovation is spreading out too. This is a good thing.”

The recession is making the adult entertainment industry increasingly competitive, and many employers in the field say they're flooded with applications from college-educated women who, until recently, held down white-collar jobs. Gus Poulos, the manager of Sin City gentleman's club in midtown, recently received 85 responses to a Craigslist job posting in just one day; he tells the AP, "You're seeing a lot more beautiful women who are eligible to do so many other things." A spokesperson for Rick's Caberet notes that 20 to 30 women a week are applying for jobs at the New York club, twice as many as last year's average. And Rebecca Brown, a new stripper in Chicago, says she earns more in one night than she used to make in a week as a trainer and bartender. The new job just took a little getting used to: "It is like giving a speech, but instead of imagining everyone naked, you're the one who's naked."

There's a bracing, if unsurprising, report in today's Times dining section about the state of New York's restaurant industry, and the prognosis is quite bleak. With business down 10% to 30% by some estimates, NYC restaurant owners slashed more than 10,000 jobs between October 2008 and January 2009. And when a new position does open up, it's met with an avalanche of resumes from overqualified applicants, including unemployed Ph.D.s. Alexandra Raij of Txikito tapas bar in Chelsea says it used to be tough to find skilled cooks for her tiny kitchen; now "the situation is so desperate that cooks push résumés through the security gate late at night."

Recent data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows how badly the restaurant industry is being battered by the recession. Eateries and bars shed jobs for five consecutive months through November, which is the longest stretch of downsizing since the government began tracking the info in 1990. 66,500 jobs have been lost since July, and George Prassas at the Labor Department tells the Wall Street Journal that the extended decline is "definitely something different than what the food-service industry's used to." To personalize the article (and bum everybody out), the Journal tells the sad story of one unemployed waitress on Long Island:

Dawnmarie Capuano, with 14 years of experience as a waitress, hostess and restaurant manager, was earning as much as $200 a night in tips between two jobs at an Italian restaurant and a pub.

Continue reading "Dining Industry Doing Even Worse Than Expected"

The two-blocks long line around Federal Plaza, with about 800 job seekers on it, was for that venerable institution, the Internal Revenue Service. The NY Times noticed quite a few "laid-off Wall Street types in charcoal-gray pinstripe suits and trenchcoats" as well as a "woman with a new accounting degree on her resume and a 14-month old baby in a stroller." One applicant, laid off from Lehman Brothers without a severance, said, "You could get a lucrative job in the financial market right now, but how long can you keep it? Everywhere I look, I see layoffs. If I take a $10,000 or $20,000 pay cut, in the long run, I’m ahead. The government is not in the trading business. It will be around.” But the competition for IRS positions is tight: Another told the Post, "You talk with recruiters, and they get anywhere between 200 and 500 résumés for one job."

After gaining back about half of Monday's big losses yesterday, the stock market opened lower this morning. Right now, the Dow and S&P 500 are down almost 2% (Dow is down 200 points), as investors wait for the Senate to vote on a modified bailout plan today--and GE's profit estimates were cut. Still, data from ADP says the US cut only 8,000 jobs last month--a "surprisingly low" figure.

Last night, the federal government gave insurer AIG a new lease on life with an $85 billion loan--in exchange for a 79.9% stake in the company. The NY Times reports, "The decision, only two weeks after the Treasury took over the federally chartered mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, is the most radical intervention in private business in the central bank’s history." As the Wall Street Journal noted, the Fed decided not to bail out Lehman Brothers, but "this time, the government decided AIG truly was too big to fail."

Job losses were greater than expected as the Labor Department announced that the unemployment rate is now at 6.1%, the highest in five years. Bloomberg reports, "The increase in the jobless rate sent the misery index, which adds unemployment to inflation, to 11.7 percent, the highest level since 1991." In total, "2.2 million Americans have lost their jobs over the past year. Experts are divided about whether this is a recession, but it's definitely an election issue. John McCain said, “Americans are hurting and we must act to create jobs," while Barack Obama said, "Today’s jobs report is a reminder of what’s at stake in this election." [Thumbnail image from this detailed NY Times graphic about the "Labor Picture in August."]

After Letterman announced his show's comeback with new episodes, writers' strike or no writers' strike, the leaders of late night all followed suit.

Joseph Jirovec and Kimberly Babajko are two of ten people arrested in an attack that was initiated by a friendly greeting of "Happy Channukah!" aboard a Q train in Brooklyn last week. Both Jirovec and Babajko have criminal records for assaulting minorities and could face hate crime charges in their latest brush with justice. Both are scheduled to appear in Brooklyn Criminal Court today for the vicious beating they allegedly administered to Walter Adler, who was on his way home from a holiday dinner. Adler and his girlfriend were spared further injury when a complete stranger, Hassan Askari, intervened at his own physical expense. The young Muslim man was beaten alongside Adler.

Mayor Bloomberg's generosity has been noted from educational institutions (like his alma mater Johns Hopkins) and even city organizations (like the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation). He gave staffers on his re-election campaign payouts as big as $300,000-400,000. And when Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff announced he would leave City Hall to become president of the mayor's business, Bloomberg LP, it suggested that the Mayor rewarded staffers he trusts. Well, the NY Times now looks at how some Bloomberg aides' salaries have grown since taking the government jobs in City Hall.

The Independent Budget Office released a report examining who might be affected by congestion pricing. The report, "Behind the Wheel: Who Drives Into The Proposed 'Congestion Zone'" can be read here (PDF) but the topline is that drivers are middle-class and over half are from Nassau County, Westchester, NJ, Connecticut and Pennsylvania. The report states, "Looking at the extremes of the earnings distribution for all congestion zone commuters, motor vehicle users were less likely...

Caution: Half the bathrooms at the Tribeca venue currently hosting Nature Theater of Oklahoma’s No Dice are designed for children; the tiny toilets and sinks hover inches above the floor and may give adult users a disorienting sense of vertigo. The actors’ dressing room, which opens directly onto the performance space, is marked with a laminated sign that declares: “No Adults Are Allowed in the Bouncy Castle!” The company inherited these elements from this...

No More Bolaris in the Forecast You won’t be seeing John Bolaris anymore on WCBS. He was last seen this past weekend and his bio has been taken down from the CBS 2 website. He will be starting at Fox owned WTXF in Philadelphia next month. We should mention that before the Long Island native was basically run out of town on a rail down there after predicting a blizzard that never happened, although he...

Let's go to the audiotape digital recording! A Bronx detective was indicted on perjury charges after claiming in court that he never interrogated a teen shooting suspect - only for the teen to reveal he recorded the interrogation. Back in December 2005, 17-year-old Erik Crespo was accused of shooting a man in a High Bridge apartment building. He was arrested and when Detective Christopher Perino interviewed him, he used an MP3 player to record their...

Entertainment Weekly’s #1 “smartest” Hollywood player, Judd Apatow, says “it doesn’t look good” for an end to the writers’ strike any time soon. The well-connected catalyst behind hits like Knocked Up has told the Toronto Star that the studios and producers are prepared to dig in and crush the union’s demand for payment for Internet downloads and movie streaming, “which are expected to become a big part of the industry in the coming years.”

It would cost very little money to end the strike and (the producers) are basically trying to create a way of paying people so that when the Internet explodes, they’ll wind up paying less than they do now to writers. And I don’t think they’re going to get away with it. The writers really failed to stand up for themselves with the DVD (in a previous contract dispute) and they feel terrible about it, and enough of them will not give up that it will have to be resolved in a reasonably fair manner.

The City Council's Committee on Government Operations met this week to talk about possible changes to how much money council members make. Questions were raised about how raises were determined, leadership bonuses, and whether outside work should remain permitted. After a 25% increase in base pay in 2006, council members earn $112,500 annually. They can earn an additional $10,000 a year on average if a member holds a leadership position. In addition, members can hold...

Resumes are being accepted to fill a sudden vacuum in the self-proclaimed “drug ring” that is Gawker. On Friday afternoon, at the end of a long Gawker post about palling around with the n + 1 crowd – who happen to be publishing a long think-piece on Gawker in their new issue – editor and cewebrity Emily Gould abruptly announced that managing editor Choire Sicha was to resign. And she would be joining him....

The two women arrested for allegedly robbing a number of open houses on the Upper East and West Sides are being on bail of $30,000 each. Jessica Joyner and Jennifer Jones, charged with petty larceny, grand larceny and criminal possession of stolen property, will be extradited to New Jersey authorities next week because they allegedly stole $75,000 worth of items during a Saddle River, NJ home's open house. The pair, who both live in Upper...

The old saw is that one can't fight City Hall, and we can apparently add the ivory tower to the bulwarks of imperviousness. Despite fierce community opposition, Columbia University will be expanding its upper-Manhattan campus to surrounding blocks. The plan to expand the university's property by 17 acres and several blocks in each direction was approved this afternoon by the New York City Planning Commission. CityRoom reports the neighborhood meeting wasn't exactly neighborly:A majority...

Irene Boland, the co-author of Wind the World Over, works in the sustainability office of the EPA. Her office covers Region 2 (New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands) helps people pursue green living through their built environment. You can find out more about her office at the EPA on their website. Irene resides in Brooklyn, "under the BQE." How did you and your co-author, Vanessa Kellogg come up with the...

The gas main explosion that rocked a home on 48th Ave. and 41st. St. Wedneday––killing one woman and injuring six others––occurred despite what ConEd and FDNY say was them following proper procedures preceding the incident. Kunta Oza, who died at the age of 69, was burned over 90% of her body. In addition to the six others injured in the explosion, 200 people were evacuated from the block until it was deemed safe to return....

Elizabeth Currid's new book, The Warhol Economy: How Fashion, Art, and Music Drive New York City, posits that the city's culture is the key our fiscal well-being. With insights culled from many of New York's leading players in the worlds of art, fashion and music, she draws a detailed blueprint of how these creative processes become big-money industries. Currid's thesis is that the conditions that have made New York one of the cultural capitals of...

British comedian John Oliver has become an indispensable fixture on The Daily Show, where he’s found a highly receptive audience for his particularly earnest style of fake reportage. But millions of viewers accustomed to their nightly laugh therapy have been going through heavy withdrawal since the Writers Guild strike put the kibosh on new episodes. At issue is the guild’s demand for a taste of the loot being raked in from new media outlets. The...

After heated debate and almost universal dislike from both parties and many NY residents for his controversial driver's license plan, Governor Spitzer has decided to shelve the idea. He is expected to announce the news today during a meeting with the Democratic congressional delegation, whose recently elected members have criticized the Governor for putting their positions in jeopardy with voters. The Governor spoke to the NY Times, "You have perhaps seen me struggle with it...