Posts Tagged ‘Employment opportunities’

NH Governor John Lynch Announces a Three-Part Initiative to Help Workers

January 28th, 2010

By Michele Moon, NEJS Public Relations Manager

Governor John Lynch

Salem NH – January 25, 2010 – Governor John Lynch and Commissioner Tara Reardon announced at a NHES sponsored networking meeting NHnetWORKS, New Hampshire’s Three-Part Initiative to help its workers. This initiative focuses on keeping individuals working, employing the unemployed and training.

Part I – Stay at Work focuses on keeping individuals employed. As businesses experience a temporary slow down, they may find it necessary to adjust their personnel accordingly. Under this plan, instead of individuals being laid off, their hours would be cut, but their benefits would remain in place and lost wages could be augmented by unemployment benefits.

Part II – Return to Work focuses on assisting the unemployed in their effort to find employment. Under this portion of the initiative, companies would be encourage to bring in a prospective new hire and train them for up to 6 weeks (24 hours per week maximum) at no cost to the company. This benefits the candidate by giving them the opportunity to pursue a new career path or industry. During this training period, the individual participating in the training would continue to collect unemployment benefits until they are hired.

Part III – Skills Assessment and Training will evaluate a worker skill set. Based on the results, individuals will have the opportunity to upgrade their skills and they be certified as “Work Ready”.

This program will be rolled out in 3 stages. Part II is expected to be launched in late Spring, followed by Part I in July (after legislative approval) and finally Part III. Part III will be expanded further in 2011 when job training funds double over 2010 levels.

About NHnetWORKS

NHnetWORKS is a networking group of professionals either in transition or working, living, or interested in doing business in New Hampshire. Its purpose is to help people advance professionally and to assist them with successful business and organizational activities. Run by Nicole Tessier, Founder and Director, the Group meets from 9 a.m. to noon every Monday at SNHU’s 25 Pelham Road, Salem NH campus.

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Posted in Job opportunities, News

Tags: Employment Employment opportunities Governor John Lynch NH Three-Part Initiative NHES NHnetWORKS Nicole Tessier Return to Work Skills Assessment and Training Stay at Work unemployed

Q & A: Candidates and Companies

January 26th, 2010

By Joe Redshaw

What does it say about a company that constantly has the same jobs posted?

That the company is either growing or they have quite a bit of turnover. If you get an interview definitely ask!

Who is the ideal candidate; experienced or inexperienced?

Depends on your outlook. An experienced candidate can often come in and hit the ground running, but often can be expensive. If a company does not have time to train the person, then an experienced person may be needed. But if the person is over experienced then they may become board in the role and move on sooner than later. An inexperienced person will typically need a lot of training, mentoring, coaching and guidance. However this person may stick around longer and could be more driven in the role.

What would you do if you were the applicant? How would you proceed?

If I were unemployed I would be more aggressive in my job search. Meaning I would send my resume and probably try to find out who the hiring manager was. I would reach out to them and let them know I am interested and have sent them my resume…and this is why I think I am a great fit.

If I was employed and just testing the waters, I would probably just wait to see if the company got back to me, but it all depends on the job. If it was my ultimate perfect job and you REALLY want it, then go after it.

To a certain extent your hands are tied. You can submit your resume and wait, or submit your resume and try to follow up with someone at the company to show your interest. After that, there is not much you can do but be patient and positive.

About Joe Redshaw

Joe Redshaw is the Corporate Recruiter for Gomez, the Web Performance Division of Compuware. He has been a recruiter for almost 10 years and has experience on the agency and corporate side. Joe has screened thousands of candidates and has agreed to provide NEJS his perspective on HR/Recruiter practices.

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Posted in Job search tips

Tags: Employment opportunities find a job Harbor Homes Harvard Business School interview interviewing

Career Assessment: Starting Your Own Business, Part 5

December 1st, 2009

By Thomas Arrison, Certified Public Accountant

Paying your taxes

Be sure you are sitting down. The taxes on the income from your business can be as high as 40 to 50% of your net profit. It all depends on what other income shows up on your tax return. The fact that your spouse is working can push you into this level of taxation as can investment income, unemployment compensation, or rental income. Here is how it breaks down:

The Social Security Administration gets about 15% of your wages or net income from self-employment to cover your Social Security benefits and Medicare. When you are an employee, you pay half and your employer pays half. When you are self-employed you pay the whole 15%. Your itemized deductions, such as mortgage interest and real estate taxes, do not effect what you pay for Social Security.

Your federal income taxes depend on your taxable income and marital status. This blog cannot provide all the alternatives. A large majority of taxpayers end up in either the 25 or 28% tax brackets. Your actual percentage will vary with your return.

Most states have an income tax. Even some states that do not have an income tax have a business tax that applies to self-employed people. New Hampshire is one of those states. Massachusetts has a tax rate of approximately 5%.

Using the numbers above you would be paying either 45% or 48% in total taxes. Now that you are totally depressed, let me back off from that statement a bit. The taxes you pay depend on how your tax return goes together. High mortgage interest and real estate taxes will reduce your federal taxes. A non-working spouse reduces your taxes. Many of my self-employed clients only pay Social Security taxes because their income is low.

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Posted in Career assessment and transition

Tags: career assessment career transition contract employment Employment Employment opportunities self employment Thomas Arrison

Career Assessment: Starting Your Own Business, Part 4

November 26th, 2009

By Thomas Arrison, Certified Public Accountant

Tax Deductions

The reason you need a bookkeeping system is so that you can deduct all the expenses possible to minimize the taxes you will be paying.

There are a couple of expenses that you will not collect in your bookkeeping system.

Automobile expense. You have two choices in calculating your deduction for your automobile. Under either choice you need to keep a log on your business miles and know the total miles you drive your car during the year.

One way is to record every expense, (gas, insurance, repairs etc.) you incur using your automobile. Once you know the total cost you multiply it by your business-use percentage. (Business-use percentage is your business miles divided by your total miles.) Alternately, you use the IRS automobile mileage rate (for 2009 the IRS mileage rate is $0.55 per mile) times the business miles. The vast majority of my clients use the IRS standard mileage rate. It’s simpler to work with.

Deduction for a home office. To deduct the cost to maintain an office in your home, you must use the area exclusively for business. Thus you cannot deduct the expense if you work at your kitchen table. You are allowed to deduct the business-use percentage of all the expenses to run the house. This would include mortgage interest, real estate taxes, utilities, heat, insurance, and general repairs. You cannot deduct repairs to the non-business use portion of the house, like your kitchen. As this is a complex deduction, it would benefit you to hire a tax professional to help you figure it out.

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Posted in Career assessment and transition

Tags: career assessment career transition Employment Employment opportunities self employment

Career Assessment: Exploring Self-Employment

November 1st, 2009

By Suzanne Delaney, Career & Business Coach

Suzanne Delaney

In my last blog we discussed “What Should I Do With My Life?” This time I am going to dig deeper into the self-employment option. Once you have determined that self-employment may have the potential to bring you closer to your life goals it is time to go exploring. In today’s blog we will look at the three different avenues to enter self-employment.

Independent Business

A successful independent business requires a lot of research and upfront legwork. You need to:

Identify a product or service that meets a need that is not already being satisfied by another business in your market.
Create a business plan. This may require education on business methods so you know what a marketing plan and other important aspects of the plan involve.
Research on the market trends and who exactly will be buying your product or service.

It is important to have your business plan reviewed by someone with business expertise. I recommend your local SCORE counselor (www.score.org) – their services are free. And remember, the top reason that businesses fail is under capitalization, so make sure you have over estimated how much working capital you will need to get to break even.

Resale Business

Buying a resale business can make a lot of sense. An existing business will already have cash flow and will cut down on your time to profitability. Often times the previous owner will train you how to operate this business. But you will pay more up front because of that cash flow. A few areas to look out for:

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Posted in Career assessment and transition

Tags: career assessment career coach Career planning career transition Employment opportunities Franchise Franchise Opportunity Suzanne Delaney

AARP Lists the 2009 Best Employers For Workers Over 50

September 28th, 2009

In an article on Loosing Your Job After 50 AARP notes that in this recession the number of older workers losing their jobs is growing faster than any other age group. Attend any local networking meeting and you quickly get an idea of the challenges that job seekers over 50 face; the search takes longer than younger workers, fewer jobs are available, and pay often ends up being lower than in a previous position.

Job seekers over 50 should check out AARP: Cornell Heads 2009 Best Employers For Workers Over 50 for a list of companies that have been vetted to ensure that practices meet the needs of mature workers. Company policies that are reviewed include: recruiting practices, opportunities for training, education and career development; workplace accommodations; alternative work options, such as flexible scheduling, job sharing, and phased retirement; employee health and retirement benefits and retiree work opportunities. Five companies from Massachusetts are included in the top 50.

AARP is a nonprofit, nonpartisan membership organization that helps people 50+ have independence, choice and control in ways that are beneficial and affordable to them and society as a whole.

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Posted in Job opportunities, Uncategorized

Tags: Employment Employment opportunities find job job search job search resources jobs