What I’m Reading This Weekend

Happy Friday! It’s been a heckuva lousy week for the American employee. Each day, the layoff announcements were worst than the last.

President Obama’s $819 billion Stimulus Plan did pass through the House of Representatives, and now its up to the Senate to decide what to do. If the spending plan passes, a major component is a  job recovery undertaking that will begin in a variety of sectors, including state services and the green economy.

That said, the Plan will ramp up job creation at a rather modest pace — with the full impact not being felt for as long as a decade. Translation? Things are slated to get better. But not for a while.

In the meantime, the layoffs continue at warp speed. A friend just told me about her sixty-year old dad who was laid off from the U.S.’ major producer of domestic aircraft. My heart aches just thinking about it: Not only have his retirement savings been slashed by the market crash, he is now unemployed — and presumably facing an even harder time finding a new job than the rest of America’s unemployed thanks to his “mature” age.

If you find yourself in a similar situation to my friend’s dad, first: I’m so sorry! And second, I recently posted some Career Tips for the Un-Retired, which might be helpful to you now. Also, the Career Hub Blog had a nice post this week on workers’ rights that touched briefly on the issue of age bias.

In addition to thinking and worrying about how this recession is going to affect our older workers, I also found some great articles and blog posts this week about a wide range of career-related topics that I want to quickly share with you.

>> The Winston-Salem Journal has a nice article with tips for saving up an Emergency Fund. I touched on this topic Monday when I wrote about how to shore up your finances in anticipation of a job loss.

>> When Your Employer Is About To Hit Rough Seas @ the Wall Street Journal blog has some great suggestions for how to be proactive during these insecure times. Even if the writing isn’t already on the wall at your job, it certainly can’t hurt to take these steps.

>> A couple of posts about using online networking to find a new job, including Three Ways To Leverage Your Professional Network to Find a Job @ the LinkedIn Blog. (For the uninitiated, I wrote a post back in October about using online social networking sites like LinkedIn.)

>> Job Seekers Plunge Into Twitter Stream @ the OC Register’s Freedom Blog is another great piece on using new social media to find a job — in this case the hot new trend of twittering.

>> Professional Networking and Career Advancement @ Cuberules.com, a blog about career management for so-called cubicle warriors. This short little post makes the point, once again, that networking really is invaluable to your job search!

So that’s it for me — lots of good reading for your weekend! Have you read something lately about careers and job searching that opened your eyes, made you think, or caused you to take action in your job search? Leave us your best links in the comments section!