What I’m Reading This Weekend: The Post-Christmas Lull

There is not much happening on the blogs this week.  I think most bloggers are taking a well-deserved holiday break, which you hopefully managed to do as well. 

I’ve got just two links for you today, with a little bad news-good news.

>> US likely to lose another 1 million jobs in 2009

The Boston Globe recently reported the grim news that the unemployment trend is expected to continue well into the new year. Quoting Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc., a global outplacement consultancy headquartered in Chicago, the Globe says that 2008 has already seen an excess of 1 million job cut announcements.  And despite planned job creation efforts by the new Obama Administration, the  U.S. is predicted to continue hemorrhaging jobs into this coming spring.  That’s the bad news. The good news is that…

>> Texas had 71% of all the new jobs as of November 2008

According to the Career Hub Blog, the state of Texas is booming when it comes to new jobs.  71% of all new jobs created between November 2007 and 2008  — that’s a total of 222,900 new jobs — were in Texas.  A distant second was Oklahoma; an even more distant third was Maryland.  I guess if you’re not living in Texas, you might want to consider relocating: It seems their job market hasn’t gotten the grim economic news yet.  But if becoming a Long Horn isn’t in the cards, then check out this link posted at Career Hub — Job Bait has a listing of employment growth details by state and by sector.

That’s it for me this week. I hope you have a wonderful weekend and I look forward to seeing all of you here bright and early next Monday! And remember: Even though the rest of the country may be taking an extended vacation through New Year’s Day, that doesn’t mean that job seekers should follow suit.  Stay on track with your job search, so that you can get a leg up on all your vacation-taking competitors.