During the holidays it’s not unusual for people to take on a holiday job, at a retailer or a mail-order company, to make ends meet and to help put Christmas gifts under the tree. But in this competitive job market, you might want to also consider that short term job a way to get your foot in the door for the long term. Beth Kobliner, author of "Get a Financial Life: Personal Finance In Your Twenties and Thirties," discusses this with Kurt Kuehn, Chief Financial Officer at UPS. Kuehn started with UPS as a seasonal driver's assistant 32 years ago.

Temporary and contract workers may be the first to start feeling some relief as the recession ebbs. Temporary staffing companies found jobs for more than 52,000 workers in November, the most since 2004, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported this week. For a deeper look at the freelance market, we speak with Sara Horowitz, founder and executive director of Freelancers Union. We also speak with University of Chicago Professor Susan Lambert.

On the eve of the Bureau of Labor Statistic’s release of employment numbers for November, President Obama will host 130 business leaders at the White House today for a "Jobs Summit." The President's summit will include a meeting of the minds between CEOs of large corporations and small business owners; economists, labor union leaders and non-profit groups. Newt Gingrich, in response to the president's summit, announced yesterday that he will hold his own meeting, deeming it the "Real Jobs Summit." So with all the summits, we at The Takeaway decided to hold our own, including Dan Gross, senior editor at Newsweek; Ken Rogers, executive director of Automation Alley in Troy, Mich. (Rogers will be attending President Obama's summit later today); and Dave Thompson, news director for Prairie Public Radio in North Dakota, where unemployment numbers are at a nationwide low.

Today, the White House releases a huge amount of raw data on how and where stimulus money is being spent. We talk about the numbers we know so far, what listeners have noticed, and what we'll be looking for in the tea leaves. We're joined by WNYC reporter Andrea Bernstein, Pete Herman, a currently unemployed ironworker from Brooklyn, N.Y., and Charlie Dilbert, a construction worker from Cincinnati whose job is being paid for with stimulus money.

Comedian David Letterman and Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) were both recently blackmailed for what's long been considered taboo: consensual relationships with their employees. But is it really that bad to date someone you work for or who works for you? For some answers we talk to Liz Shalet, an employment lawyer who specializes in sexual harassment cases.

 

A Los Angeles–based clothing company is laying off 1,800 immigrant employees in the coming weeks at the behest of the Obama administration. And it's not just any company — it's American Apparel, a business that has made a name for itself for paying its workers a better-than-fair wage and offering in-factory massages. (And, yes, they have also made a name for themselves with their over-the-top "sex sells" advertising.) Are the layoffs at American Apparel the start of a larger storm to come, in which more companies will be asked to let immigrants go? New York Times immigration reporter Julia Preston gives us the details.

For more, read Julia Preston's article, Immigration Crackdown With Firings, Not Raids, in today's New York Times.

This week the White House reported that the federal deficit is rising faster than expected. The projected 10-year deficit is now $9 trillion — that's $2 trillion more than previous estimates. Does increased spending mean a healthier economy, or does burgeoning debt spell trouble for the future? To decode this number and other indicators we speak to Lakshman Achuthan, managing director of the Economic Cycle Research Institute.

Increasing numbers of employers are asking their workers to tweet. The popular micro-blog Twitter allows companies to promote themselves in 140 characters or less. So why limit press releases to the PR department? But employers in government and the military are trying to figure out how to make sure they retain control of the messages that get out on Twitter or Facebook. Rachael King is a contributing technology writer for Businessweek. She joins The Takeaway to talk about the next step in social networking.

Eric Jones, director of IT at iPass in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, hasn't taken a vacation in a long time. That wouldn't be the case if he worked for Eric Berridge, co-founder and CEO of Bluewolf, a global IT services company, because his company offers unlimited vacation. The company doesn't even track the number of days. As long as work is done, the company is happy. Is that the wave of the future? Kari Henley thinks so. She's director of the board at the Women and Family Life Center in North Haven, Connecticut. Only 14 percent of Americans took two weeks of vacation last year and the number of Americans taking family vacations has dropped by a third in the past generation. Are we just too busy to take a break?

This morning the unemployment numbers come out and there is a strong chance that they could reach the double digits. The economy is hitting men particularly hard. From the corporate suites to the construction sites, since November, more than 80 percent of job losses in the U.S. have fallen on men. For a look at what this means for both men and women in the workforce, we are joined by Kelly Evans, she is the economics reporter for the Wall Street Journal. We are also joined by Riehan Salam, a fellow at The New America Foundation; he’s written a new piece on this for Foreign Policy magazine titled The Death of Macho. And for an up close look on how the recession is affecting men we turn to Michael Doyle. Doyle is the Vice President and General Manager of the Southeast Division of Manpower, which is an employment service provider.

The average salary for middle-school teachers is $46,000, according to the Department of Labor. But a charter school in New York’s Washington Heights will be paying a salary of $125,000, trying to find out if better pay means a better education. Zeke Vanderhoek, the founder and principal of the charter school The Equity Project (TEP) joins The Takeaway to talk about the school. The Takeaway also has Joe Williams, Executive Director of Democrats for Education Reform, to talk about whether paying teachers a high salary would improve public schools in the long run.

With millions of jobs lost in this economy, people are reflecting on how important their jobs are -- and not just for the obvious financial reasons. Philosopher Alain de Botton has been thinking about what constitues a meaningful life. For his latest book, "The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work," he followed working people around the world, going behind the scenes with fishermen, career counselors, and cookie manufacturers, to offer perspective on the working person's life.

The economic downturn is making life harder than usual for teenagers. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics the unemployment rate among teens is 21.7 percent — the highest rate in nearly 20 years. And these aren’t just kids looking for iPod money. There are young people across the socioeconomic spectrum who are hoping to put themselves through school, or to pitch in at home. Joining us to explain what it means to have so many jobless teens is Beth Kobliner. She is a personal finance expert and author of The New York Times best-seller Get a Financial Life.

It's not just the market that's bottoming out in this recession. There are nationwide reports of anxiety and stress in the face of these trying economic times. Reports are so widespread that the federal government was prompted to put up website warnings about symptoms of depression, substance abuse, and even suicide. Pam Belluck is covering the story for the New York Times and in her research she met Victoria Villalba, a woman who has been experiencing severe anxiety about the economy. They both join The Takeaway to share their stories.


For more, read Pam Belluck's article, Recession Anxiety Seeps Into Everyday Lives in today's New York Times.

Also, check out the government's website, Getting Through Tough Economic Times for more information on the signs of recession depression and where to get help.

I got married last year and was actually somewhat excited this month when I arrived at the accountant's office. For some reason, my husband and I were under the shared delusion that we'd be getting a big fat tax refund.

Not so: These wee slips of gold around our ring fingers cost us a fair chunk of money. But the four-hour slog at the accountant's also started me thinking about the social contract hidden within the 17,000 pages of tax code.

Our painful April 15 ritual is arguably the only thing we do together as a country. Undocumented immigrants, conservative Republicans, anarchists, grannies, teenage babysitters, janitors and bankers line up every year, fill out a series of tedious forms, and stand ready to have what they've monetarily accomplished for the year added up and held to account. Of course, people from those same groups also cheat together as a country (joining Tom Daschle and dozens of other nominees to government posts). But cheating is part of the ritual. (As is tax evasion: Leona Helmsley reportedly said, “Only the little people pay taxes.” Then she was audited by the IRS and sentenced to four years in prison.)

Whether you like its priorities or not, the tax code represents our country’s social and political agreement: who should pay and who should pay more; who gets penalized for working or not working; what institutions in our society are valued; and what it means to be a full member of society, or a buyer of the social contract.

Guilt, obligation, bureaucracy, hard labor and relief when it’s finally over — all the same elements as a bad family reunion. As your resident geek at the family dinner table, I’m going to write about some of the most interesting pieces of tax day over the next few weeks. Send any questions along and I'll try to answer them.

— Sitara Nieves

David Leonhardt, New York Times "Economic Scene" columnist, listens to your stories about unemployment and breaks down the 8.1 percent unemployment rate for February 2009.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has more details and numbers.

Unemployment numbers just came out and they tell a dismal story. The jobless rate jumped to 8.1 percent in February 2009. That's the highest level in more than 25 years. American payrolls shrunk by 651,000 workers.

Newsweek senior editor Daniel Gross, author of the new book Dumb Money: How Our Greatest Financial Minds Bankrupted the Nation, parses the numbers.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has more details and numbers.

Retail sales are down, as are orders for manufactured goods, and the number of people claiming jobless benefits remains near record highs. But the key for tracking the recession today is unemployment. Numbers are released later this morning. The Wall Street Journal's Kelly Evans tells The Takeaway how high it could go.

Retailers were not supposed to begin filing for bankruptcy until after January 1. But it seems the fallout from poor holiday sales has already begun. On Monday, the Parent Company became the first well-known retailer to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after Christmas. New York Times reporter Stephanie Rosenbloom joins The Takeaway with the details.

Marci Alboher is a freelance writer/journalist/author/blogger/speaker who focuses on career and workplace trends. She talks about how to diversify your career portfolio in these tough times.