Word: arens
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...incredibly important to the health of the labor market. Trade policy, corporate tax rates, the structure of health care - these things all have a real impact on economic growth. But Washington's tool kit doesn't work nearly as well in the short run. Right now companies aren't hiring for a very specific reason: there's not as much demand for their products and services. Callous as it may sound, high unemployment at the front end of an economic recovery is perfectly normal. (See TIME's special feature, "Out of Work in America...
...there are reasons to question how effective and efficient such a program would be. First of all, it is misleading to imply that companies aren't hiring because workers aren't cheap enough. As Dale Mortensen, a professor of economics at Northwestern University, points out, workers are a real bargain right now. Unit labor costs - how much a company has to pay people to produce a unit of whatever it is that the company makes - have been flat or falling for all of 2009. Between the second and third quarters, labor costs dropped at an annual rate...
...also misleading to imply that companies aren't hiring. They are - about 4 million workers a month. There is always a lot of churn in the American labor market and that doesn't stop during a recession. (We don't particularly feel the hiring right now because companies are letting workers go at a higher rate.) In a best-case scenario - if using tax dollars to subsidize corporate hiring works exactly as it should - we'd wind up paying for 4 million hires a month that we would have otherwise gotten for free...
...authors also tell bosses "the question you mustn't ask is 'What does your religion say?'" since answers to that will likely be subject to interpretation, and in any case aren't relevant to the work setting. Instead, the study recommends managers analyze how a request will affect objective professional considerations on a series of measures: security, hygiene, performance ability, organization and business interests, as well as the risk of religious employees engaging in proselytizing (or appearing to do so) through their expression of faith. If the impact is small, then a boss should agree to the request...
...Israeli peace activists say that even the Western powers aren't paying enough attention to the ideological agenda of settler groups in Jerusalem, which has helped turn a difficult nationalistic conflict into an even more volatile religious conflict. In today's desperate atmosphere, any real or perceived damage done to the nearby Islamic holy places could help spark another Palestinian uprising. "In responsible hands, Jerusalem is a message of peace from Beirut to Baghdad," said Danny Seidemann, an Israeli lawyer who tracks East Jerusalem settlements. "But in irresponsible hands, it's a nuclear bomb that can send shock waves throughout...