Here are some not so fun facts from the U.S. News Student Loans Ranger blog about student loans and the necessity of going into debt to function as an American citizen:

Total outstanding student loan debt officially surpassed total credit card debt in the United States in 2010, and is on track to exceed $1,000,000,000,000 during 2012.

Excessive student loan debt is impeding economic growth in the United States. Faced with excessive repayment burdens, many individuals are unable to start businesses, invest, or buy homes.

Because of soaring tuition costs, students often have no choice but to amass significant debt to obtain an education that is widely considered a prerequisite for earning a living wage.

On March 8, Congressman Hansen Clarke (D-Mich.) introduced H.R. 4170, the Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 2012.

Clarke exclaimed that the bill, “provides that if a student loan borrower makes payments equal to 10% of their discretionary income for a period of ten years the balance of their federal student loan debt will be forgiven. This provides student loan borrowers with a second chance for those who have been struggling financially and by cutting this debt to freeze up the money to invest on that will create new jobs across the country.”

The congressman had the House’s full attention as he passionately stated, “It’s time for congress to stand for the rights of student loan borrowers. It’s time to forgive student loan debts.”

Regardless of where you stand on the issue, the fact remains that student loan debt has been destroying an entire generation: “an entire “lost generation” is not starting families, buying cars, getting mortgages or otherwise contributing economically in the ways previous generations did. And by all accounts, the problem is actually way worse than even shrill news reports indicate- young people are drowning in a sea of debt before they ever have a chance to pay back the first cent.”

If the bill is passed interest would be capped at 3.4%, half of what it is currently, and would go into effect later this year.

It is thought that this bill would still hold borrowers responsible to pay back their loans and create opportunities for the 25-40 crowd to stimulate the economy.

Besides, if the economy really is getting better and the elusive good paying jobs resurface, then borrowers will be able to pay back most of their debt, right?

One person who was fortunate enough to receive a full ride is really ticked about the plan and posted on YouTube:

“Wow, good thing I did the responsible thing and got both my degrees on full scholarships. If I’d known about this garbage, I’d have gone to an Ivy. So much for personal responsibility. Maybe I’ll go risk all my savings in stocks I don’t understand. Surely Obama/Bernanke will come to my rescue. Most of us are taught personal responsibility when we’re growing up. Then we get older and realize most of the adults who taught us these values were busy ripping each other off our entire lives.”

But another person fired back after finding this individual to be a bit snooty:

“Lucky you. Lots more of us hardworking folks that had 4.0s all through college, have a decent sum of student loans and pay over 60 percent of our monthly income to student loans highly disagree with you. It’s not like it’s a free ride, it still requires ten years of payment. Please get off your high horse and have some empathy for honest work.”

Where do you stand on the issue? Do you think that most people are capable of finding good paying jobs to pay back their debt without reforms such as this one? Do you have a personal story that you would like to share?

Some of the industries that saw growth were renewables (+49.2%), internet (+24.6%), online publishing (+24.3%) and e-learning (+15.9%). Some of the industries that shrunk were newspapers (-28.4%), retail (-15.5%), building materials (-14.2%) and automotive (-12.8%). As for job gains and losses per sector, employment growth was seen in the internet, hospitals and healthcare, health, wellness and fitness, oil and energy, IT and renewables industries. Job decline was experienced by the retail, construction, telecommunications, banking and automotive industries between 2007 and 2011.

Another chart describes the fluctuating sizes of different industries, correlating with the timeline of the recession:

The companies that posted the best post-recession recovery are in IT, marketing & advertising, computer software and insurance. Financial services is beginning to recover, and real estate seems to be secure in its trench. Industries like newspapers, supermarkets and telecom have continued to shrink throughout the entire recessionary timespan.

LinkedIn states-

These are fascinating and important data points that allow us to better understand the economic world, and it’s just a hint of what we can see by scouring the “data exhaust” of 150+ million LinkedIn members who share information and insights with each other. It was exciting to be able to work with the CEA on this project, and expect to see more of this from us in the future. Helping people better understand how their skills fit into the broader economic context is something that we are well-suited to do and we would like to provide more of to our members.

Obviously, LinkedIn has a unique set of data to comb through regarding employment trends. It is no wonder the CEA wanted to forge a partnership.

Original Article: Back in January, Microsoft announced that the company would be shedding as many as 5,000 jobs over an 18-month period. At that point they cut about 1,400. Now they’re entering phase 2, which would include somewhere within the difference of those two numbers.

In a statement, Microsoft said, "As part of the plan we announced in January to reduce costs and increase efficiencies, today we are eliminating additional positions across several areas of the company. While job eliminations are always difficult, we are taking these necessary actions in response to the global economic downturn."

The Microsoft Blog at SeattlePI.com shares an email from Steve Ballmer that was sent out to All Microsoft employees. Within the email, between the padding of explaining how difficult it is to let them go and the thanks for their contributions, Ballmer says:

Today’s action includes positions in the United States and in a number of countries around the world. In the U.S., affected employees will be notified directly by their managers today. In other countries, local leadership teams will provide more specific information about the impact to their organizations.

With this announcement, we are mostly but not all done with the planned 5,000 job eliminations by June 2010. We are moving quickly to reach this target in response to consistent feedback from our people and business groups that it’s important to make decisions and reduce uncertainty for employees as quickly as possible, and so that organizations can concentrate their efforts and resources on strategic objectives.

Sources say that Microsoft is still actively hiring between 2,000 and 3,000 workers this year, even as they continue the cuts they have planned. There’s no word on what branches of the company are being affected by the job cuts the most. 

A Google spokesperson tells WebProNews that the company is seeing more and more people doing just that. "We’ve also been seeing regular people capitalizing on changes in consumer behavior (ie, more people searching for recipe sites and therefore stay at home mom’s creating recipe blogs as a result)," he says.

The bottom line is that there are real people pulling through the economy by giving more focus to their existing sites. The spokesperson cites Tim Carter as an example. He runs AskTheBuilder.com, and has seen a significant significant increase in traffic and revenue even during the recession.

Sidenote: Google AdWords evangelist Frederick Vallaeys spoke with Mike McDonald at Search Engine Strategies NY this week about a "recession keyword tool" for AdWords that can help advertisers "do more with less:

Kim Malone Scott, director of sales and operations of AdSense has some AdSense ideas for users to boost their income. For one, she notes that more ads don’t necessarily mean more money.

"Test different combinations and numbers of ad units on your site," she says. "There’s usually a ‘tipping point’ where you hit a ceiling of how many ads your users will accept — push it too far and you could hurt reader engagement, traffic, and in the long run your earnings."

She also suggests experimenting with the different AdSense ad sizes, and stresses the importance of web design. Using Google’s Website optimizer tool, which I recently discussed is a good way to test different designs. Things to take into consideration include:

- Font Size

"Colonial Candles increased font size, highlighted certain text and saw a 20% lift in sales made on its site, which translated to $20,000," says Scott.

- Color

Scott says NerdyShirts tested a white button versus an orange button and saw a 6.9% increase in conversions. "Big red buttons tend to work."

- Call-to-action

"Run different special offers and see which lifts your sales the most," she says citing Moishe’s Moving, which tested three different promotions: $100 off the move; free moving boxes ($80 value); and 1-hour of professional packing ($130 value). The $100 off promotion moved the most sales for them.

Sure, when Google talks about this stuff, they’re keeping their own AdSense product in mind, and for many people that alone is enough to get some extra income. Much of this advice can be applied to any advertising you may include on your site though.

People are out there making it happen. There’s no reason you can’t do so yourself with some effort and free tools that are available to you.

A PriceGrabber.com online consumer survey in the U.S., carried out last October, showed 59% had cut back in spending. However, their most recent survey, carried out in February and March this year, found that figure to have dropped to 50% showing some optimism on the part of consumers.

However, it seems shoppers’ fingers have been burned by the recent recession and while they’re less inclined to cut back expenditure, they’re shopping smarter. To soothe their spending conscience, many have turned to the Internet in an attempt to focus their shopping behavior and avoid impulse purchases. PriceGrabber.com’s survey of over 4,200 online Americans found that 40% now spend more time online comparing products and prices. Some may track product prices and promotions online, watching the rises and falls and bagging a bargain at sales.

But, price comparison is not the only driver of online shopping. Many are seeking out coupons, even for offline purchases. In fact, traffic to coupon sites has seen big rises over the last six months or so, with around 40 million people currently printing online coupons, up 20% on last year, according to Simmons Market Research Bureau.

The Internet is fast becoming the favored place to search for coupons with a rise of 46% in the number of people who never use newspaper coupons. In addition, Hitwise recently reported a significant rise in the use of search terms relating to money-saving techniques. In December, 2008, searches for "coupon" doubled to 19.9 million, while "discount" rose 26% to 6.3 million.

Ultimately, what consumers want is the reassurance that they’re getting the best product at the best possible price. That’s where the Internet delivers, giving 91% of those surveyed confidence in their buying decision.                                 

When it comes to deciding which retailer gets the sale, three-quarters of PriceGrabber.com’s  respondents said they look for retailers that offer free shipping and don’t charge sales tax. Just over half (54%) look for, you guessed it, coupons and discounts.

A PriceGrabber.com online consumer survey in the U.S., carried out last October, showed 59% had cut back in spending. However, their most recent survey, carried out in February and March this year, found that figure to have dropped to 50% showing some optimism on the part of consumers.

However, it seems shoppers’ fingers have been burned by the recent recession and while they’re less inclined to cut back expenditure, they’re shopping smarter. To soothe their spending conscience, many have turned to the Internet in an attempt to focus their shopping behavior and avoid impulse purchases. PriceGrabber.com’s survey of over 4,200 online Americans found that 40% now spend more time online comparing products and prices. Some may track product prices and promotions online, watching the rises and falls and bagging a bargain at sales.

But, price comparison is not the only driver of online shopping. Many are seeking out coupons, even for offline purchases. In fact, traffic to coupon sites has seen big rises over the last six months or so, with around 40 million people currently printing online coupons, up 20% on last year, according to Simmons Market Research Bureau.

The Internet is fast becoming the favored place to search for coupons with a rise of 46% in the number of people who never use newspaper coupons. In addition, Hitwise recently reported a significant rise in the use of search terms relating to money-saving techniques. In December, 2008, searches for "coupon" doubled to 19.9 million, while "discount" rose 26% to 6.3 million.

Ultimately, what consumers want is the reassurance that they’re getting the best product at the best possible price. That’s where the Internet delivers, giving 91% of those surveyed confidence in their buying decision.                                 

When it comes to deciding which retailer gets the sale, three-quarters of PriceGrabber.com’s  respondents said they look for retailers that offer free shipping and don’t charge sales tax. Just over half (54%) look for, you guessed it, coupons and discounts.

A PriceGrabber.com online consumer survey in the U.S., carried out last October, showed 59% had cut back in spending. However, their most recent survey, carried out in February and March this year, found that figure to have dropped to 50% showing some optimism on the part of consumers.

However, it seems shoppers’ fingers have been burned by the recent recession and while they’re less inclined to cut back expenditure, they’re shopping smarter. To soothe their spending conscience, many have turned to the Internet in an attempt to focus their shopping behavior and avoid impulse purchases. PriceGrabber.com’s survey of over 4,200 online Americans found that 40% now spend more time online comparing products and prices. Some may track product prices and promotions online, watching the rises and falls and bagging a bargain at sales.

But, price comparison is not the only driver of online shopping. Many are seeking out coupons, even for offline purchases. In fact, traffic to coupon sites has seen big rises over the last six months or so, with around 40 million people currently printing online coupons, up 20% on last year, according to Simmons Market Research Bureau.

The Internet is fast becoming the favored place to search for coupons with a rise of 46% in the number of people who never use newspaper coupons. In addition, Hitwise recently reported a significant rise in the use of search terms relating to money-saving techniques. In December, 2008, searches for "coupon" doubled to 19.9 million, while "discount" rose 26% to 6.3 million.

Ultimately, what consumers want is the reassurance that they’re getting the best product at the best possible price. That’s where the Internet delivers, giving 91% of those surveyed confidence in their buying decision.                                 

When it comes to deciding which retailer gets the sale, three-quarters of PriceGrabber.com’s  respondents said they look for retailers that offer free shipping and don’t charge sales tax. Just over half (54%) look for, you guessed it, coupons and discounts.

A PriceGrabber.com online consumer survey in the U.S., carried out last October, showed 59% had cut back in spending. However, their most recent survey, carried out in February and March this year, found that figure to have dropped to 50% showing some optimism on the part of consumers.

However, it seems shoppers’ fingers have been burned by the recent recession and while they’re less inclined to cut back expenditure, they’re shopping smarter. To soothe their spending conscience, many have turned to the Internet in an attempt to focus their shopping behavior and avoid impulse purchases. PriceGrabber.com’s survey of over 4,200 online Americans found that 40% now spend more time online comparing products and prices. Some may track product prices and promotions online, watching the rises and falls and bagging a bargain at sales.

But, price comparison is not the only driver of online shopping. Many are seeking out coupons, even for offline purchases. In fact, traffic to coupon sites has seen big rises over the last six months or so, with around 40 million people currently printing online coupons, up 20% on last year, according to Simmons Market Research Bureau.

The Internet is fast becoming the favored place to search for coupons with a rise of 46% in the number of people who never use newspaper coupons. In addition, Hitwise recently reported a significant rise in the use of search terms relating to money-saving techniques. In December, 2008, searches for "coupon" doubled to 19.9 million, while "discount" rose 26% to 6.3 million.

Ultimately, what consumers want is the reassurance that they’re getting the best product at the best possible price. That’s where the Internet delivers, giving 91% of those surveyed confidence in their buying decision.                                 

When it comes to deciding which retailer gets the sale, three-quarters of PriceGrabber.com’s  respondents said they look for retailers that offer free shipping and don’t charge sales tax. Just over half (54%) look for, you guessed it, coupons and discounts.

"The Obama stimulus plan has yet to reach Congress, but its search volume is already nearly half of the search volume for the Bush stimulus package when it was signed last February," says a post by Eugenia Chien and Andrea Sandke on the Yahoo Search Blog. "As legislation is finalized on Obama’s stimulus plan, we can expect search volume to grow and perhaps even surpass its predecessor."

Other queries that have risen significantly compared to the previous week include:

– "stimulus checks" – up 80%
– "obama stimulus plan" – up 30%
– "second stimulus rebate checks" – up 75%

Spikes are also being seen in queries for things like savings bonds, treasury bills, FDIC insured savings, H and R Block, filing taxes online, and things of this nature. Another interesting thing that Yahoo shared is that searches for unemployment and how to invest more safely had already started to bubble way back in July.

GlassDoor breaks it down into two categories – companies that have reported upcoming layoffs, and companies that have not:

Employees who work for companies that have reported layoffs versus those that haven’t are more likely to:		Total   n=1,331		Employees from companies that have communicated layoffs within the past 6 months n=327		Employees from companies who have not communicated layoffs within the past six months n=1004
Have concerns about being laid off in next six months		21%		45%		12%
Have concerns coworkers will be laid off in next six months		42%		87%		26%
Be working harder to avoid a lay off given the current state of the economy		52%		69%		46%
Not expect a pay raise in next 12 months		40%		49%		36%
Not expect a bonus		25%		32%		22%
To take on more projects and responsibilities to avoid a lay off		74%		84%		70%

 “This data reinforces the need for employers to be more open and transparent with their plans for the company and people. It is human nature to always think that something bad will happen to someone else but never to me. Employees often think them personally — or their company — will be insulated from layoffs and that someone else will lose their job, not them, often causing shock and denial when notified their job has been eliminated,” says Rusty Rueff, co-author of Talent Force: A New Manifesto for the Human Side of Business and former HR executive at Electronic Arts and Pepsico, who is also a member of Glassdoor’s board of directors.

“Fourth quarter layoffs may just be a prelude of what’s to come and both employers and talent should take time now to communicate and plan short-term options and contingencies. In today’s environment there’s no reason to continue to have people surprised and not prepared for the worst,” adds Rueff.

Employees Expect Raises and Bonuses

Some other interesting stats revealed by the survey include:

– Even amid widespread company cost-cutting, 40% of employees say they expect a pay raise or cost of living increase in the next 12 months while 40% do not expect a raise and 20% say they are unsure.

– Of those eligible for an annual bonus, 57% expect a bonus and 40% do not.

Of those who expect a bonus:

– 41% expect it to be about the same as last bonus

– 28% expect it to be less than last bonus

– 15% expect it to be more than last bonus

– 16% are unsure of the amount

“Salary and total compensation are very important to employees so we aren’t surprised more than half of employees are unwilling to take pay cuts to avoid a lay off. We are surprised, however, that so many employees say they are not personally concerned about layoffs, particularly given the frequency we’re seeing people discuss layoffs in their Glassdoor reviews over the past few months,” said Robert Hohman, co-founder and CEO of Glassdoor.com, a career and workplace community bringing greater transparency to salaries and workplaces.

So if employees are so confident, what are they willing to sacrifice in order to keep their jobs?

– 74% would take on more projects or responsibility

– 60% would increase the amount of hours worked

– 46% would give up perks like commuter subsidies, on-site cafeteria, child care, dry cleaner, gym access

– 32% would accept a reduction in health and dental benefits coverage

– 30% would accept a cut in salary or wages

– 24% would forfeit paid time off or vacation

– 24% would take an unpaid leave or sabbatical

The good news here is that employees are willing to work harder and stay motivated so that they can keep their jobs. This should theoretically lead to more productivity, which should make business owners happy – a silver lining in the dark cloud of the economy.