Problem one: How can I manoeuvre myself into an office management role?

I work for a very small company which is not making money, and I simply can’t see how it can survive in the long term. Pay has been late and invoices are being paid later and later. I want to move on and things are getting to the point where I think I need to do so very soon. My problem is I have previously worked in many different fields, including retail, catering, fundraising and teaching English abroad. I run a small office, as well as being responsible for sales and business development. However, I have had little success and don’t feel confident enough in business development to move into that sector.

I am very keen to settle on a career path in office management or administration, but my age and lack of experience in any specific roles seems to be counting against me. I have a variety of skills, including speaking four languages, and I have a lot of valuable experience – but I just can’t see a way in to the type of jobs I want.

Problem two: I’ve been bullied, ignored and reassigned, but I can’t move on

About three years ago I had words with a good friend and colleague regarding a work issue. This woman is still carrying the issue on today. I spoke to my immediate manager a number of times as it was very stressful and made me anxious and upset. The manager “had a word” on several occasions with this woman, but it made no difference. Nothing was ever put in writing or went further than our immediate manager.

This woman now sees me in the supermarket or at work and hisses “move” or “shift” whenever she passes, loud enough only for me to hear. I ignore her. Other members of staff heard about our disagreement and jumped on the bandwagon, ignoring me or generally making my working life hell. My colleague has worked in the department for 16 years; myself for 15 years.

A few months ago our department was reviewed and I was interviewed for my own post and didn’t get it. Instead, I was given another post at the same grade but in another department. I am devastated – I loved my job and did it well. I cannot stop thinking that if I did not have this issue with my colleague I would still be in my job. I have just had six weeks off sick because I cannot concentrate or get my old job out of my head, and I still think I was moved because I am seen as a troublemaker. Unfortunately, my friend/colleague is also very friendly with our manager, whereas I have only a working relationship with her.

I am due to return to my new post and I feel sick, nervous and that I won’t be able to cope again. I really am trying to put the whole experience behind me and return positively, but it is really hard. I miss my old job as well as the immediate person I worked with for 15 years. I still cry – it’s silly, I know. I need to move on and forget the whole thing, but how?

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Other data on Thursday showing solid expansion in factory activity in the Mid-Atlantic area this month and builders breaking more ground on new residential projects in January offered more evidence of a sustained momentum in the economy.

“The numbers add to the belief that the economy is shifting gears. There is just no number that is giving us a whole lot of trouble, except for consumer spending,” said Joel Naroff, chief economist at Naroff Economic Advisors in Holland, Pennsylvania.

The reports are the latest in a series of fairly upbeat data and could prompt economists to further temper expectations of a sharp moderation in growth in the first quarter. Economists have also dialed down their expectations for another round of bond-buying or quantitative easing by the Federal Reserve.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 13,000 to a seasonally adjusted 348,000, the lowest level since March 2008, the Labor Department said.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast claims rising to 365,000. The four-week average of new claims, seen as a better measure of labor market trends, was the lowest since April 2008.

In a separate report, the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank said its business activity index rose to 10.2 this month from 7.3 in January as orders and shipments jumped.

Though factories in the region covering eastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey and Delaware hired fewer workers this month, they increased hours for existing employees, which bodes well for wage growth.

In addition, order backlogs are rising and factories are taking a bit longer to make deliveries.

“We are not seeing much indication that growth has slowed from the fourth quarter of 2011 to the first quarter of 2012,” said Gus Faucher, senior economist at PNC Financial Services in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The economy grew at a 2.8 percent annual pace in the last three months of 2011, with inventories accounting for two-thirds of the rise. That left economists worrying businesses will have little appetite to add more stocks with demand not that strong.

For now, the run of solid data continues. The Commerce Department reported that housing starts rose 1.5 percent to an annual rate of 699,000 units last month, beating economists’ expectations for a 675,000-unit pace.

Starts were boosted by multi-unit buildings, reflecting growing demand for rental apartments as Americans move away from homeownership. Permits for future home construction rose 0.7 percent to a 676,000-unit pace in January.

Home building is expected to add to economic growth this year for the first time since 2005.

The data and rising hopes for a deal on a second bailout package for Greece buoyed U.S. stocks, with the broader Standard & Poor’s 500 index touching a nine-month high.

“I am f*%$ing off for four or five years,” Adele told the magazine. “If I am constantly working, my relationships fail. So at least now I can have enough time to write a happy record. And be in love and be happy. And then I don’t know what I’ll do,” she added. “Get married. Have some kids. Plant a nice vegetable patch.”

A happy album would definitely be a change of pace for Adele.  Her award winning album “21″ was inspired by a bad break up.

Adele also opened up to Vogue about what type of girlfriend she is.

First off she is not totally bi-polar but admits that she is all “I love you” one moment and “get the F&%* out of my house” the next.  She loves to cook and she loves to laugh.  Oh did we mention that she says she loves sex?

Adele seems to be all in all a typical woman with a very atypical career.

What do you think of Adele taking time off at the height of her stardom?  Do you think she should ride the wave right now or concentrate on her boyfriend?

Statistics New Zealand’s (SNZ) household labour force survey, released yesterday, indicated the recovery in the labour market was “fairly soft” towards the end of 2011, she said.

“The unemployment rate fell to 6.3% from 6.6%, but this was entirely due to a decline in [survey] participation, and largely in Canterbury,” Ms Turner said.

SNZ industry and labour statistics manager Diane Ramsay said part-time employment rose 3% for the quarter, the largest annual increase being in the education and training sector, but in contrast full-time employment fell 0.8%”A sharp rise in male full-time employment in the September quarter exaggerated the fall in full-time employment this [December] quarter,” she said.

Ms Turner said employment growth nationwide was weak, rising just 0.1% during the quarter.

The effects of the Christchurch earthquakes were reflected in a continued decline in employment in Canterbury.

She said the Reserve Bank would look past the decline in the unemployment rate, as it was driven by a statistical quirk, and focus instead on the weakness in employment growth.

“Over the past year, the recovery in the labour market has been barely enough to offset growth in the population, with the unemployment rate remaining reasonably elevated. Coupled with a subdued growth outlook, and potential for further delays to the Canterbury rebuild, the outlook for the labour market recovery remains gradual,” Ms Turner said.

Unemployment applications fell 12,000 to a seasonally adjusted 367,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. The four-week average, a less volatile measure, dropped for the third straight week to 375,750.

That’s the second-lowest level for the four-week average since June 2008. When applications stay consistently below 375,000, it usually signals that hiring is strong enough to lower the unemployment rate.

Separately, retailers issued mixed sales reports for January. Slow growth is leaving many Americans cautious about how they spend their money.

Economists expect the January employment report to show that employers added 155,000 jobs last month and that unemployment remained at 8.5 percent. In December, employers added 200,000 jobs.

The job market “still appears to be slowly moving in the right direction,” said Jim Baird, chief investment strategist at Plante Moran Financial Advisors.

In a separate report, the government said workers were more productive in the final three months of last year. The growth in productivity, though, slowed from the previous quarter. Weaker productivity growth can help boost hiring if economic growth picks up.

Applications for unemployment benefits have steadily declined since fall as economic growth has picked up and employers have cut fewer jobs. The four-week average has fallen 7 percent since last October and 13 percent in the past year.

The nation will gain about 160,000 jobs a month this year, according to a survey of economists by the Associated Press. That’s up from an average of about 135,000 last year.

Still, the job market has a long way to go before it fully recovers from the damage of the Great Recession, which wiped out 8.7 million jobs. More than 13 million people remain unemployed. Millions more have given up looking for work; they’re no longer counted as unemployed.

That’s weighing on consumer confidence and holding back spending. January retail sales frequently benefit from rising sales of winter clothes and shoes, which stores usually discount. But unusually warm weather has held back on those sales.

Costco and Target reported sales that were above Wall Street analysts’ expectations, while Macy’s and Dillard’s posted disappointing figures.

The average rate on a 30-year mortgage fell to a record low this week, Freddie Mac said, the ninth time that’s happened this year. But the cheaper rates haven’t done much to lift the depressed housing market.

Nearly 7.7 million Americans received unemployment benefits in the week ending Jan. 14, the latest period for which figures are available. That’s unchanged from the previous week.

The economy’s growth rate rose in the final three months of last year, to a 2.8 percent annual rate. That was faster than the 1.8 percent pace in the July-September quarter.

But a key reason for the growth was that companies restocked their supplies at a robust pace. Restocking is likely to slow in the first three months of this year, which would lead to weaker growth.

Until consumer spending picks up, businesses may be forced to cut back on hiring. But consumers have been weighed down by wages that haven’t kept pace with inflation. More jobs and higher pay would invigorate consumer spending.

Most economists expected the combination of weaker inventory growth and tepid consumer spending to lead to slower growth in the current January-March quarter. Many are predicting 2 percent annualized growth this quarter.

Launching a campaign to press for trade action against Beijing, the Alliance for American Manufacturing and senior politicians said the Chinese subsidies threaten to reverse the comeback of the US auto industry.

The AAM — which brings together the US steel industry and the United Steelworkers union — said alleged trade violations by China have already killed 400,000 jobs in the US auto supply chain, and threaten 1.6 million more.

“It’s essential that federal action be taken to challenge these abuses before they completely undermine the job recovery under way in the US auto industry,” said AAM executive director Scott Paul.

The campaign was launched at the US Congress a week after President Barack Obama said he would step up pressure on China and other countries that unfairly subsidize exports and launch a new government body to pursue such cases.

The AAM released three reports that paint China as targeting the US auto-parts sector by supporting its own manufacturers in ways that allegedly violate WTO fair trade rules.

They argued that Chinese auto-parts exports increased more than 900 percent in the decade to 2010 helped by $27.5 billion in subsidies, many of them illegal, and that the government has committed nearly $11 billion more in such support over the next decade.

The also said Chinese parts exporters benefit from the country’s policy of keeping the yuan currency tied to the US dollar at an artificially low exchange rate.

This effort is targeted at the US market, they said.

“In auto parts, China runs trade deficits with every other major auto producer, including Japan, South Korea, and Germany. In contrast, China?s trade surpluses on auto parts with the United States constitutes a notable exception,” said Usha Haley of the Economic Policy Institute, who contributed one of the studies.

The result, the studies say, is that while the US auto industry has recovered strongly since being bailed out by the government in the 2008-2009 recession, parts makers continued to weaken.

“US automakers have enjoyed a strong turnaround since the government aided the restructuring of GM and Chrysler, with US-based automakers’ sales up 29.1 percent since 2009,” one of the studies said.

“However, employment in the auto-parts and tire industry has rebounded at less than half that rate.”

Haley also blamed the practices of US carmakers themselves for buying more China-made parts.

“While other foreign auto companies operating in China have linked to auto-parts suppliers back home, US auto companies have cut ties with suppliers in the United States or encouraged them to manufacture in China,” she said.

“US global auto strategy currently centers on manufacturing in China and exporting back home. Consequently, China’s exports of auto parts to the United States are three times those of its next highest trading destination, Japan.”

Senator Sherrod Brown, who represents Ohio, home to many US auto-parts makers, said the Obama administration needed to push back at China to protect US jobs and industry.

“We know that aggressive trade enforcement pays off,” Brown said at the launch of the campaign at the US Capitol.

“It’s important to stand up to China,” he said. “It’s good for workers, it’s good for manufacturers.”

The complaint opened up a new front in US-China trade tensions, after two years of stepped up measures and counter-measures that analysts say look more and more like a trade war.

“I think its more than rhetoric… The fears of a trade war are real,” said China economy expert Yukon Huang of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington think tank.

The report revealed that companies including multinationals and leading local companies have expressed confidence that 2012 will see accelerated business activity and with this greater hiring in the UAE and the wider region.

Top sectors

The he report shows 93 per cent of employers anticipate increasing their head count in the first quarter of this year, but will be looking at recruiting much more cautiously.

Mark Timms, director of the Gulf Recruitment Group, said, “Overall, employers anticipate a continued hiring pace compared to 2011, with the brightest job prospects reported by employers in the Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG)s, construction and pharmaceutical sectors.

“On the other hand, corporate and retail banking sector are expected to be more challenging while the investment banking sector is likely to be flat. There will, however, be some good news for candidates seeking careers in the insurance industry,” he said.

The report shows an increase of 46 per cent in live mandates received and placed in 2011 compared to 2010 and envisions this to improve significantly throughout 2012.

The construction sector will see increased demand in the first two quarters of this year with 17 per cent of organisations reviewed having a manpower plan in place for next year, it showed.

“It is very clear that the UAE economy is picking up in various sectors and with significant regional projects being announced, much of the expertise for these projects is being sourced from the UAE,” according to the report.

The UAE job market had been in a much better status last year than in 2010 due to the growth and improvement of the local economy, Konstantina Sakelloriou, Marketing and Oprations Director at Stanton Chase, said.

Sakelloriou added that there were many international events that had affected the local job market.

“The economic downturn of the US and Europe has influenced the banking sector which led to laying off people. In the UAE, we are in the slowdown period rather than the laying off period,” said Skelloriou.

Arab Spring

Hasnain Qazi, Middle East Business Manager at Huxley Associates, said: “The Eurozone crisis, US unemployment, global economic downturn, dismal stock market performance had forced the international banks and investment banks which are based in the UAE to reduce costs and lay off staff in 2011.”

This was visible with a large number of brokers being layed off while some brokerage firms have either shut doors or shrunk their operations.

The Arab Spring was the most important event that shaped the job market in 2011, said experts.

“The Arab Spring which spread from Tunisia, to Egypt, To Libya, to Syria and the sanctions against Iran had led to further influxes of businesses, individuals and capital from these regions to the UAE as a safe haven,” said Ziyad Dabbas, chief financial analyst at the National Bank of Abu Dhabi.

“This has benefited the UAE and its economy and has created new opportunities,” he said.

Sakellariou said: “The Arab Spring helped executives to move from the affected region to the UAE. Many people transferred their property from these countries to the UAE.”

“The 30 per cent plus pay hike for government workers in the UAE will exert pressure on employers and this will help increase salaries at the private sector,” he said.

Problem one: Am I throwing away my career by starting my own business?

I am almost 37 and am at a crossroads in my career. In 2009 I had a child and took a year’s maternity leave. I returned part time for three days a week. On my return I battled to perform to my previous capacity and ultimately felt my job could not be done part time with the demands, hours and effort required to succeed.

My husband earns a lot more than I do and his hours are even longer than mine, and thus the rush to and from the nursery fell primarily to me. My daughter was constantly sick, refused to eat, started losing weight and was not sleeping through the night. Needless to say I was not coping with this at work, and six months after my return I decided to resign and be a full-time mother – partly for the previously mentioned factors, and mainly because after tax, transport and childcare costs I was not making a profit. In essence I was paying to work. We are fortunate that my husband’s income alone can support us.

My daughter is now thriving, delightful and happy, and come September she will be starting kindergarten in the mornings. This brings up the question: should I revive my dying career or take this opportunity to find a new one? I do not want to return to my old firm and when I look for positions in architectural firms they are very poorly paid thanks to the recession.

Another issue is that I have a hearing loss – 60% loss in both ears. Despite being able to manage, I do not enjoy working in an office environment due to the difficulties hearing loss brings. I have a few ideas for starting a business from home. I worry, however, that I am throwing away a career I worked so hard for in my 20s and early 30s, and I will come to regret this decision later on.

Problem two: Pay inequality and performance is making management difficult

I work in the finance department of a small company and manage three staff. It is a fairly new role and not something I am naturally good at, but I am trying my best. The company I work for is lovely and I love working there – I certainly don’t feel I am underpaid.

One of the staff who works for me was initially hired as a contractor to cover my maternity leave, and ended up staying – first to complete some project work, then to cover another period of maternity leave, and finally to work for me. When they negotiated their pay they ended up with a salary that is roughly twice what I am earning.

I am finding it hard to manage this individual as they have unrealistic expectations of pay rises every year. It also really riles me that they may get a better bonus than me even if they have performed worse, and that other things such as pension contributions are more. They are of an age when retirement would not normally have been far away, but with the new employment laws this is not an option.

The individual is not performing as well as my other staff and for an accountant (unqualified) with a lot of previous experience they are making silly mistakes. They also seem to take liberties other members of staff would not (ie they work part time but make sure hospital appointments and such are always booked on their work days).

On a more personal note, their partner is very ill with cancer so I don’t want to overburden them with work or make out that work is more important than family. I have spoken to my manager and HR about this, but they all say there is not much they can do as it has already happened.

The regularly scheduled release includes actual employment data through November 2011 and includes the recent announcement that Boeing Co. plans to close its Wichita operations.

For the Wichita area, CEDBR is forecasting a 0.6 percent increase in employment for 2012, for a total gain of 1,735 jobs. The 2012 forecast has been revised downward because of the slower than expected national growth and continued unknowns in the local and global economy.

Wichita’s forecast for 2012 indicates a year of continued stabilization.

As a state overall, the Kansas unemployment rate was 6 percent in November 2011. This continues the general decline in unemployment rates since mid-2009, after fluctuating a bit throughout 2011.

Kansas employment was expected to remain flat in 2011 when compared to 2010. Gains in the production and service sectors are expected to offset losses incurred in trade, transportation and utilities, as well as the government sectors.

The Kansas economy is expected to stabilize and begin growing at a modest pace. CEDBR estimates total employment growth of 1 percent, for a net increase of 13,010 employees, in 2012.