How satisfied you are with your job and your pay may depend on your gender.

Men and women are about equally likely to say that they are satisfied with their jobs; about 65 percent of both sexes say they are satisfied. Plus, for both sexes higher job satisfaction is associated with higher job pay.

But it typically takes a lot less money to get women to say they are satisfied with their work than it does to get men to say it.

via Money, Gender and Job Satisfaction – Economix Blog – NYTimes.com.

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This year has been extremely rough: New college graduates had 40% fewer job prospects, a new report shows. And the outlook for 2010, while better, is still not very promising.

Jobs for graduates with bachelor’s degrees, which account for most new graduate hires, will drop nearly 1% next year, according to Michigan State University’s survey on recruiting trends.

Overall, hiring of grads with any degree will decline by 2% compared to 2009.

via Survey says job market for 2010 graduates still gloomy – Nov. 17, 2009.

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It’s time for BusinessWeek’s annual ranking of the best places to raise your kids.

As we did last year, we teamed up with OnBoard Informatics, a New York-based provider of real estate analysis, to select one town and two runners-up for each of the 50 states. The selections were limited to towns that have at least 45,000 residents and a median income of between $40,000 and $125,000. Vermont was given a pass on the population restrictions because none of its cities would otherwise have made the cut.

see Best Places to Raise Your Kids: 2010: Affordable, safe, and family-friendly – BusinessWeek.

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BNA Human Resources Library

Recently I met with a student who was researching issues pertaining to employee morale in the workplace. When looking at this topic, it may help to think beyond just the terms “employee morale.”  When looking through some books and encyclopedias on the topic, readings on “morale” let to topics such as employee motivation and workplace satisfaction.  With the idea that happy employees are generally more productive, you can see where a lot of different terms can come into play when researching this topic.  Having said that, here are a few resources that I found to be useful when looking at the topic.

International Encyclopedia of Business and Management.  Has a great article (about 10 pages with citations to additional readings) on the topic of workplace satisfaction.

BNA Human Resources Library (subscription database).  A simple search for “morale” yields suggestions on how to improve morale in the workplace, what makes for happier employees, issues pertaining to management/employee communication, etc.  A very good source on the topic.  If you can get to the topic

Business Source Complete (subscription database).  My best suggestion here is to look for academic journal articles and case studies using some of the search terms above.  Better yet, use the other two sources listed here first, jot down a few additional terms, and the search those as well.

ebary (subscription database).  Try searching ebrary for “morale”, and it will give you electronic books such as “Building a High-Morale Workplace”.

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How Aluminum is Made gives a brief and easy-to-read explanation of the aluminum manufacturing process.  I recommend you read this before the next two.

McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology offers a good overview of aluminum manufacturing.  I like the fact that the book has illustrations of plant layouts and goes pretty deep into the process.  It’s a little harder to read than the How Stuff is Made article.

Metal Producing and Processing is a trade publication “devoted to metal producing; covers iron, steel, aluminum, brass, copper & everything else in a foundry”.  We have full-text access to this via Business Source Complete.

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I just got off an IM question with a student who was researching the construction equipment rental market.  She had found market research reports about the consumer sector in Mintel Reports, and also industry reports from IbisWorld.  However, she was still looking for business-to-business information.  Through a rather convoluted way of searching Business Source Complete for trade publications about construction equipment, I happened across a trade publication called “Construction Equipment” (what are the odds?).  After looking through a few articles, I found one that referenced “Construction Equipment’s 2009 Annual Report and Forecast.” The report was not available in Business Source Complete, but as of today, it is available for free at the publication’s website.  Here’s the link:

Construction Equipment’s 2009 Annual Report & Forecast – 01/01/2009 – Construction Equipment.

The report covers an Economic Outlook , the commercial or Contractor market, Nonconstruction market, Government, Rental, and Distributors.   It seems like a really good report, and the student seemed to be all smiles (or as smiley as you can get over IM) about the report.

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