Where We’re Working Remotely
About 95 percent of remote jobs include a geographic requirement where remote workers need to be based in a specific city, state, region or country, according to FlexJobs, an online service for professionals. To help job seekers identify states with high potential for remote job opportunities, FlexJobs has named the top 15 states where companies recruited the most state-based remote workers in 2017.
Nationally, 4.6 percent of the U.S. workforce does business from home every day. Companies such as Amazon, Dell, SAP, UnitedHealth Group and American Express are among the companies hiring remote workers in these states:
California
Texas
Virginia
New York
Florida
Illinois
Pennsylvania
Georgia
North Carolina
Arizona
Massachusetts
Minnesota
New Jersey
Washington
Ohio
The top four career fields for remote jobs in 2017 were medical and health, computer, IT, education and sales. Some of the most popular remote jobs are account executive, marketing specialist, tutor, social media manager, customer service representative and copywriter. For more information, visit www.flexjobs.
Creating Jobs
Which businesses are creating more jobs—startups or existing businesses? In the last two decades, about 60 percent of the private sector’s net new jobs have been created by existing establishments and about 40 percent from the churn of startups minus closures. While firm births account for many new jobs, job losses from firm closures are equally important in accounting for net effects to employment levels.
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, BED
What Is a Small Business?
The Office of Advocacy defines a small business as an independent business having fewer than 500 employees. For the small business definition by industry used in government programs and contracting, visit www.sba.gov.
10 Life Lessons You Only Learn By Failing
Only those who take risks, have the opportunity to fail—if there is such a thing as failure. Many wise people would say the idea of failure is made up to blame and shame people, instead of celebrating the risks they take and what they learn along the way. Here are 10 powerful life lessons, you can only learn by “failing.”
Painful things do happen. And when they do, you will survive them.
Your character has staying power. When you feel your lowest, you realize what you have that no one can take from you—your resilience, your ethics and all the qualities that make you a powerful individual.
Always trust your gut. Just because those who are higher up say, “This can’t fail,” doesn’t make it true. Take a moment and check in with your gut. It’s the most reliable guide you have.
Identifying your true friends. When you’re down, you’ll learn who your true friends are.
Trying builds muscle. When you fail, get up and try again. It’s the only way to build muscle. You don’t get strong by sailing through life without obstacles.
Failure is a powerful teacher. What felt like a failure in the moment eventually becomes a powerful learning experience that will help you enormously in the future.
Those who judge, don’t matter. If people judge you because they think you’re a failure, that’s fine. Those people don’t matter to you anyway.
Life isn’t about winning and losing. You can only feel like a failure by buying into the idea that life is all about winning and losing. It’s not.
Adversity is a gift. People who face and surmount adversity are the strongest people you’ll meet.
Failing and trying again are fun. Entrepreneurs and many other successful people are so used to failing and recovering, rebuilding and failing again that they no longer distinguish between success and failure. To them it’s all learning—the fun kind and the not-so-fun kind. Best to get used to the feeling of the free fall!
www.forbes.com
Construction Trends Nationwide
Construction employment increased by 228,000 jobs over the past year, despite a weather-related dip in March, and the industry’s unemployment rate fell to 7.4 percent, according to an analysis of new government data by the Associated General Contractors of America. Association officials called for revitalizing and adequately funding career and technical education and training programs to ensure that employment in the high-paying industry would continue to grow.
“Construction employment indicators are still signaling strong demand on an annual basis, even though unusually bad weather in several regions probably depressed hiring in March,” said Ken Simonson, the association’s chief economist in a prepared statement. “Employment is rising twice as fast as for the overall economy, pay rates and growth are outpacing the private sector as a whole, and the industry’s unemployment rate was the lowest ever for March.” What’s more, hourly earnings in the industry averaged $29.43 in March, a rise of 2.9 percent from a year earlier. That put average pay in construction 9.7 percent higher than the average for all nonfarm private sector jobs, which rose 2.7 percent in the past year to $26.82.
3 Key Ways to Retain Young Professionals
Millennials are always on the lookout for the next big thing, according to the Marin-based employment website, Glassdoor.com. Pew Research shows that 29 percent of Millennials are engaged a their current job. However, six out of 10 are open to new job opportunities, and only half expect to continue working for the same company a year from now. Here are three ways employers can retain Millennials in the workplace:
Let them lead. The Millennial generation is known for their desire to “own” something early on as well as autonomy and recognition. By allowing leadership, employers may see an increase in great ideas, as well as becoming more in touch with their Millennial consumers.
Let them be innovative. Millennials view innovation and entrepreneurship as the source of success. Encourage employees to behave as entrepreneurs, but within the boundaries of your organization.
Clearly define company advancement. Millennials want ways to advance to be granted the freedom and trust to prove their worth and talent. If you don’t provide that pathway with specific instructions on how to achieve that, they’ll move on to a company that will.
