First Comment

It's a mega link week here at Astron's World of HR blog.

First, from The Journal of Commerce, an interesting article about the hiring freeze starting thaw (H/T Wendy). The article does point, out, however that the road to recovery is just beginning and overall the U.S. job market is pretty flat (with unemployment hovering at 9%-10%). (Picture also from this article).

Next, The Wall Street Journal came out with the numbers yesterday that Wall Street bonuses were up 17% to $20.3 billion in 2009. Now, while it's not surprising that bonuses are up after last year's bonus-busting recession and the tight regulation on Wall Street bonuses, it is still disconcerting to much of Main Street that their tax dollars went to Wall Street for this. The interactive graph that accompanies the article is a good view to show how crazy the bonuses have gotten on Wall Street. You have to figure that many of these bonuses were "making up" for last year. But while most of America is dealing with unemployment, hearing that the average bonus was $124,850 and the average compensation was $340,000 has to be upsetting to many.

Tomorrow we'll get more into the job losses that we talked about as well as looking at which states tax you the most.

A sad baseball night in New York as the Yankees and Mets both lose one-run games against their arch-rivals. So how about some great HR articles instead?

-CNN has a great article up on how significant others should react when their men get laid off -- but they still have a job. Some great advice there.

-24 Hours Vancouver is next with some advice not to lie on your resume because it'll come back to haunt you.

-Next, the Zanesville Times Recorder writes about mandated sick leave. It may not have passed in Ohio, but it is has a chance of becoming a national law.

-You have some questions for HR? Well the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has an "Ask HR"

-Lastly, Business Management Daily says that while HR salaries weaken, comp and benefit pays have grown.

Let's hope tomorrow is a better night for New York baseball...

Astron Solutions has partnered with Bond Schoeneck & King, PLLC, to present "Can Your Compensation System Weather the (Hurricane) Winds of Change From the Obama Administration?" We'll be presenting the program through the state of New York in late March and early April.

You can learn more about the Long Island and New York City programs by visiting http://astronsolutions.com/general/BSKBriefing.pdf.

You can learn more about the upstate New York programs by visiting http://astronsolutions.com/general/BSKBriefingMarch.pdf.

The lead speakers at all programs include Astron's own Michael Maciekowich, and BSK's Lou DiLorenzo.

We hope to see you there!

Yesterday, Congress approved the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. BLR has a clear synopsis of the law at http://compensation.blr.com/display.cfm/id/156373.

At the moment, I have many conflicting thoughts on the passage of this legislation, and will spare our readers my stream of consciousness! :-)

As a first step, have HR professionals already audited their compensation programs to make sure discrimination does not exist? If not, now is the time to investigate and take positive action.

With the passage of this Act, it appears that a tidal wave of new HR legislation will be coming from Washington. With legal costs typically averaging $100,00 or more per case, advance preparation and positive action now are essential to ensuring a "lawsuit free" organization.