The Central Georgian

Business & The Job Market

The FVSU Career Development Center provides a variety of career services designed to assist students in analyzing interests, aptitudes, personal traits, desired lifestyles, and educational and career goals. Students are assisted with sufficient career and employment information so that they may understand the implications of their choice of program/major. For more information, call 478.825.6202.

Report shows online shopping by minorities up sharply in five years

Online shopping by African-Americans, Asians, Hispanics and other minorities has increased dramatically during the past five years, according to a new report from The Media Audit."The 88 markets surveyed for this report have an aggregate adult population of approximately 145 million and 58 million More....

FCC rules to require language against 'No Urban Dictates' in ad contracts

The FCC released its report and order and third further notice of proposed rulemaking on "Promoting Diversification of Ownership in the Broadcasting Services," taking, the commission said, "several steps to increase participation in the broadcasting industry by new entrants and small businesses, including minority- and women-owned businesses, which historically have not been well-represented More.
 

Marketers Target Black Youth

(BPRW) We’re all consumers. This is a definite fact for those of us living amidst extreme commercialism here in the United States. Yet most people aren’t cognizant of their own power in the buying and selling market and how they are often exploited for other people’s gain. According to a recent report released by the Selig Center for Economic Growth at the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business, African American spending will reach $845 billion in 2007 and is estimated to top $1.1 trillion by the year 2012. This is a lot of buying power! More...

Self-Assessment: Finding Out Who You Are Before Deciding What You Want to Do.....
By Francina R. Harrison 
www.thecareerengineers.com
Approximately eight million Americans are unemployed in the United States. Since August 2003, our economy has witnessed severe layoffs, plant closings and overseas relocations for white and blue collar jobs. As a college student you may be wondering, "In this depressed labor market, is it possible to have the "American Dream" and be successful in the workforce and in life?" Absolutely! The proof is in the person. Look at Oprah, Bill Gates, Denzel, Beyonce, Kweisi Mfume, Johnnie Cochran, and Sam Walton. They've found the way. In a nutshell, they focused on their potential, not the economic indicators. Successful people discovered who they were "before" they decided what they would do. It's deeper than a job with these folks. It's about delivering their passion, purpose, personality, and potential. More...

Black consumers drive P&G’s Gain detergent to billion-dollar status

(Target Market News) The Procter & Gamble Company announced that Gain has become the company's 23rd brand with more than one billion dollars in sales. While many of P&G's other billion dollar brands are sold globally, as a solely North American brand, Gain is the company's 8th largest brand in dollar sales in the U.S. Gain is also the 2nd largest selling laundry detergent in the U.S. Gain's significant business growth was supported by its successes with ethnic consumers and scent equity.

Gain has been exceptionally successful understanding and meeting the needs of the increasing population of ethnic consumers, primarily African Americans and Hispanics...Story continued

Perry Broadcasting partners with Sheila Eldridge to buy Radio One stations

Russell M. Perry, owner of Oklahoma's largest African-American owned media company, announced that he has formed Perry Broadcasting of Augusta with Eldridge, a minority partner, to acquire four FM stations and one AM station for $3.1 million from Radio One Inc., the nation's seventh largest radio station owner. The stations are WAKB-FM (Urban/AC); WAEG-FM (Urban); WTHB-FM and WTHB-AM (both Gospel); and WFXA-FM (Alternative Rock). Perry Publishing & Broadcasting Company is the first African-American owned company that...
Story continued...

Venus Williams launches fashion line, EleVen, in deal with Steve & Barry's chain

Tennis superstar Venus Williams and retailer Steve & Barry’s announced today they are creating the largest fashion collection ever launched by a female athlete. The collection, called EleVen™ by Venus Williams, features a wide assortment of classic, active lifestyle and performance looks, on-court as well as casual footwear, accessories, and more.

The signature item in the line is the “V-Court,” a high performance, on-court sneaker. Williams, the four-time Wimbledon Champion (including 2007) and two-time U.S. Open Champion, will debut the V-Court during her matches at the U.S. Open next week. Hitting store shelves in time for the Holiday Season this November, EleVen will be sold exclusively at Steve & Barry's stores nationwide... Story continued

Georgia lags nation in employment for the first time in years
KRISTEN WYATT
Associated Press

ATLANTA - Georgia isn't the jobs mecca it used to be.

Georgia's unemployment rate last month was higher than the national average, the first time that's happened since 1989, the state Department of Labor reported Thursday.

Georgia's jobless rate in May, the most recent period for which statistics are available, was 5.0 percent. The national rate was 4.9 percent. Before last month, Georgia's employment picture was better than the nation at large for more than 180 consecutive months.

"You could leave a job one day and be working the next. That's how Atlanta was. And it's not that way anymore," said Brandon Hughes, a janitorial worker and repairman waiting with dozens of other job-seekers at an unemployment office in north Atlanta Thursday.

Hughes was laid off from a hospital last September. Almost a year later, he's still looking for work, despite taking classes in heating and air conditioning repair. "It's never taken me this long to find a job," he said.

Atlanta's unemployment rate matched the state's last month, at 5.0 percent, but the job market was even worse in other cities. Augusta had an unemployment rate of 5.7 percent last month; Macon was at 5.5 percent.

The problem, state labor officials say, is that the same industries that made Georgia an economic powerhouse in the 1990s - aviation, technology and conventions and tourism - have been hardest hit in the recession following Sept. 11.

"Historically Georgia was the center of economic growth in the South," said Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond. "Georgia's job market has not recovered, not fully recovered, from the Sept. 11 recession. Hopefully it's not a trend, but the reality is, it is a very difficult job market for those who are out of work."

But there's good news, too. While Georgia isn't used to having a weaker job market than the rest of the nation, it was only a little bit worse in May, and that could change.

And some other economic indicators for the state look good. For example, state money managers said earlier this month that Georgia government could end the fiscal year ending June 30 with a surplus of $150 million to $200 million. That's a sign that Georgia is making more money from sales taxes and income taxes.

"Labor's only part of the picture," said Roger Tutterow, chairman of the economics department at Kennesaw State University. But he added, "When you're used to growing so much faster than the rest of the country, this is a change. We still have a long way to go if we want to match the growth rate we had in the 1990s."

Back at the unemployment office, supervisor Shannon Jackson said the Georgia job market has been up and down for years now and called the May unemployment rate "an aberration."

"It seems the job market is a little schizophrenic right now," Jackson said. "Usually Georgia and Atlanta rides out these downturns better than the rest of the country. We'll recover from this pretty quickly and become a leader in job creation again."

A recovery can't come soon enough for Robert Theus, an Atlanta man who hasn't had steady work in his information technology field for three years. "This is the longest I've even been out of work," he said, browsing job listings on one of the center's computers. "This is pretty sad."

The civil rights issue for the 21st century - the wealth gap....
Associated Press
NEW YORK - Forty years after the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and decades after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. made strides in racial equality, America remains split along racial lines - divided by the color green.

Economic equality has become the paramount civil rights issue of the 21st century, civil rights advocates said as they prepared to celebrate King's birthday on Monday.

Fewer blacks than whites own their houses, get fair loans, invest in the stock market or sit on corporate boards, or have any real control over much of the trillions of dollars flowing in mutual funds, pension plans and the financial markets, they said. More.....

The Central Georgian, 2007,  Disclaimer..