Saturday, May 10, 2014

Unemployment forecast

This is my own employment forecast for the US. The market will continue to get stronger as we continue through the year. Based on how the unemployment keeps dropping I'm forecasting around 5% by early December at the latest. There will still be soft spots here and there. Sorry, that's what I foresee. This is the chart I'm partially basing my projection on and just looking at it you can see readily the extrapolation I'm making. The chart itself I stole from the Department of Labor.



Please note that the chart only includes present unemployment claims and doesn't include anyone that's ran out of unemployment.

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On one of the job search sites I personally like, Indeed.com, has had 706,395 new jobs posted in the last 7 days. Now a number of them are fluff you don't want but there's at least 50,000 that isn't.


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This was the job possibilities sent in a single email to me today. I haven't seen this many openings listed in one email since about the middle of 2007. Now you can see from looking through them a number of them are junk but about half is good opportunities. Probably a couple of them are feelers also. A hiring manager is trying to find out how the job market is.

Manager Security Solutions   Verizon

Customer Service Representative   Xerox Corporation

Medication Care Manager   Sunrise Senior Living

Salon Manager   Great Clips

Stylist   Great Clips

Rep-Sales Ops-Retail (part-time position, specific to District MT02 only)
Verizon Wireless

Customer Care Supervisor   Xerox Corporation

Mail Clerk   Randstad Staffing

Benefits Coordinator   Prominent Point Dental Group and Orthodontics

**Solutions Specialist**   Verizon Wireless

Pizza Hut Team Member   Pizza Hut

Pizza Hut Delivery Driver   Pizza Hut

Customer Service - Full Time   I L I F F

Assistant Store Manager
Vitamin Shoppe Industries Inc

Customer Sales and Service Job
NAPA

Kids Club Attendant Job
Gold's Gym

Store Manager Job
NAPA

Automotive Service Advisor / Ford Customer Service Writer / Auto Sales
Medved Ford

Administrative Support / Customer Service Opportunities
Army Local Campaign

Customer Service Call Center Representative
Progressive Insurance

Full Time - Customer Service/ Technical Support Agents Start 5/19
Alorica

Retail Store Management Trainee
Firestone Complete Auto Care

Sales Coordinator 2
TalenTrust

Assistant Store Manager Woodland Park Colorado
Family Dollar

Experienced Professional Fundraisers Wanted!
United Support, LLC

Business Development Call Center Representative - Home-Based
Wheelhouse Enterprises

Experienced Outside Sales Representatives
Smart Choice Payments

Poker Room Supervisor
Triple Crown Casinos

Store Manager
The Vitamin Shoppe

Team Member
Triple Crown Casinos

Team Member
Taco Bell

Restaurant Assistant Manager
Taco Bell

store manager
Starbucks

Store Seasonal Employee - Front End Customer Service Associate
Lowe's

Cashier Team Member
Target Stores

Manager, Customer Care Job
Time Warner Cable Company

Customer Service Representative Fountain Colorado
Family Dollar

Customer Account Representative, Now Accepting Applications for Future Openings
Rent-A-Center

ENTRY LEVEL WORK FROM HOME PT / FT

Customer Service Representative
Arise Virtual Solutions

"Store Seasonal Employee - Front End Customer Service Associate"
Lowe's

" Customer Service Associate II-Weekdays"
Lowe's

" Customer Service Associate"
Best Buy

Store Seasonal Employee - Front End Customer Service Associate
Lowe's

Customer Service /Deliveries
Home Depot

Customer Service Supervisor
Burlington Coat Factory

Customer Service Representative
Williams-Sonoma

Customer Service Representative
Aramark

Customer Service Representative
Kohl's

Customer Service Associate
Best Buy

Admin Assistant - Online Research and Customer Service
Sears Holdings

Customer Service Associate II-Weekdays
Lowe's

Automotive Customer Service Advisor job in
Sears Holdings

Satellite TV Technician/Installer - Springfield
Dish Network

Satellite TV Technician/Installer
Dish Network

Call Center Operator wanted for a customer services company in
Tip Top Recruiting

"Automotive Customer Service Advisor"
Sears

"Lead Mentor Refrigeration Service Technician"
Sears

Service Desk Team Member
Target

Food Service Worker
ARAMARK

Food Service Team Member
Target

Part-Time Full Service Associate
Williams-Sonoma

Food Service Worker - Floater
Sodexo

Food Service Worker
Sodexo

Food Service Worker - Part time
Sodexo

Client Services Representative
Credit Service Company, Inc.

Work From Home Escalation Support Trai
Enterprise Holdings EAN Services, LLC

Truck Driver - Hiker/ Vehicle Transporter/CDL - Part Time
Penske Logistics Corporation

Part Time Animal Nutrition Consultant (Pet - Retail)
Chuck Latham Associates

Sr. Unix Ops Manager
Unknown

Retail Sales Leader, Bilingual
T-Mobile

Retail Sales Representative
Cricket Wireless

"Store Seasonal Employee: Front End"
Lowe's

Retail Sales Teammate - PT
Bridgestone Americas, Inc

Head Cashier
Lowe's

Sprint Retail Sales Job
Sprint

Retail Sales Consultant
AT&T

Store Seasonal Employee: Front End
Lowe's

Assistant Deli Manager Job
Sprouts Farmers Market

Sales Associate
7-11

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Now the unemployment index I like better is the U-6 rate. It also includes those who have run out of unemployment. Many of those who are working part time and would like to work full time are also included. 





I stole this image from Portal Seven.
As you can readily see it's headed downwards also. Now I do not foresee it coming all the way down to 7% again. There's been a few societal changes since 2001. A lot of families are wanting to have a single breadwinner only. For my household in fact we rely on my income only. Basically I'm forecasting it to hit about 9-10% early next year which I think will be the new bottom.

Thursday, May 8, 2014

New phone

     More recently my Blackberry decided to start giving up the ghost. Once again I was having battery and charging issues. It's kind of bad when you are going through your contact list or opening up the browser and the phone shuts down without warning.
     To solve the issue I began looking at other phones. The one I selected is a Kyocera Hydro. Unfortunately it doesn't seem that my provider, Cricket, isn't going with Blackberry devices anymore. In another year the CDMA phones will get completely phased out so I'll be switching again.
     The phone has been really easy to get used to and I had been concerned about that. Just a couple of odd things I'll mention. Be careful going through your contacts or it will dial automatically. There's no media player built in so you'll need to get one from the app store. The one I selected is the free version of Music Pro. 
     I'll note that the phones processor does seem to bog down at times. You'll be waiting several moments for it to finish doing what it's doing. I also got a memory booster since stuff seems to stay and helps to bog down the phone. The one I'm using is Memory Booster Lite. It works nice and fast.

One of the main things I want to be able to do on my phone is make notes and sometimes work on manuscripts. Of all of the books I've published over half were started on my phone. To that end I got QuickOffice from the app store. It ties directly into Google Drive which is wonderful and yes I can modify the documents there easily. It will be nice that I won't have to tether the phone to the computer to transfer a manuscript. Basically I'll be able to start a new Word doc anywhere, save it to the cloud, and open it up on my laptop also. That's beautiful. I'll also note that A7 seems to be the best page size to work with.
     Just imagine for a moment. I'll be able to go to a nearby park, pick a bench, and start writing.
     Probably the worst thing is the on screen keyboard. It'll quite often register me tapping the wrong letter though that autospell feature does seem to address some of that issue. This can be very annoying as you have to back up and replace the letter in question. Having to tap each letter individually is slowing everything up a bit also. To make my life easier I ordered a roll up bluetooth keyboard that should be here soon. 
     I will note that text is rather small. Being near sighted quite often to efficiently look at the phone I was having to take off my glasses. While I was able to modify the size of text in the web browser that hasn't seemed to affect what's in the word processor.
     All in all it's pretty good.

Wednesday, May 7, 2014

I received a Kyocera Hydro yesterday. It works really well which surprises me. Here's the phone. http://www.mycricket.com/cell-phones/details/kyocera-hydro-c5171

Yes, my service provider is Cricket.

Pros:

Lots of apps.
Doesn't seem crash prone.
Can open, and edit, Word docs on it.
It will interface with Audible books also.
Basically it will do just about every a 486 desktop would do.

I thought it was going to smudge a lot while touching the screen but it doesn't all that much.

Cons:
Miss-registers where I'm tapping.
Short battery life. (that could be related to the screen size though.)
Sometimes the processor hangs.

To take care of the on screen keyboard issue I ordered one of  these. I might not be3 working on Inquiso at the moment but that won't always prove. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CERCKXM BTW, it's waterproof also.

So far it's looking like this phone could in some instances replace a laptop. That's one of the reasons why I'd gotten the Blackberry.

Monday, May 5, 2014

Energy savings updates 5 May

Apparently the water heater wrap seems to be doing it's job quite well and seems to have further reduced total energy use. The water heater wrap I did on the 1st which is affecting this fuel delivery. It's amazing this large a change is registering with just some insulation over the kitchen and livingroom and a water heater wrap.

Today's propane delivery was 27 gallons.

My yearly per fill up average has dropped to 47.7 gallons and at the high point in November it was at 54.1 gallons. At the present market price of $2 per gallon I'm up $12.80 savings per fill up. This is a decrease since November of 11.8% or 6.2 gallons. Note that this is a yearly average like all of the deliveries from June 1 through this May so it's pulling in the larger fuel deliveries going back to June last year.

So I could see the amount per month I decided to run another average. This one is the total monthly. In December the Nov/Dec average was 84.3 gallons, the last two months that average has went to 75.6 gallons. That's a pretty similar amount of change. I know there was one additional delivery last June. Anyway, that's also showing a decrease of about 10.3%.

It will drop much further since the last three fill ups have averaged 30.1 gallons each (33.5 April 7, 29.8 April 21, and 27.0 today). This is a huge drop and I know pretty much where the average per fill up is headed to.

The next scheduled fill up is in July I think on the 14th which I'm expecting to be a larger delivery since it will be for several weeks. We'll see but I might make it through the summer without any additional fill ups which do cost a bit more because of the additional delivery fee unless the tank is almost empty. An empty propane tank is very explosive therefore a fire hazard. I think we had two of those extra summer deliveries last year.

On a further note from April 1st through yesterday we're at 10.5 kWh per day which is 2.05 kWh less than last years average. I'm at a 16.3% decrease. Of course it's mainly affected by the furnace being off most of the time. The house is a lot more comfortable also even when it's hot during the day.

I almost can't wait for the windows to be installed on the house. Today I moved one porch roof support from where it was next to my office window to about eight inches away. When they built the porch originally the one corner is adjoined with the one side of the window for my office. Now it won't interfere with the installers which will make their lives easier.

I'd like to add insulation of some kind over the other half of the house but I'm not coming up with an efficient way of doing it. So far the best way I'm coming up is attaching 1 inch thick styrofoam to the ceiling and then adding some texture over it. That has to wait a while anyway.