Suicides Prompt Taiwanese Company To Double Pay Of Chinese Employees

There has been a fair amount of press lately about Foxconn a Taiwan based company with manufacturing facilities in mainland China. The company manufactures much of the hot consumer electronics products that are coveted world wide, including the Apple iPhone and iPad. The BBC is reporting "Ten people have killed themselves at its plant in Shenzhen, in southern China, which employs about 400,000 people. Three more apparently tried to take their own lives." It's unbelievable that people are pushed to these tragic endings, however as others have reported 10 in 400,000 is well below the national average in China. In my humble opinion it's highly likely that the reaction by Foxconn to increase wages is more the result of pressure from Apple and other companies who use their service, than out of concern for the employees. To qualify for the pay rise, workers will first have to pass a performance test lasting three months (the old carrot and stick again). The company has also hired psychiatrists and installed safety nets on buildings, seriously!

Looking For Work? 10 Twitter Users You Should Follow

Looking for work or dealing with issues at work, Anthony Balderrama a CareerBuilder.com writer provides some guidance regarding who you should be following on Twitter and why. Balderrama's list of 10 career changing tweeters is perhaps a little self serving but what the heck... if it provides you with advice, the interview skills, or the confidence you are lacking to find that job you've been seeking, and it only costs you a 140 characters, it's a steal! Find the list here.

Yahoo! testing social network for job seekers

c|net's news.com NewsBlog has had a sneak peek at a new Yahoo! service that is being tested amongst college students. Being dubbed Kickstart, the service is a social network geared towards finding you an in with employers. The idea is to hook you up with someone within an organization who has something in common with you, say, graduated from your school, is from the same town, shares interests, etc. The features are reported to be typical amongst the social networking crowd but the focus is definitely on job finding. Sounds interesting, hope it stays the course and remains focused on employment, otherwise do we really need another social networking site?

IT has lost its luster among students - demand still high

CBC news reports that while demand for information technology workers is projected to spike, students are staying away from the training programs that would fill the need. It seems as though large scale layoffs by some of the major players has created the perception among students that there are no jobs in IT. According to the Information and Communications Technology Council, the jobs are there but the focus in the industry has changed from large scale complex systems to the tackling of real world problems. Health-care applications, environmental projects, and supply chain management systems are driving current demand.