Screwed: 85 at Ballard Power

A daily review of the employment fallout around the country and the world.

Today’s Partial Total:228

Fuel cell developer Ballard Power plans to cut 20% of its staff which means 85 workers lose their jobs…Engineering firm CHA layoffs 57 employees, froze salaries and cut hours for approximately 7% of its nationwide workforce…Eye care benefits provider VSP has cut 43 jobs about half in their local headquarters of Rancho Cordova…Miami Herald Media Company recently announced their plan to layoff or reduce hours of 43 employees…

Recession Briefing 8.12: Recession Gores Bullfighting

What you need to know today to survive and thrive in the recession.

Spain’s steep recession has led dozens of cash-strapped local councils to scrap their annual bullfighting fiestas to save public money. (Agence France-Press)

Women on food stamp programs weigh an average of almost six pounds more than those who aren’t, and gained weight faster when on food stamps than when they were not. (New York Examiner)

In the midst of nationwide aquatic budget cutting, drownings are on a dramatic upswing this summer. Data is still being compiled, but researchers say the most likely victims are still toddlers and young people. (Aquatics International)…

The Recession Will End… When Staycations Are a Thing of the Past

Says who: Staycationers – those who have had to cut back on their normal vacation plans to far-flung destinations and chosen instead to spend their time off in their own backyards.

Why it might be false: Just because staycations are said to be the summer’s hot thing doesn’t mean that everyone’s doing them. In fact, cruises, campgrounds and destination spas are experiencing surges in traffic. Priceline.com’s recent 35% second-quarter profit increase contradicts the idea that staycations are dominating “time off time” and underlines that there are some great deals on the market. Even if staycationers aren’t spending a lot of dough on transportation or accommodations, they are still spending money and bolstering the local economies. In short, they aren’t as damaging to the economy as other spending cutbacks might be (like, say, on buying homes)…

Can Political Upheaval Protect You From Recession?

A couple of months ago, while working on a story about what the recession is called in other countries, I reached out to a Lebanese friend who working in Washington, D.C. Her response: There wasn’t a recession in Lebanon. Hmm, I thought. Something to look into.

Dr. Doom is ahead of me, as always. (Not to mentioned overhyped, but stay with me.) Nouriel Roubini has done a survey of countries that have been gliding through the downturn for Forbes.com. “All economies have been affected by the crisis, but a combination of policy responses and strong fundamentals has given some countries, especially some emerging market economies, a relative edge,” he says.

Strong fundamentals aren’t the whole story. In Lebanon’s case, for example, banking regulations kept a lid on subprime investments that the U.S. banks all went wild for. But there was also an upside to “domestic political uncertainty”—it helped keep the country’s economy relatively isolated…

Recession Briefing 8.11: Stats Whiz Thinks Employment Topped Out

What you need to know today to survive and thrive in the recession.

Statistics whiz Nate Silver thinks that the recession likely does not have enough gas left to push the unemployment rate up to 10 percent. (FiveThirtyEight)

As a result of disproportionate male layoffs in the recession, women are coming close to representing the majority of the national work force for the first time in American history. (New York Times/Economix)

Several U.S. cities these days are accommodating the homeless and their encampments, instead of dispersing them. (Wall Street Journal)…

If you come across a good article or blog post about the recession pass it on. To receive Recession Briefing in your inbox, subscribe to our daily email.

Screwed: 450 at American Centrifuge Project

A daily review of the employment fallout around the country and the world.

Today’s Partial Total: 862

Some good news: L.B. White, in Onalaska, is rehiring workers that were temporarily laid off in March.

American Centrifuge Project facilities in Oak Ridge have notified 450 workers of impending layoffs… Up to 255 state workers face unemployment in Pennsylvania… Whiskey producer Whyte & Mackay is laying off up to 100 Scotland workers…

Making a Home Make Money

I love having a house in the country and a place in the city—so much that I have chosen country abode over health insurance. But even that sacrifice has not saved me enough to be able to hold on to my second home year round.

On the last day of July, I drove to my beloved little house a hundred and twenty miles up river from Manhattan, to make it ready for the August renters. We had rented our home before, but never for what seemed to me to be such a long time: five weeks. When you have a garden to grow and tend to (Read “No New Plants, Period.”), five weeks seems like an eternity. But it is a buyers market so when a good family responded and this is what they desired, I said YES.

I am doing this to make ends meet. It is not a tragedy of any magnitude; it is what my mother used to call, “an upscale problem.” I have two homes and so I have the upscale luxury of making one pay for the other…

10 Things That Are Not So Weird in Recession

We all have our oddities—ah, idiosyncrasies. Difficult times can often accentuate personality quirks and neuroses. Don’t be ashamed, but rather flaunt them! People are more forgiving of weirdness then ever in a bad economy, probably because each person has their own anxieties to deal with. Here are 10 things that are completely acceptable during the economic downturn.

1. Using the 2012 end of the Mayan calender/Armageddon to relieve anxiety about your current unemployment. Hey, the world will be ending soon anyway.

2. Turning down an evening out for “financial reasons,” when you really just want to stay in to watch the newest round of the Real Housewives series. Further justification—you could learn a lot from the ladies of the OC/New Jersey/Atlanta/NYC…

Screwed: 2,600 at Ssangyong Motor

A daily review of the employment fallout around the country and the world.

Today’s Partial Total: 5,677

Korea’s Ssangyong Motor recently finalized 2,600 layoffs…German utility company E.ON plans to cut 2,000 jobs…Ulster Bank is cutting 250 more jobs on both sides of the Irish border…Trinity Marine Products plans to layoff its entire staff of 235 employees…Crow Tribe is laying off 200 employees…Terex Corporation plans to layoff 170 workers in Cedar Rapids…Artex Aircraft is set to layoff 113 workers and close one of their facilities…Portland-based RM International plans to layoff 109 employees…

Recession Briefing 8.10: Dirty Jobs are in Demand

What you need to know today to survive and thrive in the recession.

People who have been out of work for months are lining up for jobs at places they once considered unthinkable: slaughterhouses, sewage plants, prisons. (Associated Press)

Growing numbers of new college graduates — or, more often, their parents — are paying thousands of dollars to services that help them land internships. (New York Times)

Economists don’t see much relief for unemployed teenagers in a recession that has trimmed hires and pulled many adults into the scramble for jobs typically held by teens. (Wall Street Journal)…

If you come across a good article or blog post about the recession pass it on. To receive Recession Briefing in your inbox, subscribe to our daily email.