My Labor Day Lament could sound like a blues song from Muddy Waters or Etta James.  It’s deep and rich and has some sweetness mixed in with all the sorrow.
The news for workers is bitter-sweet and for the unemployed and the under-employed it is as dreary as a February day in Detroit, where the unemployment rate was 15.2 percent in July
Consider these blue notes:

• -The recession and job cuts have cut a wide swath through America. More than half of workers have a family member who’s lost a job, including one in eight who say someone in their immediate family has been unemployed. That data comes from a new Rutgers University survey of 802 workers.
• For what really qualifies as a double-dip recession, one-third of current job seekers say an immediate family member has also been unemployed in the last three years, the Rutgers poll shows.
• The “99ers” are not such an elite group of Americans unemployed for 99 weeks or longer. That’s 1.3/1.4 CK million people who have spent two solid years of life without a regular paycheck or work friends. The New York Times wrote a poignant piece about 99ers (and I hope to find a link to it and add it soon).
• The U.S. jobless rate is not coming down and companies are hiring sparsely if at all. One third of U.S. metropolitan areas are stuck with jobless rates of 10 percent or higher, and 17 are really bad with rates at or above 15 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. California, once the golden state, now has 12 cities with very high unemployment.  Three cities in Michigan are at or near 15 percent. Even Ann Arbor, the city where I live and one viewed as thriving and adding jobs, has  ahas a jobless rate of 10.0 percent in July.
• When the poverty statistics come out later this month, they are likely to show more Americans at or on the brink of desperation. More than half of workers surveyed for Rutgers rate their finances as “only fair” or poor and it’s 90 percent for unemployed.
• Workers are seeing decelerating wage growth in the last two years, which is hurting family incomes and the economic recovery, according to report from the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank. The EPI also found that four of the five fastest growing jobs between 2006 and 2009 paid between $8 and $14 an hour – well below the median U.S. worker’s wage of $15.95.
• Almost two-thirds of workers in a Spherion Staffing survey say they feel less secure about their job, and more than one-third feel more negative about their situation since the recession began. Perhaps that negativity comes from a bigger workload: Half say they’ve added responsibilities thanks to a coworker’s layoff, and of course they aren’t paid any more for it.

And what gives this Labor Day weekend some sweetness for workers? Much of it is far less quantifiable than the blues I was just singing. Many more people seem attuned to the plight of others and willing to help them with a lead on work or a few dollars for a meal. And Friday’s unemployment report does provide some glimmers of hope, as well as many worrisome signs. Factory overtime is rising and the average workweek for “nonsupervisory employees” in companies inched up too.
Hiring will continue slowly in September, with fewer layoffs, the Society for Human Resource Management reports. SHRM also reports more openings for both salaried and hourly jobs – and a few HR managers say recruiting is getting difficult, at least for a few jobs.
Though hiring was tepid at best, some sectors did add jobs in August, according to the Labor Department report, including some that surprised me:

1. Restaurants and bars hired 12,200 people nationwide, perhaps to staff up for the fall football and sports season.
2. Temporary help agencies continued to add jobs, about 17,000 new ones last month and close to 400,000 in recent months.
3. In the professional category, employers added 10,300 administrative and support stafffers and several thousand accountants and bookkeepers.
4. Construction employment grew, buoyed by heavy construction (all those orange barrels on the highways are good for something) and specialty trades.
5. Membership associations and organizations added 5,200 jobs and educational employers added almost 5,000 jobs.

Another encouraging sign: The Labor Department’s revised the job losses for June and July. Both numbers are still negative, but the declines shrunk considerably (by 50,000 or more each month).
EPI economist Heidi Shierholz called the BLS report “positive but underperforming” and suggested the government needs to step in with “bold action to create jobs and put America back to work.” I’m no politician, nor a blues singer either but I know that we’ve got a world of hurt out there, with 6.2 million workers who’ve been jobless for half a year or more.
And so we need to encourage and help the jobless – and if we have the means, take action. Many of us could hire people to rake our leaves or renovate a bathroom; tutor our children or staff up our small businesses. We also could press politicans for more help for the worst cities and more aid for long-term jobless. Then perhaps we could turn America’s  Labor Day Lament into a more upbeat song.

More information:
Bureau of Labor Statistics U.S. joblesss report and metropolitan area reports  http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm   http://www.bls.gov/news.release/metro.nr0.htm
The Economic Policy Institute’s report called Recession Hits Workers’ Paychecks: Wage growth has collapsed, is available online http://bit.ly/c3WI24

Ah – summer and the summer job. The first ones stay with us forever, whether we work as an admin in Mom’s business, a caddy on the links or at the Farmers Market. Some find first jobs in factories, others in candy shops.

This year, though, summer jobs look scarce for youth. Teen unemployment nationally tops 25 percent in April, and is higher than that in some hard-hit areas of California or Michigan.  So teens need help, lots of it.

That’s why Mity Nice and I are launching an ambitious series of teen job search tips. They’re culled from many sources and experts and from my life experience and expertise. After all, I’m a mom of three as well as a careers and workplace writer, and co-owner of Mity Nice, which hires teens to sell Italian ice and support charities in and around Ann Arbor. We know we can’t hire all the teens that need jobs this summer, or even a small percent of them. So we hope to help them with some advice and encouragement.

The tips will be offered on Mity Nice’s Facebook page, and also collected here. We’ll give one a day, or five each week for at least six weeks.

Here’s a sneak peak at the first three, a long-form version of what’s on Facebook:

1. Know what employers look for.

Some traits are universal:  NACE, the National Association of Colleges and Employers, lists five top qualities: communication skills, analytical skills, teamwork, technical skills and a strong work ethic.   The American Management Association’s four Cs add to that list creativity and innovation.

Many of these are the very skills that make you a good student or the go-to co-captain of your sports team – the “soft skills” that you learn from teachers, parents, teammate. And a few requirements are specific to a job, such as lifeguard’s need for certification or sous chef must know how to chop and saute vegetables.

Either way, build these skills – and these words – into your resume and into your introduction to a future boss.

2. Develop a positive and confident attitude.

“Confidence is about trusting oneself,”" said the Buddhist monk Gayuna Cealo. You may feel very nervous about finding a job – that’s natural. When you go into a business to apply, push all that away. Take a deep breath. And fake it until you make it.

Another way to build confidence: Ask your best friend or a teacher  to list five great attributes you have. Write them down, put the list in your iPhone — and look at them often.

A third confidence booster: Practice. Recruit a friend to rehearse for job interviews. Or practice the introduction you’ll give walking into the store to  land a summer job. Or practice your affirmation – repeat it every time you wash your hands. (Yes, you can say it silently when you’re in the ladies’ room after gym.)

3. Create a resume.

Even if you’ve never held a paying job before, you really really need one. A resume is an important marketing tool – and a valuable way to gather up all the great things you’ve ever done or achieved, at least since you’ graduated from tricycle to two-wheeler. Your resume is an opportunity to tell your future boss that you’re a standout and you put extra effort in – whether it’s for a sport, a hobby, your classes, your volunteer activities or your friends.

If you can’t imagine what you’ll say, pull out your awards and recognitions. Then pull up your computer and send three adults who know you well these two questions: What have I accomplished or done that you think belongs on my resume? What three traits or qualities do I have that an employer will want?  (Yes, you may ask your BFF and your current beau those questions too, though they may not give you the best, resume-ready answers.)

Resumes are so important, Vickie wrote a longer blog post on creating a first resume. Read it soon – and then use it to create yours, or your kids.

I’ll post bonus material on this blog too, such as some advice sent to me from employment and recruitment companies, and anything that needs a little extra space beyond the short tips.

Please share these tips with teens who are searching, and with their parents, who are important career advisors and cheerleaders. And sign onto our MityNice page to see more later this week.

Teen tips are copyright Vickie Elmer, 2010. For permission to republish or use them, please contact the author.

Note: This WorkingKind post originally appeared on March 27, 2009. I am reposting it now as Wendy Enelow prepares for her Career Thought Leader Conference in Baltimore.

Wendy Enelow describes herself as an “old hippy girl” who lives on a 35-acre farm outside of Lynchburg, Va. And she does have long hair and dangling earrings – and apparently wears Birkenstock sandals and her PJs to work sometimes.

Enelow also is one of the great resume writers whose work helps advance and relaunch careers of executives all over the country. She spends about half her time as a career coach and resume writer for individuals – most earn well into six figures – and the other half with “career seekers,” people who want to become resume writers or join the career advice field.

So the hippy chick assists the corporate chieftain with career advice – at $2,000 to $3,000 and up for a resume redo.  And then she uses some of her earnings as a “do gooder” — someone who lends a hand freely to those in trouble. She and her husband “adopted” a family displaced by Hurricane Katrina, and helped them relocate to rural Virginia. (They’re still there and still friends and Enelow, a skinny Jewish woman who grew up outside Pittsburgh, now considers herself almost Latina from their connections.) She helped organize Volunteers for Careers after Sept. 11, providing free career counseling and advice for a year to anyone who had lost their job or their spouse to the terror attacks. They reactivated it for Katrina victims and stand ready for the next huge disaster – “God forbid,” she says, yet she knows it may come around again.

Enelow doesn’t have any specific cause or charity as a volunteer focus. “There’s always something that just appears in my life – formal or not – that is the “right” do-gooder thing to do at that exact moment in time,” she says.

Of her kindness and assists, she says, “It’s the right thing to do.”

Community service and volunteering looks right on your resume, she says, providing a “glimpse into who a person is.” She suggests steering clear of political and religious causes on your C.V. since those can be both an advantage and a disadvantage, depending on who’s viewing it. Write about your volunteering in a section called either Personal Profile or Volunteer Experience.

Now Enelow has some excellent advice on her website on making your resume into a key sales tool for your career.  (A bit of it showed up in this week’s Working in the Post. Enelow recommmends the “sell it, don’t tell it” approach to highlight achievements and quantifiable results. A good trick for this, she says, “for each bulleted point you have on your resume, read it out loud and then say and — and … .” And then fill in the result, the impact, the contribution, whether it’s new multi-media materials for sixth graders or reducing the accounting cycle by three days.)

But the biggest inspiration comes from Wendy Enelow’s choices — and her passion to make a difference – whether by creating the Resume Writing Academy with a colleague or by lending a hand for a food drive or another “do gooder” activity.

That generosity of spirit says almost as much as any resume could.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

To learn more about the Career Thought Leaders conference, check their website

You also can follow some of the key career coaches and resume writers who will be presenting there on a Twitter list managed by Chandlee Bryan.