Poll Shows Audience Growth Even as Ethnic Media Struggle

On the eve of its National Ethnic Media Expo & Awards, New America Media, a collaboration of more than 2,500 ethnic media outlets, has released a poll suggesting that "Ethnic Media Outlets Gain in Readers and Viewers" even as the economic downturn is taking a dire toll on small niche publishers of the sort represented among NAM's affiliates.

In its poll analyzing current figures against those taken in 2005, New America Media has marked singificant growth in Hispanic-targeted media in particular: "The penetration of Spanish-language radio stations and newspapers has increased substantially...Moreover, Spanish-language television stations now reach 86 percent of all Hispanic adults in the United States, while access to the Internet among Hispanics has grown from 24 percent in 2005 to 37 percent this year."

It also finds that "Other ethnic communities are also tuning into their media outlets. African-American audiences for television stations, radio stations and newspapers that focus on Black themes has increased about 10 percent since 2005; Chinese-language television stations and newspapers now reach 70 percent of all Chinese adults in the US, up from 55 percent in 2005; and Korean-language newspapers reach 64 percent of all Korean adults in the country, a boost from 46 percent in 2005."

The report makes an argument for the increasing relevance and importance of ethnic media for addressing the unique interests of niche communities, even as many publications are shutting their doors -- at least on the brick-and-mortar, paper publishing operations. Finding industry "strategies for surviving the economic downturn" is the theme of NAM's annual Expo, which takes place this year on June 4-5 at the Atlanta Hyatt Regency Hotel.

For more, see Poll Shows Ethnic Media Outlets Gain in Readers and Viewers

News Supplement: Jobs and the Economy

This week's supplement to the IMDiversity.com Career Center AP New Headlines again places focus on the jobs and the loss thereof in the nation's continuing economic meltdown.

AP Economics Writer CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER reports that the number of new claims for jobless benefits increased by more than expected in mid-October, "and companies from Goldman Sachs to Yahoo have announced thousands of layoffs in the past few days as the financial crisis, tighter credit, rising foreclosures and myriad other woes take their toll on the economy."

And, of course, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan predicted last week that there's plenty more pain to follow.

Nonetheless, it appears that many people are showing "a remarkable...optimism despite economists' widespread expectations that a serious recession is brewing," says a related report by ALAN FRAM. According to an AP-GFK Poll, "Most expect the economy to generally be better and the stock market to be rising three months from now," but "Majorities also doubt unemployment will fall or home values will rise by then, and people are split over whether their personal finances will improve."

It seems that while most people believe that economic conditions will improve, they are prepared to have to wait for at least a year before "more jobs and higher real estate values" will start improving their own financial conditions on Main Street.

There seems little doubt that this optimism has much to do with election-year fever. As followers of the "hope and change" candidate, supporters of Barack Obama seem to project a somewhat rosier future. Forty-four percent of those polled said they think the economy will improve if Democrat Obama is elected, while 34 percent said it would get better if Republican John McCain wins.

In a sidebar, the candidates' own statements on jobless claims both tend to lay blame squarely on the Bush administration, and a second sidebar comapres their healthcare plans at a glance.

In light of this continuing bad news, the AP has also been running a series of practical nuts-and-bolts focused on navigating unemployment and belt-tightening. An additional piece explains upcoming IRS changes in 2009 that may raise limits on contributions to 401(k) and SEP plans. Also useful are writer David Pitt's "Tips for benefits enrollment season".

Another casualty of the economic crisis, adds Business Writer Joyce Rosenberg, may well be your usual year-end bonus or holiday gifts.

Need help making sense of all the wildly yo-yo-ing jobless claims news coming from the DoL? (And who doesn't?) Meltdown 101: Jobless Claims and the Economy (also by Christopher Rugaber) provides a series of succinct Q&As on how to interpret reported data.

See all the readings in the current supplement.

Career Center Blog Back Online -- and Tackling Layoffs

After taking a break in the late summer to reorganize a number of sections throughout our site network, the editors are resuming work on the blog.

This fall we'll be posting news about a number of new features, both new articles of interest and news about expanded tools in our featured jobs and jobs quicksearch sections.

Meanwhile, though, we are running a series of occasional readings with a particularly timely focus, as the economy continues to sag and the monthly employment reports do not look too good.

Through our partnership with the WSJ Career Journal, we're running a follow-up to this spring's feature, What to Do After a Layoff -- detailing "how to make the most of a devastating situation".

The piece offered a lot of good advice for how to organize your affairs when the worst happened. But as conomic conditions have continued to worsen since then, the new piece focuses on better advice still for this climate: Don't wait.

Layoff Rumors? Get Ready To Get Busy
What to do when the rumors start flying

Focusing on how to proactively prepare for the worst, the article's suggestions go beyond the basic, obvious checkboxes -- updating your resume, etc. The moment you get a whiff that things may not be 100% stable at work, it suggests, you'd do well to carefully start gathering the materials you would need to be accessible outside of the office, preparing a workspace and business line in your home, and other actions enabling you to "hit the ground running". When/if disaster strikes, you'll need to be ready on day one to "meet your new boss" (you) and have the resources to statr your new full-time job (finding one).

-- Finally, starting this fall, we'll be supplementing such features with occasional special focus reportage in our Career Center AP News Headlines section. Readings will focus on the big employment picture and trends, at both national and lcoal levels, as well as the areas and industries where there are continuing worker shortages.

So stop back soon.

Job Hunter Chronicles: Sys Admin Found Last 3 Jobs Online

From The Job Hunters Chronicles:

A new submission by Alex Alborzfard, a systems administrator, took up the question we posed at the launch of our new Chronicles section: "Does Anyone Really Find a Job Online?"

The answer in Alborzfard's case, at least, is: "Absolutely".

There's no going back for this IT professional, who says he has found his last three jobs using online job boards, search agents and networking tools, and that he will "Never Buy the Sunday Paper Again!"

But, he cautions, the time- and cost-saving convenience of online job sites does not mean that old rules don't apply: using online measures alone cannot replace good, old-fashioned networking. In addition to making use of online job search and automated-search technologies, he suggests that social networking sites such as LinkedIn are have also played an important role in his success finding employment online.

Read the full submission here.

New Feature: The Job Hunters Chronicles

New on the IMDiversity Career Center, we're pleased to kick off our new feature, The Job Hunters Chronicles, with three submissions.

Although the software engineer, a dot-com executive, and a journalist who works as a government liason for a non-profit service agency are all in very different occupations, they share a common theme in their job hunting stories.

K.D., a software engineer who wanted to relocate from San Francisco to Chicago, took a fairly traditional approach to posting his resume on an online job board, and was lucky to be contacted by a desirable employer. However, he recalls that that first contact was just a foot in the door. He had not anticipated the highly time-consuming electronic back-and-forth that ensued, including multiple interviews and a sample of original code programming solving a problem the company sent him.

David Fox, a dot-com executive, focuses on the importance of using online tools to thoroughly research a prospective employer. In his case, the time spent researching the products and even the flaws of his current employer's websites -- and then corresponding with a hiring manager about them at length and in detail -- paid off.

Shawn Chollete, who had worked as a journalist, similarly landed a good job at a NPO through a seemingly round-about fashion: through networking on sites like Facebook and MySpace, and ultimately cross-referencing these social resources with contacts in job postings he wanted to apply to.

If there's one common thread among our inaugural user contributors to The Job Hunters Chronicles, it seems to be that simply posting to job boards and applying to jobs is only the first step in a job search process. Following up by using the widest range of online tools to research, communicate with, and present themselves to their prospective employers is key to successfully concluding a job hunt online.

Amen.

Do you have a story to share with other jobseekers abot what worked or didn't work for you in online job searching? Please submit it to The Job Hunters Chronicles, or feel free to leave a coment posted here on this thread.

Don't Put Your Job Hunt On Hold for the Holidays

While some of the editors are getting ready to take a few days off (alas, not all of us will be off this next week), we leave some good advice from the career experts at the WSJ/Career Journal:

Don't Put Your Job Hunt On Hold for the Holidays

It's a myth that hiring slows down between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day, says popular Journal columnist PERRI CAPELL. Sometimes, in fact, it's the very opposite, as "managers try to fill jobs before their budgets expire."

"Not only don't things slow down in December," says Tim Jones, vice president of human resources for Ixia, a communications technology test systems maker. "but there's a sense of urgency to fill jobs in many cases."

In fact, from the perspective of IMDiversity's editors, December has been an active month for the posting of jobs on our job banks. The activity seems to have been at least partially boosted by the fact of imminent or slightly extended deadlines for internships, coops and other entry-level or educational opportunities for the late spring and summer (yes, already), where a high volume of applications must be in early enough in the new year so that decisions can be made for a summer start.

For others, the holidays can be an ideal time to "line up one's ducks," fine-tune your resume, take the time to do the kind of employer research we all know we should be doing thoroughly, but don't always have time and focus to do as well as we should.

So, while we wish everyone a happy holiday season, we also urge those who are in an active job search to not let too much momentum go to waste over the next couple of weeks, but keep up the efforts to make 2008 a very happy new year indeed.

Good luck!

Study: Turnover at Accounting Firms

Industry Report
Report: Accounting Firms Face Significant Risk of Turnover by Women and Men of Color
Catalyst.org releases first in a new series of industry-specific diversity research reports

Census: 300+ U.S. Counties Now 'Majority-Minority'

More Than 300 Counties Now "Majority-Minority"
Nearly one in every 10 of the nation’s counties has a population more than 50% minority, according to a new release by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Excerpts from the summary ...

Nearly one in every 10 of the nation’s 3,141 counties has a population that is more than 50 percent minority. In 2006, eight counties that had not previously been majority-minority pushed the national total to 303, the U.S. Census Bureau reported today.

The two largest counties passing this threshold between July 1, 2005, and July 1, 2006, are Denver County, Colo., and East Baton Rouge Parish, La., with total populations of 566,974 and 429,073, respectively. Three other counties were in Texas (Winkler, Waller and Wharton), with one each in Montana (Blaine), New Mexico (Colfax) and Virginia (Manassas Park, an independent city and considered a county equivalent).

Los Angeles County, Calif., had the largest minority population in the country in 2006. At 7 million, or 71 percent of its total, Los Angeles County is home to one in every 14 of the nation’s minority residents. The county’s minority population is higher than the total population of 38 states, with the largest population of Hispanics, Asians, and American Indians and Alaska Natives in the country. It also has the second largest population of blacks and Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders.

Harris County, Texas, gained 121,400 minority residents between 2005 and 2006, which led the nation. Harris (Houston is its largest city) now has a minority population of 2.5 million, comprising 63 percent of its total. Its minority population ranks third nationally, not far behind second place Cook County, Ill. (Chicago).

Based on total population, Starr County, Texas, located on the Mexican border, had the highest proportion of all counties that was minority, at 98 percent. Among the nation’s 25 most populous counties, Miami-Dade County, Fla., had the highest proportion minority, at 82 percent.

See specific highlights and full detail tables