Category: June

The Shocking Link Between Rising Unemployment and Fake Job Listings!

Paul
Unemployment is on the rise
Unemployment is 4.1%!

Unemployment is on the Rise!

As you can see this is the current unemployment rate from the BLS reports.  If you want to dig deeper, you can but the real concern is that it has jumped from 3.5%( Last June 2023) to 4.1 This year.  That’s a .6% rise in a year and it’s not going down.  Unemployment is going up and if we look at the unemployment rates from 2006 you can see once it started to rise, it went fast upward.   This seems to be the something that will happen again.   We might not get up to 10% but we will get past the 6% to 7% rate and it might even stay there for some time.  I’d say maybe a 1 or two years.  The Feds might have to do something soon to prevent this from going higher than that this year by introducing rate cuts in the coming months.

Fake Jobs and Scams are on the Rise!

Ghost Jobs, and Fake Jobs are being posted on every job board around just to bolster the companies moral and keep employees happy.  I’m even seeing more job scams getting into my email box and I even documented some of the ones that I have seen in the past few weeks.  Here’s a small list of them:

I’ve talked about some of these are more in the past and I’m really concerned with where the job market is right now and what companies are doing to the job seekers and potential new employees.  Is it morally right to go through the process of interviewing candidates if they aren’t going to hire you and is it even right to put up those jobs if you aren’t really hiring.   I’d says it is but I am sure others would disagree with me.  I understand the concept.

Job Interviews

I’ve got a job interview with a company in the next two weeks and they have reposted the job on Linked-in.   That seems more than smells of something rotten but I will patiently wait and see what they do when I go through the interview.   I am dubious that they aren’t going to hire me but I have to make an effort to do that.  Another company which is local is interviewing me and wants me to come back in for an “IT Support Analyst” position, which I don’t understand but I will go and do the interview with someone else for one reason or another.   Is the job market so bad that companies are being ultra picky on who they will hire and who they want to join their team?  I would say most likely yes and it’s really one of those things we will have to see in the coming months.   The pendulum has swung to the employers side and we are just going to go through the motions of trying to find a job and go through more excessive interviews to get that one job we are looking for to being able to survive the impending recession, which we may already be in.

Have you had any fake job stories you want to talk about, why not leave a comment and tell us your story.  I’d love to hear your experiences on the subject matter and maybe it will help others avoid the same mistakes.

Ms Patch Tuesday For June 2009

Paul

Photo by Andrew Magill Photo by Andrew Magill

Microsoft has released the upcoming patch information for this Tuesday, and boy does it look like a big one. It looks like there will be 10 bulletins this time around:

  • Bulletin 1: Critical (Remote Code Execution):   Windows

  • Bulletin 2: Critical (Remote Code Execution):   Windows

  • Bulletin 3: Critical (Remote Code Execution):   Windows, Internet Explorer

  • Bulletin 4: Critical (Remote Code Execution):   Office

  • Bulletin 5: Critical (Remote Code Execution):   Office

  • Bulletin 6: Critical (Remote Code Execution):   Office

  • Bulletin 7: Important (Elevation of Privilege):        Windows

  • Bulletin 8: Important (Elevation of Privilege):        Windows

  • Bulletin 9: Important (Elevation of Privilege):        Windows

  • Bulletin 10: Moderate (Information Disclosure):    Windows

It will also include one or more updates on WSUS and Windows update, and Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool.   This looks to be quite a big set of updates.   Each one is very serious and will probably be a big download.   If your in corporate IT you may want to get ready the [intlink id=”2883″ type=”post”]Autopatcher program [/intlink]this will help update all the important files on each system without having to have a internet Connection.

[ad]We don’t know what they will be until they have dropped from Microsoft, but we can guess that the Latest Directx vulnerability isn’t going to be one of them.  I wouldn’t be surprised if this was going to be pushed out of cycle but that is going to have to wait a see.

The Affected systems are Windows 2000 Through Windows Vista and Server 2008.   Which means if you have windows it most likely will need to be updated.   Although on a side not the Office suite from 2000 to 2008 also will be patched and that includes the Macintosh systems.

It also looks like 7 out of the 10 will require restarts, so the autopatcher will save you time.  I wouldn’t expect this to notbe exploited on Wensday because most of them are Remote Code Execution which means it is easy for a hacker to take control of your system.   These should be installed ASAP and you also should have a [intlink id=”2205″ type=”page”]Firewall and Antivirus installed[/intlink] to better protect your system.

Vista has a new Vulnebility!

Paul

According to Techworld.com,  Vista has a new Vulnerability that could let a hacker infect a Vista machine with a rootkit.  The talk from them is quite intriguing.   I will quote it to better let you know what the Vulnerability is:

The vulnerability could allow a hacker to install a rootkit, a small piece of malicious software that is very difficult to detect and remove from a computer, Unterleitner said.

[ad#ad2-left]Phion notified Microsoft about the problem on 22 October. Microsoft indicated to Phion that it would issue a patch with Vista’s next service pack. Microsoft released a beta version of Vista’s second service pack to testers last month. Vista’s Service Pack 2 is due for release by June 2009.
[via Techworld.com]

The way they could do this is through the Device IO Control which in turn could corrupt the Kernel of Windows Vista.  Now we all know that Microsoft will release a patch quicker than 6 months away.  According to this article, people are already looking for the exploit and want to know more about it.  I would be willing to bet they will have a patch out sooner than later.  Probably January or Febuary, which will be a big deal because no one will expect it.  I would also imagine hackers will start trying to figure out how they could install software as quick as possible before Microsoft pushes out the patch.   So what can you do to protect yourself, Get a firewall, a Antivirus and learn how to protect yourself to prevent yourself from getting a computer virus.

Rumor: GE to be the next to layoff its workers!!

Paul

GE to Layoff 11,000 Workers!! GE to Layoff it workers!

According to sources of friends close to me, their seems to be a consensus that there will be a major layoff coming from GE. My source is talking about it being a lot of people will be laid off and that it will start happening in the coming weeks.

According to Yahoo Finance saying this “52 week change of GE is -50.86% from last year. ”

[ad#ad2-right-1]Now last year this time there Stock Price was 38.38 a Share and now they are 18.60 a share.  They dropped -19.78 over the year.   The seemed to get close to the 38.38 a share on April 4, 2008 with making  37.56 a share.  That was there highest this year, due to the fact that people were getting there income tax refunds in the mail.    Also NYSE says they had a slight increase in July and Aug, that is due to the Stimulus package that we got in 2008.

Now I’m not a financial expert in the least.  I just see what I see with stock prices.  These could mean they are doing extremely well, or they could indicate that the company is planning on laying people off.  I’m just trying to provide a background on why they might lay people off.  We are getting to he point of becoming a Depression and no longer a Recession.  What do you think?