Myspace and Facebook Litigation Soon?

Ran across an interesting point made by Nick Fishman on the outstanding HR/recruiting blog Cheezhead (http://www.cheezhead.com/) created by Joel Cheesman. I think he has a good point...

From Cheezhead:

"Many you have seen the recent CareerBuilder study which concluded that 1 in 5 employers is using Social Networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook as part of their employment background screening process.

While untested to date, we are going to see significant negligent hiring and discriminatory hiring practices claims arise from the use of these sites when making employment decisions.

Wait until the litigation starts. Trust me, it’s coming."

Next Recession?

47 = The number of months after the start of the 2001 recession before employment matched its previous high.

(source: Bureau of Labor Statistics)

Considering we have entered into another recession in 2008, it could be a very competitive job market for those looking for employment for quite a while.

Highest Unemployment Since 2003

The unemployment rate increased to 6.1% in August and payroll employment dropped by 84,000 jobs. This is the highest unemployment rate since September 2003.

More competition for less jobs, yikes.