Posted on: Sunday, September 30, 2007
Firing someone an experience 33% have had
Compiled by John MacIntyre
Percentage of Americans who have fired someone from a job, according to a survey by CBS for the game show "Power of Ten": 33
Percentage of Americans who have flown first class: 38
Source: CBS Television Network
POOR CREDIT HURTS
Percentage of Americans who know that it is legal for employers to refuse to hire job applicants with low credit scores, according to a survey released by Visa USA: 20
Percentage of Americans who mistakenly believe it is illegal for prospective employers to use credit scores as a hiring criteria: 52
Source: Visa
PAYING FOR COLLEGE
Percentage of parents who say that paying for their child's college education is at least somewhat important to them, according to a survey conducted for Futuretrust: 91
Percentage of parents who say they have actually saved as much for college as they had planned: 9
Percentage of parents who say that they are absolutely certain they will save enough for their child's college education in the next 10 years: 13
Source: Futuretrust
AMBITIONS
Percentage of U.S. workers who say they have the necessary education and training to get ahead in their current career, according to a 2006 study conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press: 57
Percentage of U.S. workers who say they have taken special courses or retraining to improve their job skills: 72
Source: Pew Research Center for People and the Press
THE BIGGIES
Ranks of Deloitte and Touche, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ernst and Young, IBM, Google, Microsoft and Walt Disney in BusinessWeek's second annual ranking of the "Best Places to Launch a Career": 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
Average first-year salaries in 2007 (before bonuses): $60,000 to $65,000
Source: BusinessWeek
COMPETITION HELPS
Percentage of advertising and marketing executives who said their staff members are competitive with each other, according to a survey developed by the Creative Group: 72
Percentage who said the level of competition in their firm/agency enhances productivity: 87
Source: The Creative Group
LOOSENING UP
Percentage of U.S. executives who say they prefer to wear either business casual or outright casual attire while at work, according to a survey conducted by www.TheLadders.com: 79.1
Percentage who said business casual is their standard office dress code: 62
Percentage of executives who say more and more companies are moving toward business casual: 42.2
Percentage of executives who say "business casual" is stretching to include even more casual attire such as jeans: 22.3
Source: www.TheLadders.com
HOME PRICE FORECAST
Percentage of Americans who say that they expect home prices in their area to either stay about the same in the next year or drop a little, according to a survey conducted by Reuters/ Zogby: 66.5
Percentage who say that they expect home prices to drop a little: 35.5
Percentage who say that they expect home prices to drop a lot: 8.5
Percentage who say that they expect home prices in their area to increase a lot: 4.2
Source: Zogby International
MORE TEMPS
Percentage of executives who said the use of temporary workers (at one time considered a stopgap measure) now has a place in their overall human resources budgets, according to a survey developed by OfficeTeam: 71
Source: OfficeTeam
MORE FLEXTIME
Percentage of working women with children under 18 who work flexible schedules, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics: 26
Percentage of working women with children under 18 who worked flexible schedules in 1991: 14
Source: Worth Collection
IDLE THOUGHT
"It is a very lonely life that a man leads, who becomes aware of truths before their time."
— Thomas Brackett Reed, politician
