Employment

WASHINGTON - U.S. employers added 2.5 million jobs in May as businesses began to reopen following months of closures ordered at the outset of the coronavirus pandemic. The uptick in hiring dropped the unemployment rate to 13.3%, the Labor Department... Read More

WASHINGTON - The Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress held a virtual discussion late last week on the challenges faced by district staff working remotely and the steps federal agencies can take to protect staffers as they return to... Read More

WASHINGTON - A bipartisan bill introduced in both the House and Senate this week would create a flexible, $4,000 skills training credit for workers who have lost their job due to the coronavirus outbreak. The Skills Renewal Act affords these... Read More

WASHINGTON - The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits in the nine weeks since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic reached 38.6 million last week, just as states across the nation began to take decisive steps to reopen their... Read More

WASHINGTON - Nearly 3 million laid-off Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week, bringing the total job losses since the coronavirus pandemic took hold in mid-February to roughly 36 million, the Labor Department said Thursday. An additional 842,000 people applied... Read More

WASHINGTON - Industry and legal experts told the U.S. Senate Tuesday that the coronavirus pandemic is creating liabilities that are not adequately addressed by existing laws and regulations. As a result, business owners are running up against hundreds of lawsuits... Read More

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court justices sounded split Monday on whether to broadly deny civil rights protections to hundreds of thousands of teachers in religious schools, as they heard cases involving two who were fired from Catholic schools in Los... Read More

WASHINGTON - Rep. Derek Kilmer, chairman of the New Democrat Coalition, joined with Rep. Don Beyer this week to release a draft framework for the Workers’ Relief and Security Act, bicameral legislation that would tie ongoing expanded unemployment benefits to... Read More

WASHINGTON - A bipartisan group of House members led by Rep. Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla., is seeking to stem the stunning wave of layoffs across the country due to the coronavirus pandemic by expanding the employee retention tax credit. Roughly 33.5... Read More

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. unemployment rate hit 14.7% in April, the highest rate since the Great Depression, as 20.5 million jobs vanished in the worst monthly loss on record. The figures are stark evidence of the damage the coronavirus... Read More

WASHINGTON - U.S. private sector employers cut 20.2 million jobs from their payrolls in April, a stunning sign of just what the coronavirus outbreak has done to the economy in a relatively short time. In a report released Wednesday, ADP,... Read More

WASHINGTON (AP) — More than 3.8 million laid-off workers applied for unemployment benefits last week as the U.S. economy slid further into a crisis that is becoming the most devastating since the 1930s. Roughly 30.3 million people have now filed... Read More

WASHINGTON - Just over 4.4 million more Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week as the coronavirus pandemic and efforts to tame it continue to batter the U.S. economy. The Labor Department said Thursday that 4,427,000 Americans applied for benefits... Read More

WASHINGTON - Federal workers hoping for some clarity on when and how they will return to work in their offices got a hint on Monday, when the White House released its framework for gradually reopening the federal government. The framework,... Read More

WASHINGTON -- Initial unemployment claims, a proxy for layoffs, jumped by another 5.2 million last week, bringing the four-week total to about 22 million, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That number wipes out the total number of jobs created during... Read More

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that the Age Discrimination and Employment Act allows federal employees to sue over any age bias inferred by an adverse employment action -- even when that bias isn't the driving factor behind... Read More

WASHINGTON - The U.S. economy lost 701,000 jobs in March as the coronavirus outbreak spread, ending more than a decade of uninterrupted employment growth, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. The bureau's monthly employment situation report attributed the shedding... Read More

WASHINGTON - More than 6.6 million Americans filed new claims for unemployment benefits last week, shattering the record number for the second week in a row, the Labor Department announced Thursday. Last week, 3.3 million people filed jobless claims, meaning... Read More

WASHINGTON - The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits surged to its highest level in more than two years last week, causing House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer to vow the government will do "everything necessary" to help... Read More

WASHINGTON - Rep. Tom O'Halleran, D-Ariz., is no stranger to fighting to create jobs and a stronger economy for all Americans. His latest effort in this area is co-sponsoring bipartisan legislation to foster workforce training for transitioning military personnel in... Read More

WASHINGTON - Rep. Kathleen Rice, D-N.Y., is one of the leaders in a bipartisan effort to address an oft-overlooked area of jobs development -- the dramatic shortage of support professionals to work with the disabled. Rice, along with Reps. Peter... Read More

Rep. Colin Allred, D-Texas, met with North Texas business, education and labor leaders this week to discuss ways to expand job training opportunities for students, retain talent in the area and ensure higher education is both accessible and affordable for... Read More

President Donald Trump's tariff war with China significantly restricted the growth of the nation's solar energy workforce last year, an industry analysis shows. According to a report released Wednesday by The Solar Energy Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to... Read More

WASHINGTON — Businesses across the U.S. cut back in the number of new job openings they advertised in December, the Labor Department reported Tuesday. The pullback, following a similar decline in November is seen by some economists as a sign... Read More

WASHINGTON — Americans are working more and longer than ever, yet age discrimination worries often give older workers a lack of confidence in being able to keep their jobs or find new ones.  That’s why the House threw its bipartisan... Read More

WASHINGTON - A majority of U.S.- based large employers are expanding paid leave benefits by increasing the number of days available for leave, broadening eligibility, and considering new types of paid leave, a new Business Group on Health survey found.... Read More

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Department of Justice's chief internal investigator told a House panel on Tuesday that he and his colleagues across federal departments need more subpoena power to help protect whistleblowers alleging fraud and other malfeasance. DOJ Inspector General... Read More

WASHINGTON — Employers slowed their hiring in December, adding just 145,000 jobs, the Labor Department said Friday. Though the unemployment rate held at 3.5%, matching a 50-year low for the second straight month, Friday's report suggests continued weakness in the... Read More

LOS ANGELES — A Democratic presidential debate at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles is back on track after a labor dispute there was ended Tuesday morning. The televised debate, set for Thursday, had been in peril since last week,... Read More

WASHINGTON - The House passage of the National Defense Authorization Act means many things to many people, but to the residents of one region in Upstate New York, the massive spending bill means one thing: good-paying jobs for the foreseeable... Read More