The cut comes at a time when Iowa also is being buffeted by big layoffs at Wells Fargo & Co. and the former Aviva USA insurance company, now known as Athene. The Iowa unemployment rate increased to 4.9 percent in August from 4.8 percent in July, but it remains one of the lowest in the U.S.
Memo to Blue Bell and Braum’s:
Bigger is not always better.
The layoffs are part of a plan MetLife acknowledged for the first time publicly in March. At the time, MetLife said it will cut 650 workers in Bloomfield, leaving 1,300 at the site, over a three year period.
Tucker said some of the work currently performed by Transamerica employees will be outsourced to contractors.
via Transamerica laying off 60 in Cedar Rapids, 140 nationwide | TheGazette.
The number of Americans ages 16 and older who own tablet computers has grown to 35%, and the share who have e-reading devices like Kindles and Nooks has grown to 24%. Overall, the number of people who have a tablet or an e-book reader among those 16 and older now stands at 43%.
Up from 25% last year, more than half of those in households earning $75,000 or more now have tablets. Up from 19% last year, 38% of those in upper-income households now have e-readers.
via Tablet and E-reader Ownership Update | Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project.
Hmmm…
Only 13% of employees worldwide are engaged at work, according to Gallup\’s new 142-country study on the State of the Global Workplace. In other words, about one in eight workers — roughly 180 million employees in the countries studied — are psychologically committed to their jobs and likely to be making positive contributions to their organizations.
via Worldwide, 13% of Employees Are Engaged at Work.
No surprises here.
Only 36 percent of paid work activities bring American parents meaning, compared to 62 percent of child care duties; paid work is “very tiring” 5 percent of the time, while child care is exhausting 12 percent of the time.
via Pew study on modern American family: Moms still do more child care..
Guess it’s been that kind of day for finding these kinds of articles.
Multitasking Makes Managers Less Thoughtful – Gretchen Gavett – Harvard Business Review.
Link for the source article below.
I hesitated before posting this link. The headline grabs your attention, no? It got my attention for sure. Maybe, just maybe there’s hope for our economy and jobs crisis from the demographics. Then I read the following sentence:
For the purpose of the study, ADP assumed that the average retirement age was 61. Researchers concluded that in many industries, individuals will retire at 61 despite theories suggesting otherwise.
Not gonna happen. Period.
via 18% of the workforce could retire within five years | LifeHealthPro.
lifeunderwriter.net 
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