REDUCING OR ELIMINATING TRAINING TO CUT COSTS
IN THE RECESSION
| Percentage of companies reporting they had reduced or eliminated training | |
| October 2008 | 10% |
| December 2008 | 23 |
| February 2009 | 35 |
| April 2009 | 42 |
| Percentage of companies reporting they planned to reduce or eliminate training | |
| October 2008 | 18% |
| December 2008 | 18 |
| February 2009 | 15 |
| April 2009 | 8 |
| Source: Watson Wyatt Worldwide, April 2009
Reproduced without permission from a newsletter I received called Workforce Training Management.
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AIG to close Milwaukee center, lay off 291 – The Business Journal of Milwaukee:
I have friends at AIG/American General which makes this news painful. From a former insider, there were 60 layoffs in Dallas, 124 in Houston. Reportedly, there were staff reductions at every location in the country.
Why British Airways Is Asking Staff to Work for Free – TIME
Working for free is a bad idea.
Clicking on the @Work link above will take you to the blog of Challenger, Gray & Christmas a huge outplacement firm. There is a lot of nasty news in this survey but my eyes are drawn to several findings that actually bode well for the future of remote/telecommute underwriting work.
You may ask, how is this good news? Well, it depends upon your perspective. One of my projects consists of moving underwriting work to people rather than moving the people to where the work has traditionally been done. Work can be done anywhere if you have a computer and a decent high speed Internet connection. The only major roadblock we have is a severe case of dinosaur brains. Granted, some forms of work have to be done at a specific location. The good news is underwriting work does not.
Let’s dig deeper into the Challenger survey and find more good news. Companies are cutting costs in the following areas:
The problem is this – what happens when the business environment improves and volumes increase?
Companies have painted themselves into very tight corners. Many will migrate to more of a variable cost structure to preserve the savings achieved from the measures taken during the recession.
I tell ya, I’m having a lot of fun doing what I’m doing.
Anxious Japanese Are Working Themselves to Death – BusinessWeek
It’s likely that many more of the 30,000 cases of suicide in Japan each year are at least in some way related to a culture of excessive working.
Overall, LIMRA reports, premium from individual life sales dropped, slid, plunged, plummeted, nosedived (take your pick) an amazing 26% from the year before. Every product line was hit, LIMRA says, with variable life premium off a massive 61%. Universal life, down 33%. Variable UL, off 61%. The only two lines that didn’t enter double-digit loss territory were term (off 4%) and whole life (down 5%). Additionally, totals for face amount and number of policies sold were off 8% in both cases.
My name is Patricia Brown, I am a employee manager in the company Poland Investments Inc.
Briefly about our company: we deal with selling and purchasing of certificates of metal in Europe. Our central office is located in Poland. The first license for activity in Poland was provided in 1998. Nowadays, we have our offices and employees all over the world. We work with individual clients, as well as with corporations.
We offer ideal conditions of work. Once in a year we grant a 2-week vacation on the resorts of Poland. All our employees are provided with a whole kit to have the possibility of working in every part of the world. Absolutely gratuitous we grant a laptop (brand Dell, HP or Apple) and mobile phone (brand Blackberry or iPhone), we pay for internet access and mobile communication.
We aren’t standing still and that is why having the European market conquered we move on to reach the U.S. one. The primary stage – is to form the staff. And namely you are offered a position in dynamically developing company.
At the stage of forming the staff we offer a possibility of flexible schedule or part-time occupancy.
Annual salary is USD 125,000. We appreciate well-educated employees; that is why if you have MBA, the raise in the salary is granted. Each certificate of degree is individual that is why the markup must be stipulated with head manager, after being accepted for employment.
With the expansion of the influence of our company in the U.S. market, promotion track is naturally granted to you.
We are always glad to answer all your questions and stipulate the conditions of collaboration. You can get in touch with us by phone (from 8 am till 6 pm, Monday-Friday) or through email in any time, convenient for you. We are looking forward to your answer.
Patricia Brown,
Poland Investments
patricia.pi.inc@googlemail.com
lifeunderwriter.net 
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