Bell has been working for Intel since 1998, proving that anthropologists, and social scientists in general, have been instrumental in developing marketing strategies for many fortune 500 companies. Anthropologists are likely to be enlisted by a growing number of corporations as digital networks and cultures become increasingly prominent and influential in business and politics. How do you think this will affect the discipline and conduct of fieldwork?

— Employing Anthropologists

There are three major reasons why salaries secret are silly:

1. It frustrates employees because any unfairness (real or perceived) can’t be addressed directly.
2. They’re not secret anyway. People talk, you know.
3. It perpetuates unfair salaries which is bad for people and for the organization

1. Salaries will become more fair. The system gets a chance to adjust itself.
2. It will be easier to retain the best employees because they’re more likely to feel they’re getting a fair salary.
3. The pressure is on the people with the high salaries to earn their keep. Everybody has to pull their weight - the higher the salary, the larger the weight.

— Salaries, income and the wage gap [via]

Ever more on the importance of talking about what we make.

The bulk of the stimulus program will provide jobs for men, because building projects generate jobs in construction, where women make up only 9 percent of the work force. It turns out that green jobs are almost entirely male as well, especially in the alternative energy area. A broad study by the United States Conference of Mayors found that half the projected new jobs in any green area are in engineering, a field that is only 12 percent female, or in the heavily male professions of law and consulting; the rest are in such traditional male areas as manufacturing, agriculture and forestry. And like companies that build roads, alternative energy firms also employ construction workers and engineers. Fortunately, jobs for women can be created by concentrating on professions that build the most important infrastructure — human capital. In 2007, women were 83 percent of social workers, 94 percent of child care workers, 74 percent of education, training and library workers (including 98 percent of preschool and kindergarten teachers and 92 percent of teachers’ assistants).

— Where Are the New Jobs for Women? [via]

As jobless numbers reach levels not seen in 25 years, another crisis is unfolding for millions of people who lost their health insurance along with their jobs, joining the ranks of the uninsured.
The crisis is on display here. Starla D. Darling, 27, was pregnant when she learned that her insurance coverage was about to end. She rushed to the hospital, took a medication to induce labor and then had an emergency Cesarean section, in the hope that her Blue Cross and Blue Shield plan would pay for the delivery.

— yglesias, making the obvious point that employer-based health care doesn’t work too well if nobody is actually employed. [via]

With jobs scarce, many college graduates find themselves taking jobs that do not require a degree, and laid-off middle-income workers are taking lower-paying jobs in areas like retail sales. A kind of domino effect is beginning to squeeze out the least skilled or experienced workers — those already on the bottom of the ladder — who are settling for part-time employment and fewer hours if they can find work at all. Hardest hit of all are younger job-seekers, especially black males in their late teens or early 20s without more than a high school education.

— Working Poor and Young Hit Hard in Downturn [via]

i have never been a big news-reading person (except when it comes to health news) but i cannot stop wanting to read everything i can about the economy, and all it does is stress me out. I wish someone had tapped me on the shoulder when i started college and been like “hey, you know that anthropology degree you’re getting? you’re going to end up being an anthropology grad student while the u.s. economy explodes so maybe you should go back to nursing after all. at least then you can be confident about your ability to find gainful employment, even if its cleaning up all of the carnage it will wreak on our health care system. I mean, honestly, do you even have the stamina for a terminal degree, anyway?”