In the NewsCompliance Science: What Workforce Managers Need to Know About Immigration EnforcementAmong the administration's top priorities, immigration remains on track largely due to bipartisan interest in Congress. While an immigration reform bill may be out of the question this year—major expansion of aggressive enforcement efforts is well underway. ManageSmarter.comIn the NewsWalmart Places a Mega Buy with YahooThose tie-ins are part of an ad deal between Walmart and Yahoo is the largest the Bentonville, AR-based company has made to date with a single online publisher, according to... [Read Full Article]

Government & PoliticsSmall Business Incentives Face a Hard Road in CongressPresident Obama’s incentives for small business to create jobs appear to be foundering at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. Those proposals — tax credits for hiring and investment and initiatives to spur lending to small firms — all face strong resistance, and not all of it comes from the Senate. Each chamber has embraced separate elements of the administration’s agenda, and, for the moment, none of those elements overlap.Government & PoliticsU.S. Salary-Increase Budgets Hit 25-Year LowChanges to salary structures... [Read Full Article]

It seems that with rising unemployment and ever tighter budgets, American consumers missed the message that we are in an economic recovery. We hear talk of the recession “bottoming out” or that economists see this or that “good sign” or that the Treasury Secretary has “green shoots” in his sights. The fact is, all these people talking about how the recession is ending would have just as much success predicting what the economy will do if they slaughtered a goat and tried to read the entrails.  If you want to know what the economy is really up to, go to the people who are there, in the trenches, each and every day. Talk to the people who are on the unemployment lines, the salespeople in shops—people who live with the recession and must cope with it every day—not the bureaucrats and statisticians in Washington trying desperately to spin the numbers, including this group and excluding that in order to be able to report something that the Adminis... [Read Full Article]

Government, Politics and the Economy Congress Urged to Raise Debt Limit Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has saddled Congress with the task—for the second time this year—of quickly increasing the maximum amount of money the federal government can borrow, something increasingly unpopular with the American people. WSJ.com Management and Operations Are Your Employees Ever Really Off? n the age of online social networking, when the goings-on in your business tweeted or written on Facebook walls, the after-hours activities of your employees may count as much as what they're doing "on-the-job." ManageSmar... [Read Full Article]

  Government, Politics and the Economy Congress to Consider Consumer Financial Protection Bill Legislation that would ‘level the playing field,’ as the Treasury says, is on its way to Congress in spite of opposition from financial institutions – the first of a number of new regulatory bills President Obama plans to send to Congress. Workforce.com Making Sure Small Business Contracts go to Small Businesses A proposed new law aims to keep big businesses from gobbling up procurement deals that should go to smaller firms. CNNMoney.com [Read Full Article]

Government, Politics and the Economy Sentate Mystery: Who Killed Small Business Credit-Card Protection? When the amendment offered by Senator Mary Landrieu (D – LA) to get new consumer credit-card protections extended to small businesses was killed last month, the perpetrators left no fingerprints. In fact, no one knows precisely what happened, or why. NYTimes.com The Small Business Owners' Wish List for Obama Small business owners don't ask for much, but an end to the credit crunch, less talk of tax increases, and healthcare reform without coverage mandates do top t... [Read Full Article]

The Associated Press story put it in stark, clear terms: Democrats on the House Financial Services Committee said Thursday the administration's efforts to hector the private sector into reining in executive pay might not go far enough. Now, this is after naming a Special Master for Compensation to make sure that the pay and bonuses of executives for companies that needed to be bailed out is not over the top. As I mentioned in a previous article, this is a fine, populist move, but hardly an economically practical one unless the entire playing field is leveled by across-the-board wage controls. Now, as if fulfilling a prophecy, we have this: [Congressional] Democrats and administration officials agreed that companies across the private sector need to adjust compensation practices to avoid damaging the economy. [Read Full Article]

  Government and Economy Obama: Small Business Key to Economy In a speech welcoming winners of an SBA award to the White House's East Room, President Obama acknowledged that small business is responsible for half the nation's private sector jobs and so deserves support from Washington. Google.com/AP Congress Failing American Small Business While they talk a fine game, when it comes to action on supporting what they, themselves, describe as the “backbone of the economy” our legislators seem happier to play possum. HuffingtonPost.com [Read Full Article]