NEW YORK – People concerned about their careers should be extra careful about what they post on the Internet during a recession, career counselors say.

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs and other venues present numerous opportunities to sabotage your hunt for a job or promotion at a time when employers can afford to be picky.

“With social media, you can be vapid, boring and annoying with alarming frequency,” Patricia Vaccarino, owner of a Seattle public relations firm, warned clients in a newsletter.

Vaccarino said many of her Facebook friends have posted “in great detail about their colonoscopies, dead teeth pulled, dead dogs, flatulence, adult acne, marital breakups, battles with mental illnesses and drinking problems.”  Read more... (188 words, estimated 45 secs reading time)

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JAKARTA (AFP) – – Indonesian police on Sunday confirmed that regional terror outfit Jemaah Islamiyah were behind the twin suicide blasts at Jakarta hotels, and said one of the bombers had been identified.

Jemaah Islamiyah, which draws inspiration from Al-Qaeda, has carried out dozens of bombings in Indonesia in the past decade including 2002 attacks in Bali that left more than 200 dead, mostly foreign tourists.

Police said an unexploded bomb left in a guestroom of the JW Marriott, which was attacked along with the nearby Ritz-Carlton, resembled devices used in Bali and one discovered in a recent anti-JI raid on an Islamic boarding school.  Read more... (176 words, estimated 42 secs reading time)

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MANILA, Philippines – At least 100,000 more jobs in Guam, Saudi Arabia and Qatar await Filipino workers.

The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) reported that the government is currently negotiating agreements for the hiring of more Filipino workers abroad.

POEA chief Jennifer Manalili said the government is looking at 15,000 to 20,000 jobs for highly skilled Filipino workers in Guam.

Manalili said Guam will be requiring massive manpower with the impending construction of camps and other buildings to house American military officers who will be relocating in the area in 2010.  Read more... (131 words, estimated 31 secs reading time)

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MANILA, Philippines – Philippine government officials have called on New Zealand’s Nursing Council not to reject Filipino nurses, saying they are competent despite some having completed the course in less than four years.

The New Zealand Herald, quoting Consul General Marcos Punsalang, said embassy representatives, including the ambassador, met the Nursing Council after receiving complaints that Filipino nurses have been having difficulty in registering. 

A previous report by the New Zealand Herald has said that the Nursing Council, which governs nursing registration in New Zealand, has made it “tougher” for overseas-trained nurses to register.  Read more... (121 words, estimated 29 secs reading time)

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MANILA, Philippines -  Microsoft Philippines recently launched BizSpark, a program that intends to provide development tools to Filipino software start-up companies at no upfront cost.

The project’s beneficiaries will be identified by Microsoft’s local partners such as the the Commission of Information and Communications Technology (CICT), the Philippine Software Industry Association (PSIA), the newly-formed National ICT Conference of the Philippines (NICP), and the Business Processing Association of the Philippines.

BizSpark, which has a student counterpart program called DreamSpark, is intended to give local start-ups free access to Microsoft development tools and production licenses of server products.

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MANILA, Philippines — Employees of top corporations in the Philippines display the highest level of commitment and focus among workers surveyed across the Asia-Pacific region, according to a study by global consultancy firm Watson Wyatt.

The findings indicate that the country’s corporate sector is in a good position to weather the global financial storm, the consultancy firm said.

The “employee engagement” score for the Philippines stood at 77 percent, up by four percentage points from the previous survey in 2007, according to the study results Watson Wyatt released Monday.  Read more... (224 words, estimated 54 secs reading time)

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The government is giving counseling and retraining to “about 60,000 workers that could be affected nationwide” in the electronics industry as factories close down or cut workforces amid a deepening global recession, the secretary of labor said Thursday.

The labor department is “getting daily notices now not only of retrenchments but also of reduction of work shifts, reduction of working hours and compression of the workweek,” Secretary Marianito Roque said.

“The semiconductor industry is already getting hit,” Roque said in a television interview Thursday.

“We have seen this as early as three months ago,” he said. “We expected that we’ll be getting hit in the first semester of this year.”  Read more... (205 words, estimated 49 secs reading time)

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SEATTLE (AP) – Microsoft Corp. said yesterday it is cutting 5,000 jobs over the next 18 months — more than 5 percent of its work force — a sign of how badly even the biggest and richest companies are being stung by the recession.

The layoffs appear to be a first for Microsoft, which was founded in 1975, aside from relatively limited staff cuts the software company made after acquiring companies.

The company announced the cuts as it reported an 11 percent drop in second-quarter profit, which fell short of Wall Street’s expectations. Microsoft shares plunged almost 11 percent in midday trading.  Read more... (374 words, estimated 1:30 mins reading time)

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SYDNEY (AP) – Position: Island caretaker. Duties: Lazing around Australia’s Great Barrier Reef for six months. Salary: 150,000 Australian dollars ($100,000).

Unemployed, take heart – the aforementioned job ad is for real. Billing it the “Best Job in the World,” the tourism department in Australia’s Queensland state on Tuesday said it was seeking one lucky person to spend half a year relaxing on Hamilton Island, part of the country’s Whitsunday Islands, while promoting the island on a blog.  Read more... (150 words, estimated 36 secs reading time)

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