In Case You Missed It: Week of September 28, 2009

One could be forgiven for thinking that we've all been walking around under our very own personal rainclouds here at Pink Slipped HQ this week. Certainly, there was no shortage of dour news over the past five days. On Monday, for example, we opened the week with the advice that "it's important not to get too depressed " about the fact that there are now six unemployed people for every job opening in the United States. Happily, we did have some other advice on the subject, which you can read if you click here. We also brought some of the best of those vacancies to the blog every single day with our regular roundups of the top "Jobs in Your Area" and "Top Jobs from Twitter. You can browse through those here, if that's your kind of thing.

The mood did improve slightly on Tuesday, with the news that certain "local businesses are responding to the times and offering their loyal customers (and sometimes, strangers) gratis products and services." Read more about that here. And it lasted all the way through Wednesday, with no less that two positive stories appearing in the same day. Sure, the first one was about a guy losing his job, but at least he did it with panache. And the second story contained actual, tangible news of some solid job openings. And, regardless of how you feel about seasonal opportunities at Toys R Us, any company with 35,000 job openings in this economy is just fine by us. (A certain Pink Slipped writer--who shall remain nameless at least until the tagline on this blog--can also vouch for the fact that there are far worse things than seasonal work at the House of Geoffrey. Indeed, it was my first job out of college.)

Thursday saw us back into foul mood again, as we realized that Puma has set out to single-handedly destroy our 401(k)'s. (Apologies for the opening shot on the video—all we did was embed it!) Then, we reported that 32,000 financial sector jobs are likely to disappear in the next two years.

Then, to top it all off, Friday rolled around and we reported the possibility that the country's labor force won't be able to rebound until at least the year 2017.

With all of that in mind, it's a wonder we even made it to the end of the week. Part of the reason is that we know next week can only get better. And that's not just some glass half-full happy-talk either: we're heading off to cover the World Business Forum from Radio City Music Hall next Tuesday and Wednesday (October 6 & 7), where we'll be rubbing shoulders with leading business people, academics, economists and more, and blogging their thoughts and ideas right here on Pink Slipped. Among the speakers are Bill Clinton, Jeffrey Sachs, George Lucas, T. Boone Pickens, Jack Welch and Paul Krugman. If there's a glimmer of hope to be found in the economy right now, it'll be there, and we'll be the first to let you know. Click here for more information, and to find out more about how and where to follow our coverage of the event.

--Posted by Phil Stott, Vault Staff Writer