jobs

State of the Union: Plenty of plans, not much economic promise

The president didn't offer much comfort to the manager and owners of American businesses who complain that high tax rates, strangling regulation, and health care reform are thwarting investment in American jobs.

Why the unemployment rate has stalled

The labor market had a groundhog day.

FORTUNE -- Different report, same numbers.

Squint at January's job numbers and you might think you are looking at the stories from a month ago. Employers added 157,000. The initial report from December was 155,000. (It has since been revised up.) Unemployment rate: 7.9%. In December: 7.8%.

At the start 0f 2012, the unemployment rate was falling pretty rapidly. In the four month period from October MORE

Fiscal cliff? What fiscal cliff? No evidence in jobs numbers

If uncertainty were the issue it would already be slowing hiring. It's not.

FORTUNE -- Earlier this year, economists seemed convinced that even the very threat of the fiscal cliff would send the U.S. plunging into recession. Less than a month away, the economy still appears to be climbing.

The best piece of evidence yet that the fiscal cliff - the massive mix of tax increase and spending cuts that are set MORE

Corporate America: Don't give up on your workers

If the nation's employers have to ship jobs overseas for lack of talent, they'll have no one to blame but themselves.

By Nina Easton, senior editor

FORTUNE -- America has a jobs crisis. Not the one that dropped out of the clouds of the Great Recession. A second, less noticed employment problem is unfolding -- and it's all about job-ready skills, or in our case, the lack of them. The likely MORE

America's best job creators are slowing down

Medium-sized companies are the biggest drivers of job creation, and they're not so into hiring these days. That's bad news.

FORTUNE – We're only halfway through earnings season, but it's clear corporate America is struggling. After seeing remarkable growth amid a shaky economy, U.S. companies expect a decline in year-over-year earnings for the first time in three years. And Sandy's economic toll certainly won't help most companies.

As big companies brace for MORE

Obama trounces Welch's job record

Jack Welch's hiring history isn't much to tweet about.

FORTUNE -- Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric, has attacked the notion that President Obama and his policies are creating jobs. On Friday, Welch in a message sent through Twitter accused the administration, referring to it as "these Chicago guys," of changing the number in the monthly jobs report, which showed that the unemployment rate had fallen to the lowest MORE

Why Romney can't save the Sensata workers

Sorry, but Mitt Romney won't save the Freeport jobs

FORTUNE -- As Occupy Wall Street celebrated its one-year anniversary yesterday in Zuccotti Park, a much smaller group of protesters set up camp in the northwestern Illinois town of Freeport. They called it called BainVille, in sarcastic homage to the private equity firm they blame for outsourcing their jobs to China.

What the protesters want is for Mitt Romney to intervene on their MORE

Obama: A president ready for a showdown

If he's elected to a second term, President Obama is likely to stop making concessions to the GOP on economic measures and force a confrontation - right away.

By Tory Newmyer, writer

FORTUNE -- President Obama started his first term with a bang, simultaneously engineering an auto industry rescue, stabilizing a teetering Wall Street, and negotiating a massive stimulus package to wrench the economy back from the brink. The experience may MORE

Mitt Romney: Rich taxpayers will pay their share

In a Fortune interview, the Republican presidential candidate lays out his plan for America now and another four years down the road.

FORTUNE -- On Monday August 6, Mitt Romney spoke by phone to Fortune's Andy Serwer in New York and David Whitford in Boston. He touched on gun control, his tax-cut proposal, his five-point (boiled down from 59) plan to fix the economy, and answered this burning question: If you MORE

Mitt Romney's 5-point plan for the economy

Helped by an all-star team of advisers - and now Paul Ryan - the Republican candidate maps out ways to stimulate business.

By David Whitford with Doris Burke

FORTUNE -- On the Friday after the Fourth of July, while the Romney clan was enjoying an extended midsummer break at the family manse on New Hampshire's Lake Winnipesaukee and photographers with telephoto lenses were snagging pictures of the candidate in swim trunks, MORE