The internet has come into its own such that virtually everyone uses the internet . With that being said, would that continue to be the case if the internet transformed from open to a huge information highway with toll charges everywhere? Just the idea of toll gates [in the form of access fees for premium websites] should be troubling to everyone --- especially job seekers. If such a thing were to come to pass, which seems to worry Google's Sergey Brin, you can rest assured that online job search will change too. Job hunters have become accustomed to finding a job online without being gouged with fees; that will change. The big boards will start assessing fees to make up for the fees passed on to them for consuming massive amounts of bandwidth. On the flip side, a fee structure placed on big boards could help jobseekers since it would likely encourage those sites to clamp down on wasting bandwidth i.e. overburdening ads, excessive external content links, photos, videos, etc. Right now, no one is certain the extent of a toll based internet but one thing is sure; someone will be paying more and that cost will passed on down the chain. Believe it.

Apparently job seekers are still having a hard time with find a job; needless to say since the unemployment rate is still above 8%. In those difficult times "who you know" can be a big time help. If you don't have a lot of friends and resort to finding a job online, you might want to at least keep up with the challenges of doing so today. Just because job postings are up doesn't mean you should shoot off your resume to every Tom, DIck and Harry.

Who doesn't like fun in the sun right? Well maybe it's time to resolve, for the New Year, to head east for sunny South Carolina in search of new job opportunities. Manufacturing is amongst the leading industries for the state and the trend is expected to continue for the New Year. Tourism is, also, big in the Grand Strand area which incidentally is looking up for 2012. Granted, we aren't talking about 100,000 new jobs to the area, but hey every job counts these days. Besides, you only need one job anyway, unless of course you're married, in which case the extra spousal income would really be helpful.

In the Grand Strand area, an above average wage is in the $15 - $20 dollar range. With wages in that range, it's a little hard to purchase a home without the extra spousal income. For those that are married and both can find work in the area, there are some really great real estate deals right about now. The local real estate market is slumped and not looking to make any significant surge during 2012. That's good news for new home buyers. Not so good news for preexisting homeowners. Oh well, that's how it goes sometimes. In any event, for the adventurous job seeker, looking to make a move, manufacturing jobs are heading east to sunny SC. This is in addition to a strong tourism industry already. That translates into job opportunities, priced to sell real estate, and fun in the sun. Sounds like a good time, to me, for investing in that beach bungalow. What else is there...are you on your way yet?

One month the job report numbers are down and now the numbers are up. While I'm no economist, that doesn't sound like a stable economic rebound to me. That in turn raises the question -- what happened to the job security safety net? Historically that has been the Feds, but while we're trumpeting an increase in private sector hiring, at the same time the Feds are axing jobs like it's Armageddon or something. What's that all about? Hummh, maybe it's the narrow focus of bean counters at the expense of the big picture i.e. economic stability an d national security.

What do jobs have to do with national security? Well, its a little hard to ensure national security when the Pentagon is up for big budget cuts which mean massive job losses in defense. Make no mistake about it, those cuts will hurt and they will hurt badly. It's a simple reality, many US military bases are located in cities in which those bases are the primary source of revenue flow. Now what do you think is going to happen to those cities when the cash stops flowing? You guessed it, many of those towns will be hit hard economically. It's a little hard to figure out how a measly increase up to 200,000 or so private sector jobs [for November] account for the tens of billions of dollars of revenue loss for many military towns and states. Sounds like a classic case of one step forward and two steps backwards. Needless to say it just begs the question, what happened to the job security safety net? Maybe that's something the Occupy DC movement can better ask.