Top news stories affecting workers in 2011

This year was certainly jam-packed with news. While I’m sure all of us are still dealing with the fallout of the disastrous Kardashian wedding or disappointed that Herman Cain has pulled out of the race for president, some stories affected job seekers – both those who are unemployed and those looking to change jobs.

Job creation
President Barack Obama has continued to push his jobs bill, and despite the quarreling over the package back in October, headway was made for unemployed veterans and small business, showing signs that both parties could come together to help put more Americans back to work in 2012 and beyond. CareerBuilder made a contribution to the Clinton Global Initiative this year to help job seekers identify which professions are in high demand among employers across the country.

Occupy Wall Street movement
Another huge story this year was the Occupy Wall Street movement. Many people identified with the issue of economic disparity in the U.S., but many remained unsure about the movement’s goals.

LifeHacker put out an interesting story that interviewed Brightcove’s Ed Godin, the chief people officer, to discuss how those currently employed can support demonstrations like Occupy Wall Street without getting in trouble. His biggest tip: Consult the employee handbook and talk to someone you trust in human resources to get more information. And it’s important to understand, because Caitlin Curran shares how she lost her job as a result of participating in the movement.

NBA lockout
For sport aficionados, the biggest story was the NBA lockout. However, some people may not have realized that the dispute between the league and players affected many more workers. An estimated 400 NBA jobs were eliminated since the lockout began July 1, according to The Sports Business Journal. The report estimated that 200 jobs had been shed by the league office, including jobs overseas, and that another 200 had been lost among the 30 franchises. Then there were those affected by the lockout who worked during the games, in concessions or parking or at local restaurants and small businesses.

Penn State
Another unfortunate story to hit the news had to do with the Jerry Sandusky scandal and the effect it had on Penn State. While the university could have used better judgment in handling the situation, it was interesting to hear that its career services department sent out an email to students encouraging them in their job search by giving them advice on how to answer tough questions during an interview.

Social media
Social media in the workplace was still a hot topic this year. After workers were fired for comments made about their workplace on Facebook, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that their company had to rehire them and said, as part of the ruling, that employees “must be permitted to discuss the terms and conditions of their employment with co-workers and others.”

Skills gap
The skills gap was a huge point of discussion, including how workers will need to learn new skills in order to fill jobs that are in demand, such as cloud developers, computer engineers, registered nurses, etc. We even saw a story about a woman with a law degree who couldn’t get hired as a lawyer, so she had to take on a more risqué line of work in order to pay her bills. That’s not necessarily the kind of new skills development that will benefit the U.S. economy; it goes to show that despite the job growth in the past few months, we still have a long way to go before we can consider ourselves out of the woods.

But there was still good news to report: