What music does the IRS play when they put you on hold? Answer: Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker. Yes, the same IRS with enough individual forms to decimate an entire rain forest came up with: one song. Therefore, you hear “The March” ad nauseum for the entire duration of your stay on hold. Which could be hours [...]

From the Boston Business Journal: Online job postings — a key barometer for future hiring —have plummeted roughly 25 percent in Boston and surrounding areas since the credit crisis took root last year, another sign that the economy has a long way to go, in terms of recovery. In fact, the fall off in demand [...]

Bottoming out (or not) The latest conventional wisdom is that the avalanche of layoffs seems to be tapering off. Job losses are still heavy, nationwide and in Boston, but not as bad as a few months ago. But the New York Times’ economics writers came across an interesting blog written by Jeffrey Frankel, a Harvard [...]

The Massachusetts unemployment rate increased to 8 percent in April from 7.7 percent in March, the state’s Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development reported today. The March rate was originally estimated at 7.8 percent, the office added. The national unemployment rate climbed to 8.9 percent in April from 8.5 percent in March, the office [...]

Interesting article on the front page of The Wall Street Journal today regarding Wall Street brokers. Summary: * In April, 2,800 people registered as brokers in the U.S. left the industry. * The total number of departures so far this year 11,600 * 35,000 will exit by the year end. Read more: The Wall Street [...]

About 265 Massachusetts employees have lost their jobs under the latest round of cutbacks at the struggling Sovereign Bank. Sovereign, which late last year announced 1,000 layoffs, said yesterday it was immediately slashing an additional 950 jobs across the company’s eight-state footprint. Read more

Highlights from the Federal Reserve’s survey of economic conditions nationwide. The survey, released Wednesday and known as the Beige Book, is based on information collected from the Fed’s 12 regional bank districts. BOSTON (This region covers Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and part of Connecticut.) Non-auto retailers were the bright spot. Even those [...]

Earlier today, I did a co-broke showing with a Coldwell Banker agent. At the showing she handed me a business card which displayed a headshot of herself. I’ve been wondering, why do real estate agents put their photos on their business cards….. to the best of my knowledge it’s a trend that hasn’t caught on [...]

Here is a sample of several emails some of my landlords have received in the last few months. I regretfully inform you that my organization laid off several people on Friday, myself included. I am very disappointed in this situation as I was dedicated and hard working, unfortunately I was also among the least tenured [...]