Reveille
Oracle President, Charles Phillips, and President & CFO, Greg Maffei, will join SG Securities' European Software team to discuss Oracle's position in the marketplace on Wednesday, July 27, 2005 at 8:00 a.m. (PDT). A live webcast of this call will be available on Oracle's Investor Relations website at www.oracle.com/investor.

The Taplow Group, a global consortium of independent executive search and human capital firms, has added eight new members with 16 offices in strategic locations around the world. Since its inception three years ago, the organization has grown to 39 member firms with 70 offices, each committed to working in partnership for client companies. The firms joining The Taplow consortium are: SearchPro International (Spy, Belgium); Value Search (Milan, Italy); Habberstad A.S. (Oslo, Norway); VfU Management Consulting and Executive Search (Zurich, Geneva; Lugano, Switzerland; Frankfurt and Nuremberg, Germany); MT Network (Tokyo, Japan); Longitude Management Consulting (Beijing and Shanghai, China); MaFoi Global Search Services (New Delhi, Chennai and Mumbai, India and London, England); P & Bert Management Consulting Group (Budapest, Hungary and Bratislava, Slovakia).

Dating and employment websites are what drive much of today's Internet traffic, and while dating sites boast sophisticated designs and features, most employment sites tend to be simple online bulletin boards. However, a young company called Redmatch is now bringing the sophisticated technology of online compatibility matching services directly to the HR community.

Developers of the popular CVPlus Visual recruitment software package, Swiftpro launched the first edition of a quarterly newsletter this month.

Hewitt Associates announced today it will provide comprehensive HR business process outsourcing (BPO) services to Mervyns, a California-based retailer with more than 250 department stores in 13 states. Mervyns represents Hewitt's second HR BPO retail client, joining Circuit City. 

The Shared Services and Business Process Outsourcing Association (SBPOA), the world's only independent commentator on the shared services and BPO industries, and etvMEDIA, a diversified media company and producer of streaming video, today announced they have entered into an exclusive agreement to deliver "OutsourcingTV" to a worldwide audience.

Deck Chairs
Loretta A. Penn, an executive with Spherion., joined the board of directors of Teco Energy and its principal subsidiary, Tampa Electric Co....Pinnacle Financial Partners has named Martha B. Olsen as its chief people officer...In a move that signals the continuing convergence of print and online advertising strategies, The Boston Globe has promoted two online and print veterans to oversee advertising for the New England Media Group. Lisa M. DeSisto, who joined Boston.com at its launch in 1995 and has been its general manager since 1999, will become vice president of advertising overseeing the recruitment, automotive, real estate, and travel categories. Lauren Chacón, the Globe's director of general advertising, has been named vice president of advertising for the national and retail advertising categories.

Survey Sez
Brainbench has released their 2005 Global Skills Report – a unique, highly detailed snapshot of the globalization of job skills. The new report is the third in a series begun in 2001, and summarizes data from more than 300,000 individuals worldwide. The report's findings offer some surprising results, as well as creating a highly quantitative overview of the emerging global, information-based economy.

Between May 1, 2004 and April 30, 2005, close to a million people in 179 countries completed online assessments of their work-related skills, abilities, and personality traits. More than 600 types of assessment were administered using Brainbench's computer adaptive testing (CAT) technology. Those who passed received certifications, and of those passing tests, slightly more than 300,000 results qualified for inclusion in the study.

According to Mike Russiello, President and CEO of Brainbench, "This edition of the study is by far the most comprehensive to date. In addition to the aggregated data for the past year, we now have longitudinal data spanning five years of assessments. We've also done extensive research into secondary data regarding job skills and the global economy. Together, this research offers both very detailed information about specific trends, and broader insights about the ongoing evolution of the global labor pool."

The State of the Global Labor Pool
A few of the report's high-level findings:

• While the U.S. still led the world in skill certifications, India showed an increase of more than 300% in just two years.

• Eastern Europe, specifically the Russian Federation, has a significant and growing body of IT competence, while Western Europe and Southeast Asia are also on the rise.

• Canada is a powerful player in certifications, especially in customer support.

• The Southern U.S. led the nation in certifications, reflecting population shifts and the growth of "insourcing" business processes to lower-cost areas of the country.

• India led in Java programming, while the U.S. led in security-based certifications.

• While Microsoft products dominate skills tests for applications, both Linux and Unix administration outpaced Microsoft Windows Server certifications worldwide.

Read the report.

You Should Know

Australia: Brain drain leads to serious man drought. Australia is in the grip of a serious drought — of eligible single men. The "man drought" was revealed in a report by accounting firm KPMG, whose analysis of official statistics showed a widening gap between the sexes in Australia. In every age group between 29 and 55, women outnumbered men. The hardest hit was the generation in their 30s, where there were 20,000 more women than men — a stark contrast to 1976 when there were 54,000 more men than women. (TheAge)

China:

• Most multinational companies in the city of Shanghai are plagued with difficulties in filling up vacancies, and those who do find a suitable candidate are more likely to see their job offer refused. (ChinaDaily)

• A shortage of experienced hands in China's insurance industry has left foreign players scrambling for talent and has spurred unprecedented job hopping. (Reuters)

Denmark: Outsourcing of the IT side of payroll is comprehensive in Denmark - almost 80% of the Danish workforce receives their wages through a service bureau, and the total HR management services market has a value of more than DKK 1.1 bln ($177.3 mln). (ZDNet)

Global:

•  Almost two-thirds of outsourcing deals are failing because organisations are only paying lip-service to the small print in the rush to make cost savings, according to new figures. (ZDNet)

• To increase conversion rates, advertisers should focus on targeting specific audiences that are likely to become both immediate and long-term customers. Conversion rates tracked across multiple search engines show that searchers who are ready to spend most often connect to sites from vertical search engines. (DMNews)

Japan: Most experts, including the Japanese government and the UN, estimate that Japan's population (currently 127 million) will peak by 2007, and then fall steadily to 100 million by 2050. An ageing population with a declining growth rate has some dire implications for Japan's long-term economic growth, and is thus negative for investing in Japan.  (FinanceAsia)

UK:

• Is training the answer to IT skills shortage? (Silicon.com)

• Unemployment has become a serious threat to junior doctors, the British Medical Association has warned. (BBC)

• Trinity Mirror warned of continuing gloom in the advertising market yesterday as Britain's largest newspaper group said its tabloid Mirror titles and regional publications faced a "difficult" end to 2005. (Guardian)

• Despite fragile business confidence, more than four out of 10 organisations in Britain anticipate an increase in recruitment activity over the next six months. (Management Issues)

USA:

• The SHRM/Rutgers Leading Indicator of National Employment (LINE) shows that the job market in the manufacturing sector was weaker in July than in June, though the market for exempt employees and for highly qualified applicants needed to fill key positions remained solid. The overall LINE level of 61.8 for July was down from 63.7 in June and from 64.3 in July 2004. The total employment index showed the largest drop from June to July, falling from 64.0 to 61.2. (SHRM)

• According to a London consulting firm, in its relatively short existence, Craigslist has "destroyed" approximately 75% of US newspaper classified pricing. (editorsweblog.org)

• Monster Worldwide posted a 21 percent rise in quarterly net profit. (Reuters)