The Conference Board Employment Trends Index fell again in June, continuing a decline that began in July 2007 and suggesting more job losses in the coming months. The index fell by 0.6 percent in June to 111.9 from 112.6 in May and is down 8 percent since July 2007.

Library Associates Companies (LAC) has acquired Strategic Staffing Associates (SSA), formerly a corporation co-owned by Deborah Schwarz, LAC's president and CEO, which will be merged into the organization as a wholly-owned division of LAC. Based in Denver, Colorado, SSA places legal personnel to law firms and corporate legal departments.

Latino American web portal Babbalu.com has partnered with DiversityInc, a diversity job board and career center. As part of the strategic alliance, Babbalu.com is now providing a powerful career center featuring more than 50,000 jobs and includes features, such as job postings, resume searches and company profiles.

StepStone, provider of total talent solutions, has entered into €40 million facilities agreement with Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken AB ("SEB"). The new facility provides for revolving loans and a term loan over a 3-year period. As part of the agreement SEB will also provide guarantee facilities to StepStone.

Decision Toolbox, a national recruitment process outsourcing provider headquartered in Orange County, has released Recruiting Machine 2.0, the next generation of its proprietary online recruiting platform. New features include: integrated video interviewing, video resume capture, candidate comparison tools enhanced candidate sourcing and networking tools, online reference checking, and workforce planning module.

Edinburgh- and London-based IT recruitment firm launch Bright Purple Resourcing revised its website to ensure their website could be found more easily by recruiters and job seekers alike.

In her latest book, Millennials Incorporated, Lisa Orrell, explains how the influx of the Millennial Generation into the professional workforce is drastically changing strategies for recruiting, managing and retaining Gen Y. Listen to her interview about innovative strategies for attracting and recruiting Gen Y talent with MSNBC's JJ Ramberg.

myShiftManager is a fully automated, Internet-based employee scheduling system from MSM Research Inc. The easy-to-use, online scheduling system is accessible anytime to manage schedules and track costs; employees have access to request time off, request shift changes and view their schedules. The entire system is password-protected and fully secure.

Survey Says
WFD Consulting finds that the longer work hours and time spent on low-value work increase burnout and negatively impact employees and productivity. Workers, who participated in the study, report working an average of 52 hours per week and spending more than hours each week, almost 20% of their work time, on low-value, inefficient work. As a result, two-thirds of employees report feeling physically or emotionally drained at the end of the workday and 30% report high levels of stress. Those who work 60 hours a week are over twice as stressed as those who work 40 hours a week. Those with high stress are 15% less engaged in and committed to their organizations, and their intention to leave their companies is almost twice as high. The top sources of overwork and inefficiencies identified by participants in WFD's research are: --Lack of adequate staffing to meet work demands-doing more with less,
--Information overload-too much e-mail and internal communication, making it difficult to filter and prioritize key information,
--Client and customer demands-last-minute urgent requests and commitments,
--Poor communication, coordination and cooperation among different functions, and
--Lack of clarity or conflicting priorities about what is really important.