More Help Wanted

March 29, 2002 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - The latest reading of the Conference Board's Help Wanted Advertising Index, a rough gauge of prospects for job hunters, points to a job market on the brink of recovery.

The Index, which measures the number of jobs on offer nation-wide climbed 3 points, to reach 51, from the previous month’s reading of 47. Despite the climb, the index remains at its lowest level in 40 years. A year ago, the index was at 72.

Of the nine geographical regions followed by the Conference Board, help-wanted advertising inched up in:

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  • the East North Central region,
  • the South Atlantic,
  • the West South Central, and
  • the Pacific region

The Conference Board surveys 51 major newspapers across the US on their patterns of help-wanted advertisements each month.

The data follows the Department of Labor’s weekly unemployment benefits claims report, which showed the number of new filings rising by 18,000.

Ford Settles Reverse Racial Discrimination Suit

March 28, 2002 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Hit in recent months with a handful of employee discrimination claims, Ford Motor Co. has settled one of the diversity lawsuits that charged it systematically discriminated against white males.

Terms of the settlement were not disclosed, according to a Reuters news report.

The plaintiff was John Kovacs, a white former Ford Credit division manager. In his suit, filed last June in Wayne County Circuit Court in Detroit, Kovacs, 36, claimed he had been discriminated against since starting with Ford in 1993 (see Managers Sue Ford For Reverse Discrimination ).

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Although Ford has defended its personnel policies, court documents showed that Ford had a formal policy of increasing its minority and female population, while trimming the number of white males, Reuters said.

Kovacs alleged that he was passed over repeatedly for promotion because of Ford’s diversity initiative. And he claims he was demoted — from a human resources position at Ford Credit to a job as library archivist — in a revenge move for his discrimination complaints.

No Admission

None of the recent discrimination cases against Ford has gone to trial, and a Michigan judge earlier this month approved a multimillion-dollar settlement of a lawsuit accusing Ford of bias against older workers. (See  Judge OKs $10.5 M Ford Settlement )

In settling the cases, the company admitted no wrongdoing, but Ford has managed to keep some unsavory allegations out of the public spotlight by settling out of court.

Kovacs quoted former Chief Executive Officer Jacques Nasser as bluntly explaining in a videotaped address to top executives at a training seminar that diversity was necessary so that Ford’s work force would better reflect its customer base. “I do not like the sea of white faces in the audience,” Nasser was quoted as saying.

Separately, Kovacs’s complaint quotes Nasser as saying at a Ford human resources conference: “We have too many middle-aged white Anglo-Saxon males, and that needs to change.”

 

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