By Flickr William Warby

Rather overshadowed by news of the impending mega-billion Facebook IPO was an actual public offering earlier this week by casino operator Caesars Entertainment.

The gambling company’s small offering — less than 2 percent of iits shares went public — was snatched up and tradrs drove the initial price up by 70 percent the first day of trading, USA Today reports.   That sounds like upbeat news but in proof that investing news isn’t always what it seems, some analysts according to BusinessWeek posit that such a tiny offering is intended to let private investors in the casino company – which under its former name, Harrah’s Entertainment, was taken off the market in 2008 by private equity firms – cash in on demand artificially inflated by a limited number of shares.

The cynical take on the shares’ surge makes it tough to draw a conclusion about the demand for casino stocks.  But in light of the growing casino market nationwide, it makes sense to take a fresh look at gaming activity in your region and how revenue is dispersed throughout the economy. 

It’s also worthwhile – especially if you cover personal finance or public policy – the  irony of states and municipalities using what may be the most absolutely discretionary of all discretionary consumer spending to make up for losses in revenue from taxes on real property, taxes on income and other productive sectors.  I like a turn at the slot machines just as well as the next person, but find it somewhat sad that as state and local budgets are slashed due to declining residential property values, governments are looking to the proceeds from goofy games to prop up ailing budgets.  Detroit, for example, reportedly is considering a gaming surcharge to out-of-town winners. 

Fifty-ish miles south, in the Toledo area, conservative Ohio soon will succumb to the lure of the gambling parlor when the first of that state’s newly authorized casinos open.  Ohio isn’t alone among states hoping to reap benefits from humankind’s urge to wager, but according to a Federal Reserve study cited in this Kentucky.com article, casinos are no cure-all.   Especially intriguing is the notion that ‘every dollar dropped into a slot machine is a dollar not spent elsewhere.’ 

It might be time to explore that notion if you’re in a market anywhere near state-regulated or tribal gambling halls.  I have chatted with casino patrons, for example, who admit to spending all of their Social Security checks at casinos; some visit every day.  If they didn’t have the gambling outlet, would the money go to QVC, or bingo, or grandhcildren’s college funds?   Who knows, but it’s an interesting question to ask. 

Another good angle: What happens to unclaimed winnings?   For the uninitiated, most slot machines these days spew bar-coded tickets instead of jingling coins; the tickets can be cashed in via ATM-like machines or at an ever-dwindling number of cashier stations.  Or, they can be tucked into wallets and purses and forgotten.  It beats me how slot-machine systems that can track a player’s every move down to the split second can’t be bothered to credit an outstanding balance to a player’s slot account (I’m sure they could, if the casinos wanted to) but the tickets do expire.  State laws on what happens to the balance vary and you’ll turn up a very riveting little story if you ask about the fate of these unclaimed winnings.  (Check on the policies for lottery and horse/dog track winnings, as well.) 

Here’s a look at the Top 20 U.S. casino markets by revenue; the results may surprise you.

By Flickr user ButterflySha

Short as it is, February is jammed with serious, silly and seasonal events that make great pegs for business and economy stories.

I’ve posted about some of them, like Black History Month and next weeks’ Westminster Kennel Club dog show.  But there’s so much more going on in the next 20 days that crafty business journalists can springboard from; it’s a pity some of these events can’t be transferred to the doldrums of July and August.

From the sober to the sublime, here’s a roundup of ideas that haven’t yet made the cut for their own post – time’s flying and you might want to build some features around them:

American Heart Month.  More than 2,000 Americans a day die from heart disease, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention release.   And it’s difficult to think of a a business beat, from technology to health care to workplace to personal finance, that couldn’t find some sort of cardiovascular story to do.  Here’s a neat press release about the latest heart-starting technology to be featured on Airbus aircraft, for example – apparently it delivers electroshocks without human prompting and even can coach untrained bystanders in CPR.  Who wouldn’t want to read an article about what life-saving gizmos are aboard the airplanes flying out of the local port?

Food retailers, eateries and the restaurant supply chain are another angle that can fit many beats – a radio report Wednesday caught my ear; it said that as trans fat products were removed from our food supply, the blood levels of these dangerous fats have declined accordingly in Americans.   How has removing trans fat affected production, development and pricing of foodstuffs, and how have the costs rippled out? 

Valentine’s Day.   Always a fun one, with angles from retail to the floral supply chain.  Precious metals costs once again are probably crimping jewelers; you might want to look at greeting card trends or CNN’s story about ‘three weird apps for Valentine’s Day’ for other notions. 

Presidents Day.  There’s always the perennial long-weekend/tourism story, along with appliance-store sales.  You could inject a bit of tongue-in-cheek humor with a piece on CEO pay and turnover in your area; I notice Challenger, Gray & Christmas are out with their latest chief executive turnover report recording a big jump in departing CEOs in January.

By Flickr user Jack Zalium

The Oscars (Feb. 26) I hope to do a full-blown post on business angles to the Academy Awards, the cinema business and related angles, but it’s worth noting now to mark your calendars and start eyeing cineplexes and old theater marquees for ideas.   Same goes for Mardi Gras (Feb. 21) which appears to be an increasingly festive day for markets far flung from New Orleans.

Also, by some unknown decree, online lists of holidays and observances also say that February is host to myriad other special days and weeks.  What I’d really love to see is a meta story about the marketing, lobbying and sheer gumption behind the establishment of such unlikely events as World Nutella Day, Car Insurance Day and International Hoof-care Month.  I guess industries can throw a dart at the calendar and issue releases declaring whatever they want, but a real story about the industry thought process and deliberation behind, say, Sweet Potato Month would be quite interesting.  Does it really help yam awareness?

 Take Pet Dental Health Month; who thought that up?  My vet is offering a 10-percent discount on cleanings, extractions and other procedures performed in February; she even advised me to wait on certain doggie dental care until then to take advantage of the promo.  It’s a decent peg for looking at specialty animal practices like dental, orthopaedic surgery (some doctors roam from practice to practice as visiting surgeons) and other niches in the burgeoning animal care market.

Meanwhile telecommuters, Florida strawberries, condoms, ukeleles, sled dogs and Liberace are among only a few of the other honorees in this action-packed month – and most with a business nugget in there somewhere.

Photo by iStock

Even as fallout from the mortgage market meltdown still reverberates throughout the economy, ominous rumblings suggest that a similar bust in the student loan market could be the next big financial crisis.

According to a just-out report by the National Association of Consumer Bankrtupcy Attorneys, for example, 80 percent of respondents report a surge in prospective filers with student loan debt – including not only the students or former students but parents who co-signed loans, as well.  The release claims that loans to parents of college-age children have jumped a mind-boggling 75 percent since 2005-2006, and that delinquincies are common.  (Student loan debt is generally not dischargeable in bankruptcy so attorneys in that field have something of a vested interest in demonizing it – but I have no reason to doubt the findings as presented.)

The headlines beat on.  “The Student Loan is Crippling American Families,” reports Forbes, and a brand new Federal Reserve report shows that school loans helped fuel a $16.6 billion jump in non-revolving consumer debt in December, BusinessWeek reports.   And last month the credit-scoring firm FICO reported that many bank risk managers it has surveyd expected defauls on student loans to rise.  Debtors in the U.S. currently owe three-quarters of a trillion dollars in educational loans!

And if that isn’t burden enough, a lower interest rate set by Congress in 2007 may expire this July 1, effectively doubling the rate on Stafford loans for millions of borrowers, the Huffington Post reports.

Add in state budget woes, controversy over tuition inflation, the election cycle and it’s a complex – and at the moment, politicized – topic.  But against the backdrop of these sorts of headlines, the fact that many families probably getting under way with the application process and the dreaded FAFSA financial aid form-filling,  along with  various White House proposals related to college funding afoot (here’s a Dept. of Education summary), along with other developments in the market, you might want to plan a run at the topic soon.

Digging inside the market

A mutli-faceted approach to a student loan package might include the issues that face indebted borrowers now in the jobs market, as well as dilemmas being tackled by prospective and current students – and their parents – about borrowing resources and decisions.  What degrees are worth the debt and which programs, in hindsight, fail to pay for themselves?  What advice do current debtors have for upcoming students and prospective borrowers?  Go through CPAs, certified financial planners and other independent financial advisors; they may be able to hook you up with clients who will open their books and allow you to illustrate a story with detailed cash-flow information that can show how school loans affect a family’s finances and choices years after graduation.

Don’t forget stories about alternatives to borrowing – like working a few years ahead of college to save up, choosing AP or community college course to save on university tuition and choosing careers or jobs paths that afford student loan forgiveness.  Here’s a story from Californiaabout a proposal that student ride free in school but promise to pay a percentage of their income for decades after graduation.

Student loan stories generally should include clip-and-save (or click-and-save) sidebars and resources lists for readers;  FinAid.org is a good place to start.

Calculating the real cost of attendance

Just to play devil’s advocate: Student budgets and lifstyles are seldom mentioned in stories that bewail educational loan debt.  The notion that tuition inflation and books are solely responsible for burdensome student loan debt – rather than factors within a student’s control – is pervasive and makes for one-sided coverage of the issue.  I would suggest — through first-hand experience watching the changing retail and lifestyle scene at my own alma mater –  that travel, car ownership and general lifestyle expectations of the student population have burgeoned right along with the cost of credit hours …  and that some of that loan debt can be attributed to spring break trips, SUVs and salon shampoos.

Check out the “cost of attendance” pages at schools near you, or schools many regional students tend to flock to.  Just as an example I checked out the COA page at the University of Wisconsin (Madison) — where room and board costs seem to be predicated on a $1,000 a month average, along with another $100 a week in ‘miscellaneous’ expenses.   I’m a midlde-aged homeowner in a moderately high cost-of-living area and I spend less than $1,000 a month on shelter and food, and I sure wouldn’t be spending $100 a week on ‘misc’ if it took borrowed money to do so.  All told the room, board and incidentals at UW and many other schools with similar advisories on their sites total more than $50,000 over the course of acquiring a four-year degree.

I’m not saying students should live in a tent on boxed macaroni & cheese and water for four years, but there’s ample
precedent for living modestly and getting out of school with the minimum of debt.  Stories taking a detailed look at the budget of some local college students – and I mean really looking at their daily receipts and credit card statements — could be quite enlightening and really round out coverage of the ticking student debt bomb.

Photo by iStock

Britt Johnsen and Kirsti Marohn of the St. Cloud Times used empty lots to illustrate how the recession stalled new housing developments in a three-part series. Through their reporting, they found their three-county area had 12,000 empty lots. In Avon, a city near St. Cloud, the recession thwarted plans for two developments. In part two, they write:

“The proposals were grand in scale: two developments with hundreds of upscale homes for new residents. Waters Edge was supposed to have 116 homes. Avon Estates was anticipated to have as many as 600 housing units eventually, with 88 single-family homes planned for the first phase.

But Waters Edge stands about half empty. Avon Estates has just one house. And the city is strapped with a serious financial burden of unpaid assessments.”

In an earlier post, Britt and Kirsti offered tips on calculating the number of empty lots. Today, they offer more advice:

Look at unpaid assessments to see how much empty lots cost cities.

Unpaid assessment data helped Britt and Kirsti see the impact on cities that used public financing to pay for infrastructure improvements instead of requiring developers to finance the costs.

“Analyzing the unpaid assessments revealed how cities were losing thousands of dollars each year in revenue from publically financed developments, yet were still required to make bond payments,” Kirsti says.

Reporters can check with their city treasurer offices to get this data.

Mix beats to build expertise.

Kirsti is county government reporter for the Times, and Britt was the business editor. The sources they built gave them the expertise they needed for the series, Britt says.

“I began talking with developers, real estate agents and residents about the issue of stalled developments and empty neighborhoods, and Kirsti started requesting vacant lot data in cities and speaking to local and state government sources,” Britt says.

Photo by Istock

Punxatawney Phil’s ‘six more weeks of winter’ prognostication lacked a certain punch this year, given the mild winter weather enjoyed in much of the lower 48 so far.  If this is winter, bring it on, many residents are thinking.

As I donned a light spring jacket to run some Saturday errands and bustled out to a car warmed by no more than the February sunshine, I noticed thick green stems poking up several inches from the flower-bed mulch.  Daffodils in Detroit!  I must get that garden-seed order in soon (and is it my imagination, or did garden catalogues arrive weeks earlier than they used to?)  A few minutes later I wheeled past a two small-engine showrooms with forlorn “Great deals on snowblowers” signs; one even had a dozen of the shiny virgin machines parked hopefully on its tarmac.

A weak winter is the best of times and the worst of times depending on one’s line of business.  And the presence or absence of snow and cold during the months it’s expected can ripple throughout a regional economy long past the first day of spring.  So you might want to take a look at winter winners and losers, and talk to them about the long-range effect of seasonal booms and busts.

For example, sagging snowthrower sales may seem like a trite story angle … till you delve in and realize the lack of commissions means the small-engine sales rep won’t be buying a new car this year, or buying new furniture, or sending a child to camp or college.  So for this story, try to go beyond the immediate loss or gain in revenue and find out how that change will affect other businesses and individuals.

According to an EarthSky forecaster,  this January was the third least-snowy since 1966.  As this Associated Press story, “Balmy weather brings plenty of economic surprises,” mentions, retailers are plagued with excess and profit-eroding investory of unsold winter merchandise – like bulky coats that take up storage space and must be unloaded even at discounts of 70 percent or more.  (The AP story is an excellent roadmap of ideas you can apply locally, from airport de-icing services to sales of cold and flu products.)

Electric and gas utilities sales are down as households and businesses demand less heat-producing power — bad for them, great from a personal finance angle.

Where I live, ski resorts recently published an advertising supplement; was it planned or a last-ditch effort to counter unfavorable conditions, I wondered.  This report says nationally, lack of snow has – surprisingly - minimal effect on occupancy at resorts due to booking and refund policies; presumably vacationers made plans predicated on normal precipitation.  But what are they doing once they arrive?  Perhaps spas, retail boutiques, driving ranges, restaurants and other alernatives to the slopes are enjoying some winter sparkle.

Construction employment hit a two-year high in January as the gentle weather kept activity levels high, according to the Associated General Contractors of America.  How are remodelers, builders, handymen, fence installers and others faring in your area, and what’s the ripple effect on suppliers, hardware stores and related services?

If you’d rather look further ahead, check on seasonal businesses gearing up for spring. Are pool companies, deck builders, window cleaning crews, patio furniture firms and others gearing up for a jump in business?  Are they borrowing more to finance inventory, or hiring additional staff, or otherwise changing from recent years’ business model?

Agriculture is eyeing the 21012 extended forecast, with last year’s drought and flood survivors wondering when and what to plant this year.  Are they shifting strategy?  What about nursery suppliers – the U.S. Department of Agriculture just changed the plant hardiness zone map that millions of home gardeners use to decide which plants will survive in their yards.  This is a fascinating development on a number of fronts – many locales ended up in warmer zones – and probably affects the purchasing and sales plans of regional nursery retailers and wholesalers as well as consumers.  It’s hard to go wrong with a business-of-gardening story and this year already is sprouting with many good angles.

Of course, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration site is an excellent resource too but for a different perspective, look into companies like WxRisk.com, which focuses on weather forecasting and commentary aimed at businesses and traders.  You’ll gain an idea of why, say, the weather overseas might end up affecting a corn grower in Nebraska or a Texas rancher.

Day 1 of Britt Johnsen and Kirsti Marohn's project was 'So many lots, so few houses.'

Britt Johnsen and Kirsti Marohn produced a great three-part series called “Gambling on Growth” for the St. Cloud Times using empty lots to show the recession’s impact on new housing developments. The series won a Sigma Delta Chi Award for excellence in journalism from the Society of Professional Journalists last year.

Through their reporting, they found their three-county area had 12,000 empty lots.

Those lots left some homeowners in stark areas watching their home values fall.

In part one of the series, they write that homeowners weren’t the only victims:

“Minnesota developers, builders and investors have lost thousands or even millions on a gamble that the housing market would keep growing. Some have gone bankrupt or owe thousands in taxes and assessments.

Elected officials and other government leaders made the same gamble. In many cases, cities bore the cost of expanding and improving roads, sewer and water lines, treatment plants and schools, all based on growth projections that didn’t materialize.

Those developments haven’t generated the property tax revenue, assessment payments and user fees city officials expected. In some cases, stalled developments have burdened cities with millions of dollars of debt.”

Both Kirsti and Britt, who’s no longer at the paper, offered some great tips on how they gathered data that didn’t exist in some of the cities they covered.

Today’s Tip: Start by determining the number of subdivisions in your area.

Britt says the story idea came from a real estate source who said there was a 10-year supply of vacant lots.

“That struck us as pretty interesting,” Britt says. “We wanted to know more about our area’s vacant lots, which were a symbol of the housing market crash, unfulfilled promises and economic hardship that touched just about everyone the last few years.”

However, when they started reporting, officials and real estate agents said the vacant lots weren’t a big deal and it was “only a matter of time” until the market turned around, Kirsti says.

“We had to keep asking the right questions and figure out what data we needed to show what was really happening,” Kirsti says.

Getting the total number of lots took time. They had to request a list of all platted subdivisions with 10 or more vacant lots, as well as the total number of lots in each one, the name of the development company and the amount of special assessments owed, Kirsti says. They created a database using Microsoft Excel to track and map 60 developments.

“Kirsti’s successful data requests were absolutely key in showing the vacancy rates, which were the basis for our story,” Britt says.

That’s a blow to a stumbling jobs market and a hit to consumer and worker confidence, though investors probably love the idea of trimming 20 percent of labor costs.  (There’s always a ‘who benefits?’ silver lining story somewhere…)

In 2011, tens of thousands of workers in the financial sector lost jobs, along with other big job cuts at companies like Pfizer, Cisco and Delta. While American Airlines is the first big job-cuts announcement of the year, it’s a sure bet it won’t be the last.

And with the New Year just under way, you might want to consider some sort of tracking feature — a blog, a standing graphic in your publication or online, or a monthly roundup — to chronicle mass layoffs this year in your region.   Seek out the pink-slipped workers and document their job searches, career retraining, personal finance challenges and other aspects of unemployment.  Joblessness and the mismatch between corporate expectations and what candidates have to offer is one of the most unexplored stories of this era, as I mentioned in a previous blog post about the so-called talent gap. 

Readers love longitudinal features that let a story unfold throughout the year, and they are great background for presenting ongoing economic data and statistics.  Why not give it a try this year?

Finding laid-off workers is easy; visit your area’s workforce commission, go to job fairs, ask financial advisers to refer clients, call executive recruiting firms, talk with local union leaders and consider soliciting reader stories through a blurb in the publication or online.

Meanwhile, bookmark this Bureau of Labor Statistics monthly mass layoffs report; it’s really a trove of data that slices mass layoff numbers by industry, occupation and by state.  (A mass layoff is one involving 50 or more workers.)  Perusing the report, it’s surprising how many events fall under radar screens; according to the BLS report there were 2,433 layoff events in December alone.  (Note that this report lists layoffs of any duration; it may be that some job losses recorded are not permanent; that’s an important distinction to make when ferreting out local events.) Contact the BLS and your state labor department for documentation about the employers reporting the job cuts.

And check out the federal labor department’s WARN pages — the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act requires employers to provide 60 days notice of plant closings and mass layoffs, among other provisions.  It’s another way to keep tabs on pending job cuts in your area.

By Photobucket user Chris Wendt

Adam Davidson of NPR’s Planet Money produced an Atlantic article and a two-part segment for Planet Money looking at the loss of jobs for unskilled workers and the growing demand for skilled workers. He explored the issue through Standard Motor Products, a 92-year-old, family-run maker of replacement parts for car engines.

In yesterday’s post, Adam offered tips about the need for context when using anecdotes to illustrate the broader trends.

“I like to dig deeply into statistics and understand what economists know about trends,” Adam says. “Then I can choose an anecdote that exemplifies the point better.”

Adam also shared details about how he narrowed the myriad of options down to focusing on South Carolina.

Today’s Tip: Think systematically about where to focus a story.

In setting out to tell the story, Adam says he ruled out New York because of the major changes in the economy during the last 30 years. Then he thought of the Greenville-Spartanburg area in South Carolina, where textile mills had shifted their job requirements from low-skilled workers to highly skilled ones. “There were pretty good jobs for people with more training and skill, and not much for those without,” Adam says.

Adam Davidson

Once he had a location, he needed an industry, he says. He chose auto part manufacturers because of the competition with Chinese imports. He visited three auto parts plants to find a “decent” company “that wasn’t trying to squeeze every penny of profit, one that seemed to care about its employees,” he says. That’s when he landed at Standard Motor Products, which competes directly with China.

He wanted to find an employee at the company in a low-skilled position, which he defines as a job that takes less than a day to learn, he says. He also wanted to focus on someone with the ability to develop skills, but unable to go to school. Knowing he had a radio segment to produce, he also wanted someone who was talkative and open. After meeting a “few dozen Standard workers,” Madelyn “Maddie” Parlier stood out. She was “smart, open, so crystal clear about her condition in the world, her own bad choices, and her challenges,” he says. “I knew she’d play well on the radio and would be a great person to write about.”

By Flickr user Jeff Turner

Editors note:  On Feb. 9, 2012, after months of negotiations, federal and state officials announced a $26 billion settlement with five of the largest home lenders that could provide relief to  American homeowners harmed by housing meltdown. Melissa Preddy’s tips for covering the deal (originally written Feb. 1) now come into play.

We may know by Friday if state attorneys general have reached a deal - reportedly worth up to $25 billion – with five major banks accused of deceptive practices that exacerbated foreclosure problems for struggling homeowners.

The banks involved are Bank of America, Wells Fargo & Co, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Citigroup and Ally Financial Inc.  The value of the deal will depend on how many states sign it; some, like California and Delaware, already have signaled reservations about the terms.  The attorney general for Nevada – where one of the most desperate residential real estate markets exists – last week sent a 38-question memo to negotiators.  Among other things, she questions how the settlement will relieve banks of liability and whether it will undermine the authority of state regulators.

Twenty-five billion dollars sounds like a lot, but the settlement is likely to help only a fraction of people with mortgage woes.  Here’s a helpful Associated Press story that outlines some of the shortcomings of the deal.   No one who’s lost a home will get it back, but about 750,000 people could receive restittution payments of around $1,800, the AP reports.  Another million homeowners may get a reduction in the principal balance of their current mortgage loan or other restrutcturing.  So overall, it appears the settlement will help less than a quarter of the 8 million homeowners who’ve faced foreclosure since the housing bubble exploded.

Clearly, foreclosure issues will be making headlines again.  Here are a few ideas for finding local angles while we wait for the terms of a settlement to be released:

How many in your state will be helped?  Even if your AG won’t divulge terms of the proposed settlement, he or she must have a pretty good idea of the number of customers of those five banks who are expected to benefit from any deal.  You can put that into context by juxtaposing those figures with RealtyTrac foreclosure data to illustrate the limitations of the deal and make readers aware that the settlement making headlines won’t help everyone.

Foreclosure update.  Note on the RealtyTrac site the bloodcurdling statement that, nationally,  ”1 in every 634
housing units received a foreclosure filing in December 2011.”   You can mouse over the interactive map to get the rate for your state; in places like Florida, California and Michigan the ratio is far worse.

This RealtyTrac blog is like a veritable newsfeed of foreclosure stories nationwide; you can mine it for other local story ideas.  This blog post about the ‘Foreclosure bowl’ is eye-catching; it ranks National Football League cities by foreclosure rates; the post says San Francisco is likely to win the dubious honor.

You could do the same for cities in your region.  I honestly don’t know where the most comprehensive list of foreclosures is housed; you may be able to get that information from your state’s Realtor or real-estate agent trade group.  But check out the Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae home sales listings; they’re searchable by ZIP code and the results, complete with address and photo, are quite interesting.  The prices are astounding; you could take several samples and show the history of each house and its sale price over the years, for a detailed look at how the housing bust has affected your market.

Tips and caveats for buying foreclosures would be a good pre-spring feature.  And get this; according to this HUD website, a number of government agencies also have houses for sale – I guess the ones for sale from the IRS, U.S. Marshals and Customs are probably seizures, but one wonders what the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers is doing, dabbling in residential real estate.  Checking out the source of some of these ‘alternative’ listings could lead to some interesting tales.

The Particulars

Instructor: Tami Luhby,
senior writer, CNNMoney

Location: Online

When: Noon or 4 p.m. ET
July 10

Register for this free,
one-hour Webinar.

Photo by flickr user Saad.Akhtar

Four years into producing stories on unemployment woes, you may be looking for new angles. The good news is that the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has a treasure trove of data that offer fresh insights on your local jobs market.

In this hourlong, live session you’ll learn where to find the local statistics to substantiate the trend stories you are seeing  — and find new ones. The Webinar will feature examples of how your colleagues have used BLS data to produce enterprising local stories.

Register for this free Webinar.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

You will learn how to use BLS numbers to find and analyze the following data:

• Unemployment: Dig deeper into the national unemployment figures and find stats on the jobless by age, industry, race and education level.
• Employment sectors: How many people work in leisure/hospitality or finance or in your area, and how has that changed over the past year, five years or 10 years?
• Wages: Find fun facts such as how average weekly wages have changed in your state or metro area. You can search for all employees or specific sectors.
• Hot jobs: What professions are the fastest-growing nationally? How many carpenter jobs will exist in 2018? How many registered nurses?
• Employment population ratio, percentage of population in the workforce: Find out why these two measures can be more telling than just the unemployment rate alone.

Note: You don’t need to have a familiarity with Excel spreadsheets to benefit from this training. However, much BLS data can be downloaded and analyzed in Excel.

Tami Luhby

YOUR INSTRUCTOR

Tami Luhby is a senior writer at CNNMoney.com, where she covers the economy. Previously, she covered personal finance for Newsday. Before joining Newsday, she worked at Crain’s New York Business and American Banker. Luhby also teaches at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, from which she graduated in 1997.

FIRST-TIME ATTENDEES

Check out our Technology Help Page for connectivity requirements, helpful tips and an instructional video on how to access Reynolds Center Webinars.

ABOUT THE PROGRAM

This free Webinar is sponsored by the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism. If you have any questions about the Webinar or the center, please email Executive Director Linda Austin or call 602-496-9187.