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.

Screenshot from Aarti Shahani's NPR piece

Aarti Shahani has a great radio piece about Zynga Inc., the company behind apps and online games including FarmVille and Words with Friends. The segment features CEO Mark Pincus, who declares at one point “I’m not the best speller” while playing Scramble with Friends.

Aside from great quotes and audio from inside the company, Aarti also offers analogies to help readers comprehend information. For instance, she notes that the 15 terabytes of data a day that company collects equals the 5 million copies of “War and Peace.” For that, she says, she had to call her technological literate brother.

Today’s Tip: Radio requires listening for moments when the voice is memorable, Aarti says.

Radio is a new medium for Aarti, who recently finished her graduate studies at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Unlike print, you have to listen for tonal language and write a script around it versus just looking for great quotes, she says.

“It forces you to listen to your sources more richly,” Aarti says. “In radio, the voice of the source is more powerful.”

She also says radio requires conveying information quickly. Her segment, which ran on NPR’s Morning Edition, is five minutes long. The introduction to her segment gives listeners some perspective. For instance, we learn that Pincus is worth $1.3 billion.

To provide more factoids, she wrote a separate web version, she says.

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.

By Flickr user Luis Argerich

Reading John Fuquay’s piece in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram about AMR Corp.’s pensions gave me flashbacks to my days of covering bankruptcy at Bloomberg News. His article helps readers understand why AMR’s projections of its pension obligations are 42 percent less than the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp.’s calculations. Pensions aren’t the easiest topics to decipher, but John’s piece made the topic understandable. He writes:

“So who’s right? And why is the money American Airlines’ parent has put aside to cover those obligations so far short of meeting them – $5.2 billion by AMR’s estimate, and about $10 billion by the pension agency’s?

As it turns out, both figures are accurate – based on professionally accepted assumptions used by each party to arrive at its estimate.”

Today’s Tip: Use 10K filings to determine how much companies put into their pension plans.

Jim Fuquay

You can access 10K filings by searching the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commissions website. You also can check  PBCG’s site to see which plans have been taken over by the government.

John says the filings offer detailed footnotes on how much companies put into the plans and the assumptions on which they base that amount. The downside, he says, is that the information gets dated the farther into the year you go.

Experts at the PBGC can explain the technical aspects of the pensions, but John also suggests finding someone who “doesn’t have a dog in the fight.”

Despite having written about pensions before, John says he had to delay the story to understand the company contributions and the impact of legislative changes on pensions.

“It got complicated, he says. “If you can’t explain it to yourself, you’re not going to explain to readers very well at all. Boil it down then boil it down again.”

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.

By Flickr user Kjunstorm

Now that one major TV-watching spectacle is over for 2012 –  the Super Bowl – there’s only a week left until armchair experts will settle in front of the tube to call out critiques and accolades as they root for their favorite contenders in the Westminster Kennel Club’s annual dog show at New York’s Madison Square Garden.

About 3.5 million viewers, according to this Media Life article, will tune in to the USA Network Monday night to root for their favorite Yorkie, Dandy Dinmont, Portuguese water dog or plain old beagle in the event which the WKC says in this fact sheet has been held since 1877.  (note the TV schedule on the WKC site, some segments will be aired on CNBC). The show usually permeates pop culture for a day or so, with winners appearing on morning shows and wire services covering the highs and the lows, like when one of last year’s awardees bolted her cage and went running down an airport runway, never to be seen again.

Why not tag along and give readers a look at business angles from your local pet breeding and show scene?  It’s a relatable topic and one that is made for cute centerpiece art and fun multimedia elements.

Dog breeding is a touchy topic at the best of times, and it may be tough to write about the industry without addressing the controversy.  But you certainly can show legitimate breeders’ business model — what costs go into producing a healthy litter, from medical care to food and shelter to advertising?   What sort of profit margins exist and how does area competition affect the price of ‘hot’ breeds.  What happens to imperfect dogs that don’t fetch top dollar or can’t meet the specs to get official papers?

If breeding is regulated in your state – only 35 do so – you can get the statute at this interactive map provided by Michigan State University’s law school; reading the laws — which in some cases also pertain to pet stores, pounds and kennels, other business angles — will provide a number of story ideas and question fodder for your breeder interviews.  The Michigan State animal law portal also offers a search feature; you can look up cases by state involving pet breeding and puppy mills among other issues.

And it’s worth noting, though not strictly a business angle, that according to the law site, several states are considering animal abuser registries similar to exisitng sex offender registries, to track those convicted of cruelty.  That’s a tip for your metro or state reporter; be worth talking with local legislators and animal welfare societies about the chances of such a law in your district.

A companion piece to the business-of-breeding article would be personal finance caveats for prospective buyers — how to shop for a desired breed, what to look out for, what to expect in terms of annual care and feeding costs, options for pet care while on vacation and the pros and cons of pet insurance.

Or you could focus more closely on the dog show industry.  Again, the personal finance angle has a lot of possibilities; this Yahoo! Contributor Network posts offers a good rundown on the cost of campaigning an animal; you could do a more colorful and local version by talking with various dog owners, handlers and show officials.  Find area participants through local kennel clubs; here’s a nationwide directory of some 500 affiliates.

Don’t forget about the careers angle; according to Modern Dog, top handlers can earn six-figure annual incomes trotting Rex and Rhoda around the ring.   And of course, equipment suppliers, show promotors, advertising sponsors and other related businesses all are fair game for interesting nuggets of business news.

Finally, what effect does the dog show circuit have on area expo centers, hotels and other venues?  I was shocked last year when the manager of one of Michigan’s largest convention venues told me that a dog show was his bread-and-butter event.  Who knew?  And he said trade from dog show participants and spectators was also an important source of revenue for the area’s motel operators and restaurants.

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.