This is an article from the new blog section on the Access website open for anyone's input and interaction; I'd love to hear your thoughts!

The US Department of Labour's Bureau of Labor Statistics sounds like a fun place to work!
Nonetheless they have recently released some unemployment statistics and someone has made them into an exciting interactive map:

The stats cover state by state unemployment records from January 2007 when the national unemployment rate was at a mere 4.6% to May 2010 when it reached 10.7%!

 

There is a lot of good reason as to why businesses are so reluctant to replace laid-off employees. The Wall Street Journal have a great article about it here.

When you add it all up, it costs $74,000 to put $44,000 in Sally's pocket and to give her $12,000 in benefits. - The Wall Street Journal

So my question to the marketers out there is this: You want to take advantage of the social media opportunities, but you don't have the staff to do it, but why would you want to hire in this economic climate?

Ok, so it's a bit of a plug for my services, but take for example e-mail marketing. Access manages e-mail Evolution services, which means you don't have to hire an e-mail marketer, you can rather sign a short term contract with us and still take advantage of the technology. In fact you'd do better than buying a shared server solution, an 'off the shelf' product or a template based e-mail marketing product because e-mail Evolution is none of those things.

Social Media is the same, you battle to find the time to keep your personal and business content up to date, but you're reluctant to hire a social media expert. Why not sign a short term contract and let Access take care of it for you?