In 2009, the job market will be full of contrasts: some industries will be eviscerated while others face shortages of workers. The good news is that despite the recession, there are still real jobs to be had. The bad news is that you may have to change fields to find one.
The trick to job hunting in 2009 will be to figure out how your skill-set can translate across industries, says Elaine Varelas, a managing partner at Boston-based outplacement firm Keystone Partners, so that you’re not confined to searching one sector …

Employers slashed 598,000 more jobs in January as unemployment rate climbed to 7.6%.

Dan Arnall of the ABC News Business Unit tells us the bad news: the Bureau of Labor Statistics says the nation’s employers cut 598,000 workers from their payrolls during January, with significant downward revision to previous months. This is the worst month of jobs loss since December 1974 (-602K).
Since the jobs loss started in January 2008, the nation has seen more than 3.2 million jobs vanish into the black hole that is the current recession. The number is …

Craig Berry, who has been unemployed for 10 months, signs up for temporary work at a Manpower temporary agency in Chicago. The number of U.S. workers filing new claims for jobless benefits hit a 26-year high last week and factory orders plummeted in December.
As the deep economic downturn continues to swell the pool of unemployed workers, it is also delaying the recovery that will be needed to get those people back to work.
Even if Congress and the White House can agree on a huge program of fresh spending and tax …

Most people were pissed off when the CEOs of the big three automakers traveled to Washington in private jets to ask for a bailout. It was like having a beggar come up to you on the street and ask for $20 while checking his email and listening to Rihanna on his iPhone.
The economy being what it is (and what it has been), flashing any kind of bling is suddenly very taboo. Times are so rough that no one wants to be “that guy” flaunting his money when everyone else is …

YouTube and the William Morris Agency are nearing a deal that would put the Hollywood talent broker’s clients in made-for-YouTube productions, according to a report in the New York Times.
The YouTube deal would reportedly give William Morris clients an ownership stake in the videos they create for the popular video Web site. William Morris represents the likes of actors Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe and producers Michael Bay and J.J. Abrams.
An agreement would give the agency’s clients, which also include musicians and other celebrities, access to at least 100 million …

Mere days after Wikipedia put up its new and improved plea for donations, the company has already met its goal of raising $6 million. The campaign, headed up by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, asked users to dig deep into their pockets and couch cushions to help the Wikimedia Foundation keep the site running. Now that the organization has met its goal, Wales has posted an update saying that the lights will be kept on through the remainder of the fiscal year (until June 30, 2009).
 
In the letter, Wales says that …