Employers to Face Challenges As More Workers Retire

(NewsUSA) - In the coming decades, the number of older workers in America's work force will leap to 34 million, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Despite the profusion of older adults in the work force, it is expected that in the next few years 40 percent of people with college degrees will retire, resulting in a serious challenge for employers - especially small businesses. As tens of millions of baby boomers reach retirement age in the next four years, the gap between available jobs and qualified workers will increase to 35 million.

These numbers are compelling employers to focus efforts on attracting and retaining valuable older workers who enhance today's work force with their skills and decades of experience.

Through its Senior Community Services Employment Program, Easter Seals provides training and skills development opportunities for older adults with limited income and assists them in rejoining the work force.

The organization recommends a variety of approaches that have been shown to augment employers' success in their quest to attract and retain older workers:

* When developing recruitment messages, focus on the job and skills required rather than number of years of experience.

* Interview and hire based on qualifications and skill set, not age.

* Set clear expectations of workers and maintain ongoing performance appraisals, including personal and professional development plans.

* Offer opportunities for workers to learn new skills for professional advancement through increased responsibility and special projects.

* Cultivate a supportive workplace that fosters a healthy work-life balance. Provide health and safety programs and flexible work hours.

* Promote opportunities for older workers to mentor their younger colleagues. This will foster the transfer of skills to the younger work force as more workers retire.

For more tips and information on older worker programs offered by Easter Seals, visit www.easterseals.com/SCSEP.

QuarkXPress 7: An InDesign Expert Weighs In

On May 23, Quark held an all-day event to celebrate the launch of QuarkXPress 7, the new version of the flagship page-layout program. Sandee Cohen brings back this surprising report on the software and the company. Hear who she says is winning the page-layout game.

By Sandee Cohen
Wednesday, May 24, 2006

This article is available online at http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/24306.html

Macs Run Windows XP: A Blessing or a Mess for Prepress. Part 2

What is going on behind the Boot Camp install is telling me that there was some collaboration going on between Apple and Microsoft to be able to code some "write to driver install CD" to get this dual boot beta to work ... I smell a merger. Both companies seem to know the hardware architecture requirements for both operating systems. This would sure solve the peripheral driver inadequacies for everything plugged into a Mac.

Please refer to previous post

Macs Run Windows XP: A Blessing or a Mess for Prepress. Part 1

Apple's new Boot Camp Beta software enables you to install Windows XP on an Intel-based Macintosh computer. It’s a dual boot setup, only running one OS at a time, either Mac OSX or Windows XP.
http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/

So how long before a Windows box can boot and run Mac OSX. It seems to me that without much effort it should be possible now.

The announced delay of the next Windows OS and knowing Apple is working on their next OS upgrade makes me suspicious. Maybe it’s the same OS, one operating system for all Intel-based computers. I’m sure Microsoft would love to get a piece of the pod … iPod, iMovie, iTunes. Apple could use more market share. Where could this be going? Steve Jobs better be careful, look what happened to Jim Henson after he teamed up with Disney.

So what does this news have to do with prepress? It puts all our prepress upgrade strategies on hold. I’m waiting for the announcement of the new “Windows XPiMAC OS” or “Mac OSxpWIN”