GE to Shutter Only U.S. Solar Panel Factory; Layoff 82

GE to Shutter Only U.S. Solar Panel Factory Layoff 82GE to Shutter Only U.S. Solar Panel Factory Layoff 82GE will close its only U.S. solar panel factory in January and shutter it completely by June, 2010. The reason is a familiar one in the solar panel industry production costs overtook sales prices and supply remains dim in part due to the recession. The 82 employees at the facility in Delaware will be laid off with severance packages. This comes on the heels of news last week that Evergreen Solar was moving its solar panel production from Devens, Mass. to China due to much lower production costs there.More power to China. And to its continued drive to become sustainable economically and environmentally.

Mid-2014 Retail Recruiting Outlook

Mid-2014 Retail Recruiting OutlookMid-2014 Retail Recruiting OutlookMid-2014 Retail Recruiting Outlook CleaverRecent retail sales trends may have you thinking that its business as usual in retail recruiting.Thats likely because, despite all the algorithms, automation and anonymity of digital sales, 93.8% of retail sales still occur in bricks-and-mortar stores, in a transaction completed by two people, according to the US Census Bureau (based on first quarter 2014 sales.)But ask retail industry consultants, experts and academics about the direction of retail recruiting and theyll tell you that ecommerce and traditional retail are on a convergence course.Why? Because mobile technology is about much more than letting consumers comparison-shop it is actually reshaping retail skill sets and retail hiring.When retail sales associates pull stock from the shelves of their stores to fill orders sent in by customers in other states, their jobs are merging with fulfillment and customer service positions, says Ellen Davis, executive director of the National Retail Federation Foundation, which is ramping up research on retail careers.Retailers are staffing for digital, she says. These are positions that didnt even exist five years ago. The retail hiring trends and challenges will get more difficult.Here are some of the biggest trends reshaping retail recruitment and retail career paths.Digital, Digital, DigitalInformation technology is evolving from the cube farm and onto the selling floor.The trend is being driven by innovations that change everything, such as mobile point-of-sale via Ipads equipped with credit card swipers, says Davis.Todays sales associates must know these technologies as well as how to use them to better help customers, rather than solely focusing on the screen and ignore the customer thats right in front of them.Even store security staff are affected by digital. If you go to paperless receipts, that flows through to security, asset protection and other functions, says Davis, who points out that emailed receipts cant be checked at the door as proof of purchase.A Budding Relationship with ITRetail IT staff is no longer managing just the bits and bytes of inventory and financials. They must be adept at collaborating with every department at headquarters and with support staff in the field.Deborah Fowler, director of the retail management program at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, says that information technology and analytics is the gist of the schools curriculum.Students quickly learn that category management is less about being an expert in that particular product category and almost all about how to read numbers and trends to stay a step ahead of consumers.But the upside of that quant immersion, says Fowler, is that everyday retail analytics is a skill that is both highly transferable and much in demand.Everything from ordering to display design is now dictated by headquarters and digitally tracked, so theres little left for st ore managers to do except hire, develop and retain great employees which was always their most important job anyway, says Fowler.A retail store manager is really a human resource director, she says. The great store managers have to be people-oriented, looking not just to help customers, but their own employees.The Importance of Employee TrainingRetailers are starting to focus on employee training as a strategic advantage, says Davis.Training has often been haphazard at retailers, partly because at the store level, the work is both repetitive and intuitive complete transactions and win customers.To ensure that the gee-whiz elements of mobile technology dont end up hijacking the customer experience, some retailers are blending sales and customer service skills with technical updates, says Amanda Nicholson, associate dean for undergraduate programs at the Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University.For example, savvy employers train sales associates not just in how to use an i -pad-based inventory system, but also, how to make sure the sight of the iPad doesnt discourage customer inquiries.And that combination is proving attractive for candidates who want reassurance that they there is room to grow in retail jobs, she adds.Training is key, says Kevin Knapp, recruiting and talent director for The Container Store. Though the chain of 66 stores sells relatively simple storage and home organizing products, its staff are complete hundreds of hours of training each year.As part of their new hire training, employees learn details about the products. Even more important they need to cultivate the art of careful listening for the problem that the customer is truly trying to solve, and how to offer creative solutions.We create an air of fun and success, says Knapp. We want this to be a passion, and that is achieved both through training and through fun events that recognize personal events in our peoples lives.The Container Stores approach works it picks only 3% o f the 70,000 applications it receives annually.Building an Employer BrandThe one thing retailers cant train for is employee attitude.Employees who love the employer brand and what it stands still are the ones with the special sauce. Retailers are turning social media dynamics into successful recruiting hook for reeling in employees of all ages and life stages.Someone who loves the product understands what the customer likes, and its a lot easier to sell what you like, says Davis. Literally, it becomes a peer to peer customer experience, like shopping with a friend.Retailers are realizing that their brands are fodder for social media, the ultimate network for finding clones of their most successful staff.They are trying to figure out how their marketing brand and their employer brand are in sync, says Davis.Understanding what metrics validate the employer brand thats a shift when you are used to inventory and sales numbers. It takes longer to figure out what a successful employer br and looks like.

Top 4 Industries Using Linux

Top 4 Industries Using gnu/linuxTop 4 Industries Using LinuxLinux is fast-becoming the operating ordnungsprinzip (OS) of choice for many organizations that operate servers that host rechnerwolke and big data applications, according to studies by the Linux Foundation and SUSE.Startups and smaller businesses often choose the open-source OS for their operating servers because so many distributions are freely available. There are hundreds of Linux variants, but only a fraction run the servers a typical Linux system administrator would be responsible for monitoring or maintaining. Unix is the dominant family of web server OSes up to 15 variations of Linux account for more than half the discoverable Unix-hosted sites.The most popular commercial product with larger companies is Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) because its proprietary, offers tech support, and can readily show its compatibility with the newest processors. Some organizations start with RHEL, CentOS, Ubuntu, Debian or OpenSUSE, and then modify the system to suit their own requirements.If you want to focus on Linux system administration, heres a primer on where to look for jobs. Big companies are showing a growing commitment to the use of Linux systems in behauptung four industriesInternetMajor players like Amazon, Google and Netflix all rely on Linux for delivering services. A Linux system administrator at Netflix or another company who uses Amazon Web Services would have intimate knowledge of Amazon Linux AMI. Facebook and Twitter each use a Linux variant that has been tweaked in-house. For these types of organizations, open-source Linux distributions can deliver a lower cost of ownership than even the lowest-priced proprietary cloud options because of the many servers needed to offer Software as a Service on a global scale.FinanceWall Street, for some time now, has been a good place for job seekers to look for openings in Linux system administration. A number of markets trade using solutions built on a Linux stack, including the NYSE Euronext, London Stock Exchange and Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Financial exchanges rely on Linux for one of the same reasons Internet companies do Communications architectures are stable when handling large numbers of simultaneous, roundtrip messages quickly.InsuranceLarge insurance companies also build operating environments on Linux. AIG, for example, uses Red Hat and SUSE variants in its architecture. Health insurer, Cigna, was named Innovator of the Year last year in the Red Hat Innovation Awards. Scalability and tight security top the list of reasons some insurers are choosing Linux today.HealthcareRed Hat skills come in handy for Linux system administration jobs at healthcare organizations such as Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Many Debian pure blends - subsets of the Debian GNU/Linux distribution - address the specific needs of healthcare providers and researchers by packaging the kernel with drug databases or electronic medical reco rd systems.Other industriesGovernment, education and military are other sectors increasing their reliance on Linux system administration. Expect to hear more in the future about innovative companies using Linux systems to support advances in autonomous vehicles, wearable devices, and other smart combinations of hardware and software. The trend toward increased use of Linux in the enterprise is good news for technology professionals with Linux skills - and especially those with a background in Linux system administration.Check out our Salary Guide to see the starting pay for Linux pros in your city.