Teen Unemployment Hits Record 25%

The teen jobless picture is the bleakest since the government started tracking the statistic 60 years ago, the New York Times reports. The rate hit 25.5% last month, nearly triple the rate among other workers. Analysts say teens are getting squeezed out of the workplace by college graduates, unable to find more lucrative work, taking jobs they might otherwise have shunned, and by older workers hanging onto their jobs instead of retiring.

The dismal employment outlook has the silver lining of getting more young people to opt for college, although with few jobs to be had, many can't afford to. Youth employment never fully recovered from the 2001 recession, and experts don't expect things to improve any time soon. "Given that unemployment is a lagging indicator," one expert says, "and young people’s unemployment even lags behind the rest of unemployment, we’re going to see a lot of kids out of work for a long, long, long, long time.”

In Recovery, Business Will Profit at Workers' Expense

The economy is slowly improving, but companies will see the benefits long before the unemployed and underemployed will, Bloomberg reports. A Department of Labor report released yesterday found that the average workweek is at a near-record low of 33.1 hours. The lack of uptick in part-time hours is an indicator that "payrolls aren’t turning positive any time soon,” a Deutsche Bank economist says.

With labor costs staying low, the economic growth expected in the near term will plump company profits, not family budgets. "It's disappointing and it tells us that we are not quite there yet,” one economist said of the report. The outlook in the months to come, he says, is "great for business and terrible for households.” An analyst at Adecco predicts that unemployment, which hit 9.7% last month, will rise to 10% before the economy starts adding jobs some time next year.

World's Oldest Bartender Calling It Quits

The longest serving bartender in the world—that Guinness-certified honor came 10 years ago—and slinger of one of the first beers after Prohibition ended is hanging up his cocktail shaker, the AP reports. Ninety-five-year-old Angelo Cammarata, owner of the beloved Cammarata’s Café in Pittsburgh, is selling after more than 70 years behind the bar. It’s bittersweet, he says. “This is a good bar. All my customers here are family.”

“We're a local bar, shot and a beer,” he says. That tradition goes back to just before midnight on April 6, 1933, the night before beer became legal again. “The first strike of the clock, I took a case of beer off, took it in our grocery store, took bottles out, and started selling them, 10 cents each.” The venture was so successful the store became a bar. Not that Cammarata himself is much of a drinker. His father told him, “'Beer is made to sell, not drink. Don’t be your best customer.' And I took that to heart."

Job Loss Anxiety Hurts More Than No Job at All

Worried about your job? It may be better for your health if you just quit, new research suggests. Looking at studies of nearly 2,000 adults, scientists at the University of Michigan have found job loss anxiety can be more harmful to your health than unemployment, hypertension, or even smoking, Ann Arbor News reports. “These findings apply much more broadly today than they did even a few years ago," sociologist Sarah Burgard tells LiveScience.

The research is based on how participants viewed their own physical health. "We found that people who were persistently concerned about losing their jobs reported significantly worse overall health in both studies and were more depressed in one of the studies than those who had actually lost and regained their jobs recently," Burgard says.

States Pass on Stimulus Money for Unemployed

More than $3.1 billion in stimulus money earmarked for the unemployed is idling in federal coffers, USA Today reports, because 23 states haven’t expanded their unemployment benefits in order to qualify. Another 350,000 workers could receive benefits if they did, according to one worker advocacy group. But some Republicans complain that expanding benefits would put force states to raise taxes when the stimulus cash runs out.

But taking the money could actually prevent impending tax hikes in several states that have declined the money, including Indiana, Alabama, Florida, and Texas. In those states, taxes automatically rise for employers if unemployment funds need more cash. But Republicans say they’re taking the long view. “If the federal government really wanted to help us, they would have sent those dollars without any strings attached,” said a spokesman for Texas Governor Rick Perry.

Fired Teacher 'Leah Lust' Turns to Porn After 2500 rejected resumes, Shepherd is 'My first sex teacher'

The biology teacher sacked by a Florida high school for posing in racy bikini pics has found a new line of work: porn. Unable to land a new teaching job after sending out 2,500 resumes, Tiffany Shepherd, 31, is now earning a living as "Leah Lust" in films such as "My first sex teacher," the New York Daily News reports.

"I'm not particularly proud of it. To be honest, I hate it," says Shepherd. She was introduced to the porn business by the captain of the fishing boat where the bikini photos were taken, who doesn't think much of her acting: "We sat down with her and told her she'd never get a teaching job again. So I told her, use ‘em before they fall to the ground. But God, does she need to work on her acting."

Let Employees Roam the Web

Protecting against viruses and encouraging productivity is all well and good, Farhad Manjoo writes on Slate, but “locking down” company computers isn’t the way to go about it. Companies that “block the Web and various other online distractions on the theory that a cowed workforce is an efficient one” are actually losing out. Research shows that workers who can surf freely are 9% more productive than those who can't.

“Why?” Manjoo wonders of the study. “Because we aren't robots; people with Web access took short breaks to look online while doing their work, and the distractions kept them sharper than the folks who had no choice but to keep on task.” Firms that focus more on results and less on policing are at the vanguard of tech innovation. If IT wants to stem the virus threat, they can educate workers instead of employing paternalistic tactics. Otherwise, let the mind wander and reap the bounty.