Posted: 24 Apr 2010 07:50 PM PDT

The Missouri Theatre Center for the Arts is laying off its box office staff and shifting primarily to online and phone ticket purchases. The decision, effective May 1, will result in the elimination of three part-time jobs.

The box office now will only be staffed during the day of shows, said CEO Eric Staley.

"It's not an uncommon thing in theater operations these days to do, in many cases, everything online," Staley said.

"So we're kind of behind the curve that way. But certainly financial concerns are always involved in decisions like that," he said.

The decision comes only two weeks after the theater announced expanded box office hours. The box office was open 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekdays. One of the employees who got the bad news this week is Eric Seat.

"I don't have any personal bad feelings," Seat said. "I understand what happened. … I enjoyed the opportunity to work there, and now I'm looking for other opportunities."

Seat, 28, an illustrator by trade who often does work for magazines and books, hopes to find work in the visual arts field.

The Missouri Theatre has had well-publicized financial difficulties and continues to look for economies as it struggles to repay the $2.5 million it owes creditors for a massive renovation completed in 2008.

Staley declined to say whether the recent layoffs would be the last. "We're looking at everything all the time," he said.

"It's bad business to be speculating about what might be, you have to deal with the facts as they come up."

Reach T.J. Greaney at 573-815-1719 or e-mail tjgreaney@columbiatribune.com.

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International Summer Jobs - Associated Content

Posted: 25 Apr 2010 12:07 AM PDT

Summer Internships Abroad for College Students and Recent Graduates

The job market is down. Everybody knows it, especially us soon-to-be college graduates. So where can we go? What can we do? How can we get that extra something on our resume that will really set us apart from the crowd?

An organization called AIESEC (pronounced eye-sek; stands for Association Internationale des Etudiants en Sciences Economiques et Commerciales) facilitates 5,500+ of these international internships and traineeships each year in its 107-country network; many during the summer.

AIESEC has been providing these internships to students for over 60 years. I completed an AIESEC internship in Mexico in the summer of 2008, and know lots of people who have so in many different countries. It is something I would recommend to almost anyone. And with AIESEC's goals of developing global leaders and breaking down cultural stereotypes, you are really able to make a positive impact on the world at the same time.

An overview of what the internship database looks like going into summer 2010:

The top 10 backgrounds requested by companies searching for interns are: social work, project management, bilingual and cross cultural education, linguistics / languages, training and development, introductory education, international education, introductory development studies, advertising & public relations, and market evaluation & research.

So what are some of the jobs available? Here's a list of five examples, in no particular order.

1. Teaching English - Native English speakers are in high demand all over the world to teach English at all different levels. Most times, you don't even need to speak the native language.

2. Subjects Education - Teach a subject like entrepreneurship or work in a summer camp teaching young people about your culture.

3. Developmental Internship - Work on helping communities build themselves in one area; or work for an NGO doing research, fundraising, or other tasks.

4. Managerial Internship - Use your business background to work on management, human resources, administration, marketing, advertising, or economics.

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Once reluctant, many embrace part-time work - Fresno Bee

Posted: 24 Apr 2010 05:19 PM PDT

The notion that the nature of work is changing -- becoming more temporary and project-based, with workers increasingly functioning as free agents and no longer being governed by traditional long-term employer-employee relationships -- first gained momentum in the 1990s. But it has acquired new currency in this recession, especially among white-collar job seekers, as they cast about for work of any kind and companies remain cautious about permanent hiring.

In just one snapshot of what is going on, the number of people who describe themselves as self-employed but working less than 35 hours a week because they cannot find full-time work has more than doubled since the recession began, reaching 1.2 million in December 2009, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Economists who study flexible work arrangements believe that the increase has been driven in large part by independent contractors like Sinclair and other contingent workers, struggling to cobble together whatever work they can find.

As the economy continues its halting recovery and employers' confidence remains shaky, economists believe that it is likely that the ranks of these kinds of workers will continue to grow.

"To the degree there's more uncertainty coming out of this recession than in past recessions, we would expect companies to be more cautious about taking on more permanent employees," said Susan Houseman, senior economist with the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, who studies contingent workers. "So they'd be looking for more of these nonstandard employees to hire."

Some, like Sinclair, have embraced this lifestyle, influenced by a growing sense of just how precarious traditional employment can be and reveling in the other benefits, like flexibility and diversity.

Others, however, would vastly prefer permanent jobs. They have struggled to deal with the instability, the second-tier status often accorded contractors and other temporary workers and the usual lack of benefits. In most states, they are ineligible for unemployment insurance and worker's compensation. Indeed, it is not at all clear that the shift to these kinds of arrangements is good for workers.

Christine Reams, 45, spent a dozen years as the director of human resources at a large hospital in Columbus, Ohio, but was laid off in July 2008. After struggling for more than a year to find a permanent job, she landed a contract assignment back at her former employer in September, this time in the information services department. Initially, the position, which pays half of what she used to make, was only supposed to last six weeks, but the hospital has extended her contract several times.

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