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FairPoint Communications has plans to take over Verizon’s landline operations in rural New England and, if the acquisition is approved, it will hire close to 675 new workers in the area.

FairPoint says it has hired four recruiters to hire and train approximately 125 of the 675 employees it intends to hire if the proposed merger between FairPoint and Verizon in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont is approved.

FairPoint, a communications services provider in rural and small urban communities in 18 states, calls this move the catalyst to “significant job creation” that will “have a significant impact on the Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine economies.”

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Part-time positions feature prominently on the UPS corporate careers site, and that’s good news as the Atlanta-based global delivery services company seeks to hire up to 60,000 seasonal workers.

To help meet UPS’s 40% volume increase between Thanksgiving and the end of December, these seasonal workers will help deliver as many as 22 million packages worldwide daily.

“It’s safe to say in all the major markets we’re looking for seasonal help,” says UPS spokesperson Laurie Mallis.

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Boston Scientific is eliminating 2,300 positions worldwide, or 13% of its workforce, to help cut operating expenses by up to $525 million during 2008 and to save up to $50 million more in 2009.

Boston Scientific has only disclosed that the layoffs will start this month and continue through the end of 2008. The company has not offered any information regarding which workers are affected or in which locations.

However, the Natick, Massachusetts-based company is hosting a conference call with analysts Friday morning.

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Following Honda Motor Co.’s announcement that it would hire workers for its new Greensburg, Indiana, assembly plant from only 20 surrounding counties, several Democratic lawmakers are questioning this hiring policy.

In a letter to the Indiana Economic Development Corp., the lawmakers argue that since Honda received a state incentive package of $141.5 million, the hiring process should be open to all Indiana residents in 92 counties.

The authors — including state representatives Dennis Tyler, Scott Reske, Terri Austin, along with state senators Sue Errington and Tim Lanane — allege that a “restriction of eligibility to residents of just 20 specific counties is of great concern to many Hoosiers.”

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AOL said Monday it is laying off 2,000 employees worldwide as part of a previously announced restructuring program. Approximately 1,200 U.S. workers – including 750 at the company’s current headquarters in Dulles, Virginia — are affected.

This latest reduction of about 20% of AOL’s workers follows last month’s announcement that the company was streamlining from an Internet access provider to an online advertising company.

In a memo distributed on Monday to the company’s 10,000 employees, chairman and chief executive Randy Falco wrote that this “reduction in force” will play out over the next couple of months.

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Echoing a recent report that Arizona is a hot job market, health benefits company Humana, Inc. is scheduled to open two new call centers in Phoenix and Tempe. To accommodate this growth, the company plans to hire more than 530 workers.

In Phoenix, the company has plans to open a state-of-the-art, 63,000 sq. ft. telemarketing call center with 330 workers to support its Medicare Advantage business. Available positions at this call center include telesales specialists, Rx enrollment specialists, client specialists, quality assurance specialists, administrative assistants, and supervisors. This Phoenix call center is Humana’s sixth telemarketing unit. The company has five other call-center locations: two in Tampa, one in Miramar, Florida, one in Doral, Florida, and one in Puerto Rico.

In nearby Tempe, a separate call center with 200 employees will focus on the company’s mail-order prescription services. The company plans to have both centers fully staffed by January 2008. Known as the “RightSource Customer Care Call Center,” the company is seeking customer care associates, team leads, front-line leaders, workforce analysts, and managers. The Tempe facility also has the capacity for additional growth to reach 550 to 600 employees.

The company currently has 665 employees in Arizona.

Cable and Phone Call Centers Expand

Sprint Nextel Corp. says it will expand its call center in Panama City Beach, Florida, and add 225 full-time employees by the end of January 2008. This news comes almost six months after it laid off 100 customer-care representative positions from the facility as part of a nationwide layoff. The company says these new employees, however, will be part of a team working on a new national quality-control department.

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Clinical services firm PRA International has just selected Raleigh, North Carolina, for its new, expanded headquarters.

The move will create nearly 500 jobs, and the company has pledged to invest $2.89 million over the next four years.

The company says its current headquarters in Reston, Virginia, is a corporate administrative office with no operational functions.

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Last week’s unexpected Labor Department announcement of a loss of 4,000 jobs, which sparked fears of a recession, was followed by an overwhelming amount of layoffs across the mortgage industry.

“The driving force behind the layoffs is the anticipation of permanently lower volumes,” says Sam Garcia, publisher of MortgageDaily.com, an online news publication for the mortgage industry.

“The lower volumes, however, are the result of fewer available loan programs and borrowers that have become too nervous to utilize adjustable-rate mortgages, hybrid ARMs, and anything that smells like an exotic loan,” says Garcia.

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You’ve heard about the stepped-up recruiting practices trucking companies use to address the shortage of truck drivers. Well, some of their gains are coming at the expense of another industry — the large school bus industry, involving perhaps a half-million busses and 625,000 bus professionals.

Below, transportation officials and transportation staffing companies discuss the challenge and some solutions.

Florida: Doing “Everything We Possibly Can”

Arby Creach handles driver recruiting and training for Orange County Public Schools in Florida, a state where school busses transport 162,000 kids each day and burn about 14,000 gallons of diesel. Creach says “A lot of folks who drive commercially just aren’t the type who want to be with students. You do have to have a passion. You do have to love kids.”

Many people, he says, still think the jobs are part-time, like in days gone by when working mothers drove busses for “butter and egg money.” It’s now often a full-time job, and Creach’s district is running about 1,000 busses a day. It’s adding new busses daily, though still 40 to 50 drivers short.

Creach’s team is advertising in Spanish newspapers; shopper leaflets that arrive in people’s mailboxes along with coupons and other ads; in person at Home Depot and Wal-Mart; online at ocps.net; and at job fairs. Creach would like to advertise in the print newspaper the Orlando Sentinel, but his boss isn’t as hot on the idea. “Short of going out and leaving flyers on windshields, we try everything we possibly can.”

The selling points of a bus-driving job, according to Creach, include “longevity,” competitive pay, and “all the hours you want to work.” Drivers get student holidays off, but the district can help them find driving jobs at Disney and elsewhere if they want to work during the summer.

“I’d say 99.9% off our people love the work and love the kids,” Creach says. “It gets in the blood.”

100 Signs in Arkansas

Rhonda Harris, who coordinates transportation for the Sheridan School District in Arkansas, says student behavior, low pay, relatively low unemployment in the area, and unusual hours make it difficult to attract drivers.

Sheridan has people work two hours in the morning and two in the afternoon, so it’s difficult to find work that people can do during the remaining hours of the day to supplement the $6,866 annual driver pay.

“You have to work somewhere that allows you the flexibility,” Harris says. “There aren’t many places here in town that will let you do that. You have six hours during the day that you don’t do anything.”

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Interstate Bakeries Corp. said Tuesday it will lay off 1,300 workers and quit the bread market in Southern California.

This decision will see the closure of four bakeries, 17 distribution centers, and 19 outlets, as well as the elimination of 325 routes, effective October 29.

The Kansas City-based maker of Twinkies and Wonder Bread will lay off about 1,300 employees, or about 5% of the workforce, in the process.

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The First Magnus Financial Corp. website isn’t sugar-coating anything these days. A visit to the company’s revised one-page website shows a stark white background with the bold heading, Important Notice.

The “important notice” goes on to explain that the Tucson, Arizona-based company will not fund any future mortgage loans and is no longer accepting applications.

One of the nation’s largest privately held mortgage companies, it now plans to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and has laid off nearly all 5,000 employees across the country.

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Maybe business is bad for ChoicePoint because more companies are relaxing their once-strict pre-employment screening policies. Even the FBI has loosened its necktie concerning prior marijuana usage of applicants, part of a campaign to hire hundreds of agents.

Or perhaps it’s due to ChoicePoint’s announcement last week of a 6.6% drop in second-quarter profits.

Either way, 55 ChoicePoint pre-employment background screeners are out of a job, now that the company has decided to close the Dallas employment screening location.

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A Roseburg, Oregon-based Dell call center is closing its doors after five years — and saying goodbye to 220 workers.

According to the local KPIC news affiliate, employees were informed at a morning meeting that their jobs were eliminated and were told to take their personal items and leave.

KPIC reports that “tears and sobs were heard amidst some angry outbursts as those on duty left.”

According to a Dell spokesman, the 220 workers were informed of their severance package and options. Beyond a severance package for each employee, the call center will host a job fair on Monday by FirstCall Resolution Call Center, teach resume classes, offer counseling, and possibly relocate some of the jobs.

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While there is a shortage of police officers in federal jobs, the country is also facing a shortage of local police recruits, leaving law-enforcement officials around the country scrambling to fill the ranks.

In Schenectady, New York, the police department is short 16 officers. This is allegedly causing the public safety commissioner to pull three officers from patrolling Schenectady public schools to put on the streets.

In Fresno, California, top law enforcement officials are reportedly courting graduating cadets, pitching job offers at the ceremony. According to the Sacramento Bee, Mariposa County Sheriff Jim Allen reassured cadets during the local police academy graduation that in his county, “We don’t have as many shootings.”

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The government is desperate. It’s alarmingly short of talented police officers, food inspectors, prison guards, airport screeners, border patrol agents, and immigration analysts, among other positions.

That means that as with most industries in our country, hiring is hot news. In fact, there are approximately 193,000 mission-critical jobs that need to be filled in the next two years, including 62,863 security and law enforcement related jobs.

This data is courtesy of a new report, “Where the Jobs Are: Mission Critical Opportunities for America,” which says the number of compliance and enforcement hires is up nearly four-fold compared to 2005 figures — and include 27,243 new border patrol agents, customs officers, immigration agents, food inspectors, criminal investigators, and airport screeners.

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Cadbury Schweppes PLC has announced its plans to cut 7,500 jobs and close 11 (approximately 15%) of its candy factories by 2011. However, the company has not disclosed further details on where the cuts are likely to occur.

That is not exactly sweet news for the 50,000 Cadbury workers at 35 confectionery sites across Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, and 59 other bottling and manufacturing sites worldwide.

Cadbury Schweppes is also selling its U.S. beverages unit. Cadbury Schweppes Americas Beverages, which makes Dr Pepper, 7-Up, and Snapple soft drinks, is based in Plano, Texas. After the sale, the company will be renamed Cadbury PLC.

Officials at the iconic British candy maker say they hope to keep growing the top line while improving margins.

The company’s chief executive officer, Todd Stitzer, said during a conference call that “there are certain countries where we know we can do better,” citing the United Kingdom, Russia, and China.

Serious Concern Globally

Unite, the union that represents 2,000 Cadbury Schweppes workers in Britain, said the job cuts are a serious concern.

“We have worked hard with Cadbury in recent years and cooperated in a change program which means the U.K. factories are extremely efficient. We are, therefore, concerned by today’s announcement, which we are convinced is driven by the threat of a takeover by private equity,” union official Brian Revell said in an e-mailed statement.

In the United Kingdom, Cadbury employs about 6,000 workers. It has a cocoa processing plant in north Wales, a milk processing plant in Herefordshire, two manufacturing sites in Bristol, a sugar manufacturing plant in Sheffield, a medicinal confectionery business in Devon, as well as the head office in London and commercial offices in Hertfordshire.

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Whirlpool Corp. is eliminating more than 700 positions at two manufacturing plants in Tennessee.

The company plans to stop producing dehumidifiers and air purifiers at its LaVergne, Tennessee, facility by the end of the year, resulting in the elimination of approximately 330 positions.

The company says it does not intend to close the La Vergne plant, which is in a suburb of Nashville. It will continue to employ about 270 people and produce built-in refrigerators and parts for other facilities.

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Despite Pulte Homes’ well-designed corporate career website flashing, “Are you looking for a company that will double in size over the next five years?” the truth is a bitter pill to swallow for approximately 1,900 current employees nationwide.

As part of a restructuring plan designed to reduce costs and improve operating efficiencies, Pulte Homes said it is eliminating 16% of workers (approximately 1,900) in marketing, construction, administrative, and other positions.

Severance packages will include one week’s salary for each year of service, with a minimum of four weeks, with healthcare benefits paid for the same number of weeks, according to a Pulte spokeswoman.

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It was a blue Tuesday for workers at both IBM and Intel, as they learned they will face layoffs in the next few months.

IBM plans to eliminate about 1,300 positions, though an IBM spokesperson declined confirmation of this number.

The Alliance at IBM, a union organization affiliated with the Communication Workers of America, says it is trying to organize affected workers.

Lee Conrad, national coordinator of Alliance at IBM, explains that more job cuts are coming.

“Maybe tomorrow, probably May through June. Our sources are telling us 8,000 to 10,000 workers, and probably Global Services will be the biggest hit. What’s driving this is offshoring,” says Conrad.

He explains that his organization is working to expose the truth about these layoffs to help to “get this out so there is transparency in job cuts. What it means for the industry is you have a whole segment of IBM workers whose morale is being trashed.”

He adds, “Jobs are being offshored. We know there are good employees, but if IBM can’t treat them properly, then maybe someone else should.”

According to Conrad, the workers can either find a similar job within IBM or receive a severance package.

The Alliance at IBM say the cuts will include workers in Raleigh, North Carolina, and at the New York headquarters, though other locations, such as Poughkeepsie, New York, and Boulder, Colorado, may be affected.

“The 1,315 cuts are nationwide. We have received from employees the ‘resource action’ package. Every person selected for termination receives this by law. It’s the OWBPA, or the Older Worker Benefit Protection Act,” says Conrad.

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Citigroup, Inc. says it plans to trim 17,000 jobs, about 5% of its 327,000 workforce, and relocate some corporate centers, all by the end of the year.

As part of the announced cost-cutting measures, it will relocate 9,500 jobs to lower-cost locations, both domestically and internationally, with about two-thirds through attrition. Locations in New York may be affected.

However, the company says its workforce will expand overall this year due to acquisitions and other branch openings.

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