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A raft of recent surveys shows that the recession is having a profound impact on workers and employment trends worldwide. Even though they measure different things — global hiring, immigration repatriation, and career trends — there’s a theme here, which is that the economy is global and when it recovers, things will not go back to the way they were.

There’s the report from Monster this week that says vast numbers of workers are ready to switch careers for a new job. Another survey, this one from SearchPath International and Antal International, give us a global view of hiring — and firing — trends.

The Global Snapshot offers clues to where the hottest markets in the world are for managers and professionals. (Hint: Think Russia, China, India, Egypt, and Eastern Europe.)

That report dovetails with last week’s USA Today report about an emerging brain drain of managers and professionals from the U.S. to China and India. keep reading…

New age dads are embracing some old-school ideas about gender roles, according to a CareerBuilder survey out just in time for Father’s Day.

More than two-thirds of the working fathers with kids younger than 18 at home say they would prefer to work even if the family could afford to have them be Mr. Mom. If you prefer to see the bottle as half-full, here’s the other side: 31 percent of the dads surveyed by CareerBuilder say they would quit their jobs to stay home if they could.

Sounds almost progressive, yes? It would be if the percentages weren’t going down. In 2005, CareerBuilder found 49 percent of the dads willing to stay home. When the survey was repeated last year, the number had gone to 37 percent.

It’s possible economic uncertainty can be blamed for dads preferring to stay on the job instead of in the house. The survey doesn’t try to explain the decline, but it offers some hints. For instance, three-in-ten working fathers bring work home at least once a week, up from the 2008 survey when 25 percent reported doing that.

Perhaps a more telling stat is that 53 percent of dads say they spend less than two hours a day with the kids. That includes the 14 percent who say they spend an hour or less. No wonder, therefore, that half the surveyed dads admitted missing at least one significant event in their child’s life during the year because of work; 28 percent have missed more than three. Even Homer Simpson doesn’t do that.

“Many working dads have to contend with heavier workloads and longer hours as businesses struggle to do more with less,” says Jason Ferrara, senior career adviser at CareerBuilder and father of two. “It’s important to have a conversation with your supervisor. Employers are placing more emphasis on work/life balance through creative benefits that encourage employees to better manage their personal and professional commitments. However, nearly half of working dads do not take advantage of any flexible work arrangements offered to them.”

There is a bright spot in the survey. Though the number of dads willing to take a pay cut to spend more time with the family has dropped by 20 percent in a year, 30 percent of the surveyed fathers say they’d take a cut; 40 percent of them would accept a 10 percent cut.

CareerBuilder surveyed only working men. But what happens to the gender roles when dad is suddenly unemployed? The New York Times said this back in February:

“When women are unemployed and looking for a job, the time they spend daily taking care of children nearly doubles. Unemployed men’s child care duties, by contrast, are virtually identical to those of their working counterparts, and they instead spend more time sleeping, watching TV, and looking for a job, along with other domestic activities.”

Feeling guilty? Need some help? There are plenty of resources to help dads with that work/life thing. You could start here.

Meanwhile, what are the takeaways from the CareerBuilder survey?

Ties and dress shirts may be more welcome this Father’s Day than in the past. And moms can still be counted on when dad is wherever.

ERE’s first Social Recruiting Summit gets underway Monday, appropriately enough, at Google world headquarters in the heart of Silicon Valley. That it’s a sold-out conference should be no surprise, considering the virtual stampede of recruiters to social media.

Surveys in just the last month from Jobvite, Arbita, LinkedIn and others show the fascination recruiters have with social media. The Jobvite report found 72 percent of the surveyed recruiters will invest more in social networks this year. Contrast that with the 26 percent who expect to spend more on job boards.

The Arbita survey, coming at the question from a somewhat different angle, says 73 percent expect to spend the same or less on search engine marketing and social media; 93 percent of the respondents to that survey say they’ll spend the same or less on job boards.

Both show a legion of recruiters experimenting with social media. Referrals are still the recruiting gold standard, but the survey evidences an excitement with the potential that social networks hold, even if recruiters are still unsure how best to use them and how effective they will be in the long run.

For instance, Arbita found half the surveyed companies have no effective strategy for finding candidates on networks such as LinkedIn and Facebook. The company asked about strategies for sourcing candidates through their blogs and 85 percent said they have nothing effective.

No wonder the Social Recruiting Summit filled up. No wonder that so many recruiters stepped up to lead “Unconference” discussions, not only on tactics, but on how social media recruiting is likely to evolve over the next few years and how it fits into the overall corporate recruiting portfolio.

The picture that emerges from the pre-conference discussions on ERE and Twitter, and from the Arbita and Jobvite reports, is one of recruiter anticipation that pretty clearly says, “We’re not sure where there this train is heading, but we’re getting on.”

The Arbita survey has recruiters admitting that while metrics to support their marketing decisions are important, 62 percent aren’t happy with the quality of the data. Remarkably, 39 percent of the respondents don’t even see metrics and analytics as an important part of recruitment strategy.

That startling result lead Don Ramer, founder and CEO of Arbita, to rail in the report that, “Two generations after the invention of the relational database –- of Lotus –- we have 39 percent of the people who are responsible for staffing saying metrics and analytics are not an important part of their strategy.”

The Jobvite report at least had recruiters explaining their rationale for using social media: 77 percent use the networks to reach passive job seekers; 74 percent because of the lower cost, and; 72 percent to find candidates with hard to find skills or experience.

While Jobvite’s survey didn’t delve into strategic decision making and metrics, the respondents at least had a basis for making those judgments. Two-thirds of them had made hires through an online social network.

It may be foolish to dismiss the role of metrics and analytics in deciding where to focus your recruiting effort. But jumping on to the social media train is hardly foolish, even if the analytics aren’t there, yet, to be able to say with certainy whether the phenomenon will deliver the sort of results we want.

Peter Weddle, the well known recruiting publisher and consultant, has a contrarian view of the social media landrush. He blogged a few weeks ago that, “There is a great SCAM being perpetrated in the recruiting profession today. Call it “social capabilities ahead of the market.”

Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, he wrote, aren’t ready for prime time: “These sites may be effective recruiting tools in 2014, but today they aren’t even close. To put it another way, they are social capabilities that are way ahead of the market, if the market you’re after is the one for talent.”

His evidence, though arguable as to its meaning, is worth considering. The short version of it is that people, especially the millenials, those denizens of social media, still look for jobs on job boards. And well they should. To twist a phrase from bank robber Willy Sutton, job boards are where the jobs are.

Social media, however, is where the world is. The only reason to post a resume on Monster is to find a job. Posting to LinkedIn or building a Facebook page or Tweeting is done by millions for purely social and business reasons, only some of which is directly motivated by job hunting.

Neither the Arbita nor Jobvite survey presages the imminent demise of the job board. Crystal ball gazers have been predicting that for years and they’re all still here and more seem to be coming every day.

Instead, what the surveys suggest and the interest in the Social Recruiting Summit reflects is that social media is becoming a part of recruiting’s toolbox, even if we aren’t sure how it will fit into a comprehensive strategy.

Pity those poor New Yorkers. Slammed by Wall Street’s meltdown, alarmed by a photo shoot for a presidential plane, and struggling with more cases of swine flu than the rest of the U.S. combined, is it any wonder the populace is feeling stressed?

Now the rest of the country may be sharing the pain (think Detroit or South Carolina or Oregon), but in typical New York fashion the city’s workers believe they have it worse than anyone, anywhere else.

In a survey by — of all companies — the maker of Tiger Balm, 74 percent of New York office workers say they feel more stressed than those who live elsewhere. In addition, the survey reports that six in 10 of the surveyed office workers are spending six or more hours a day at their desk, “and more than half (53 percent) say that this time at work causes stress and physical pain, particularly in the neck and shoulders.”

(Guess what product is good for easing that pain. Helpful hint here.)

Also contributing to that stress, say 62 percent of the workers, is the beating their savings and retirement accounts have taken.

So how do New Yorkers cut expenses? Says the survey, “… more than half (57 percent) of residents report cutting down on ’self-pampering’ indulgences, such as massages, hair maintenance, and manicures, while looking for more affordable alternatives to manage and relieve their stress-related pain. Despite cutting down on such luxuries, over two-thirds (69 percent) still believe that a massage can help relieve stress-related pain.”

In Middle America, that would be called a Cadillac problem. Here’s how they cut expenses in Omaha.

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