Employee Participation

Last in a three-part series on the loss of middle-class jobs in the wake of the Great Recession, and the role of technology.

The number of Americans seeking unemployment aid fell last week to the lowest level in five years, evidence that employers are cutting fewer jobs and may step up hiring.

Manufacturers have been using technology to cut blue-collar jobs for years. Now, they're targeting their white-collar workers, too.

Second in a three-part series on the loss of middle-class jobs in the wake of the Great Recession, and the role of technology.

Spain's unemployment rate shot up to a record 26.02 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012, leaving almost six million people out of work, the National Statistics Institute said Thursday.

Five years after the start of the Great Recession, the toll is terrifyingly clear: Millions of middle-class jobs have been lost in developed countries the world over. And the situation is even worse than it appears.

The nation's high school graduation rate is the highest since 1976, but more than a fifth of students are still failing to get their diploma in four years, the Education Department said in a study released Tuesday.

The Department of Labor is making available a $75 million grant to fund YouthBuild, which creates programs to help out-of-school youths finish high school or General Educational Development programs as well as develop occupational skills in industries such as construction, health care and information technology.