Business

In the U.S. schooling system, shop classes often have a reputation for being the "slacker classes" -- the easy A's that students take to fill up space, rather than for the purpose of truly learning a skill. That perception, though, might not be based in reality as the market for auto mechanics heats up throughout the U.S.Evan Fischbach is one example of a success story. Two years out of high school, he is already making $40,000 a year -- with expected earnings of $60,000 once he gains more industry experience. Fischbach took an automotive class during his junior year of high school, and right away realized he wanted to work on cars.His parents, both college-educated, weren't sure about his career options. But before he even graduated, a local auto dealer with too few mechanics on hand offe...

Dutch Glow is the newest "As Seen on TV" hit, offering what promoters call "a pure and simple furniture polish from a pure and simple people." But does this miracle "Amish Wood Milk" really perform as advertised? The infomercials are tantalizing, showing intrepid cleaners spritzing Dutch Glow on wooden furniture and removing years of wax buildup and residue with one swipe of a soft cloth. And the results really do glow on TV, especially when you consider that the product is priced at about $10. Woods look brighter, warmer, and cleaner in seconds.But does Dutch Glow really bring your furniture back to life? And what exactly is "Amish Wood Milk?"No one seems to know. Ingredients aren't listed on the website, and through promoters shill a "100 year formula," there's no definitive connection t...

In New York City, members of the construction industry are petitioning the city to loosen safety regulations they claim have halted hundreds of jobs. Currently, construction sites are required to pass a safety inspection that ensures that the safety equipment they use is up to standards. However, shortages of trained safety inspectors are reportedly causing jobs to be put on hold for months as they wait for a requisite inspection. According to the Department of Buildings, there are only about 500 active inspectors working in the city. This is especially problematic as construction in the city has entered a boom cycle, putting a number of multi-million dollar projects on hold as inspectors work through several months worth of examinations. This has had a number of consequences for the co...

House flipping might be risky, but it can also be highly profitable. According to a new report by CNBC, however, house flippers need to get smarter -- the margins for flippers are smaller, and it's led to a much larger group of high-end house flippers, at least for now. "Flippers no longer have the luxury of 20 to 30% annual price gains to pad their profits," explains Daren Blomquist, the VP of RealtyTrac, a real estate information website. "As the market softens, successful flippers will need to focus on finding properties that they can buy at a discount and efficiently add value to." Consequently, many home-flippers have been looking toward high-end neighborhoods. Not only do these homes have greater potential for adding value, but they are also being bought by less penny-pinching ...

Recent studies have discovered something surprising about the use of closed captioning for video content created for search engine optimization (SEO): it's surprisingly effective. According to a July 29 Business2Community article, adding closed captioning and transcripts to a video can increase "traffic, page views, search rank, and engagement." In a Discovery Digital Networks study that measured the impact of captioning on web videos, videos with closed captioning saw a 13.48% growth in views and a lifetime increase of views by 7.32%, according to Business2Community. In addition to causing an increase in the number of views a video gets, closed captioning can also help a video move up the ranks in search engine results faster, which is what every SEO strategy tries to attain. ...

Job seekers and current employees alike are usually pretty familiar with random drug testing, and the majority of people have either had to take a random drug test for a job or expect to do so in the near future. Jobs that directly affect the health and safety of others -- and especially those jobs which have the potential to be very high-profile, such as police work and firefighting -- are nearly expected to mandate drug tests for employees. But one group of workers have remained untouched by random drug tests, despite being directly responsible for the health of others: doctors. But if the state of California has anything to say about it, this may change soon. This coming November, a mandate, called Proposition 46, requiring that all doctors be subject to random drug and alcohol tests...

California is still caught in the grips of a severe drought that has everyone worried about what the future holds for residents, farms, and rivers alike. According to the latest released records, the state's reservoirs are still "dangerously low."The drought has caused a series of repercussions that there is no quick relief from anytime soon. Residents have been asked to drastically cut back on their water intake. Consequently, the sale of pools has fallen dramatically in a state often known for its excessive homes and gardens. Landscaping has had an impact, as many residents choose to stop watering their lawns every day. Almond farmers are battling local tribes, who rely on salmon in the Klamath River, for reservoir water.In San Diego, Bruce Henderson was worried about his lemon groves, w...

Louise Smith, a retail manager from Riverside in Tamworth, England, was looking for a fun accessory for her first dog almost two years ago. Despite an allergy to dogs, 26-year-old Smith, a mother to six-year-old Jake, ended up buying her pug George when she fell in love with his "character, charm and crazy personality." Yet when Smith went to find a fun accessory to fit her "baby's" personality, she and George were unhappy with the choice of doggie t-shirt. She decided that a simple bandana would do the trick instead, but she came up empty after trying to find a suitable one online. A few weeks later, however, Smith discovered a fabric stall in her local market and decided to try making her own doggie accessories. "I bought a few meters of different fabrics, dusted off my se...

Most people are already familiar with Yelp, the popular website which allows users to score and review local businesses like restaurants and hotels. But what if you need to score your moving company? Unpakt is a fairly new comparison site specifically for movers. Through Unpakt, users can already find and book legitimate companies online, but the company recently announced a new and even more useful service. Users will now be able to receive free and immediate price quotes through a calculation tool on the website. The Quick Quotes feature will provide users with price quotes in less than a minute from Unpakt's pre-approved list of companies, and they can select a good offer as soon as they receive it, which guarantees that they'll be charged the offered price. This is possible be...