Finance jobs few and far between

If you’re looking for a finance job in the New York area, good luck.
According to the Robert Half International Financial Hiring Index, only 9 percent of the 200 chief financial officers surveyed in the New York area expect to hire accounting or finance employees in the third quarter, while 10 percent plan to cut financial [...]

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Who loves Broadwater?

Hold on one second.
Nearly every politician on Long Island opposes Broadwater. A recent Hofstra University poll shows more Islanders oppose the liquefied natural gas terminal off Wading River’s coast. And editorial writers - including this one - wonder if $300 in annual savings per household really is enough to make the LNG worthwhile.
Wouldn’t you know [...]

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Get some sleep … at home

With workdays getting longer, and more people spending several hours a night on work they bring home, it seems our workforce is sleepier than usual.
According to a survey released by the National Sleep Foundation, people on average get six hours and 40 minutes of sleep a night. And as a result, one-third of survey respondents [...]

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But the bathrooms stink

The results of the Long Island Rail Road’s annual customer suggest that when it comes to the ride customers are a bit more satisfied than last year.
But when it comes to the bathrooms at Penn Station … satisfaction goes down the toilet.
On a scale from 0 to 10, customers rated the LIRR experience a 6.7, [...]

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Not us, say it ain’t so

Journalists get a lot of e-mail, and most have absolutely nothing to do with the areas they write about. For example, a pitch about a blooming Palo Alto, Calif.-based manufacturer of silent Velcro may have trouble finding a spot in Long Island Business News. But at least only time, and not a tree, was [...]

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Long Island is great for women

Take that, Long Island naysayers. According to Self Magazine, our region is the second healthiest place for women, beating New York City, which placed 8th.
San Francisco earned the top spot.
From the Daily News article:
Nassau and Suffolk counties took second place in Self magazine’s annual “Healthiest Places for Women” survey.
Self’s editors considered 50 categories - [...]

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Stop the gossip, I’m working here

The office can be a zoo of distractions, from riotous chit chat to the noxious aromas of an onion-packed salad or microwaved Parmesan cheese, making it hard to always get what you need done … done.
But what are the worst office pet peeves?
According to an article in Inc.com, workplace gossip is the king of office [...]

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They don’t care about you

Consulting group Towers Perrin released a comprehensive survey that shows, to no one’s real surprise, that employees want to work where the management team cares about them.
Unfortunately, only 38 percent of the 90,000 Americans polled believed senior management had a “sincere interest” in employees’ satisfaction and well-being.
Whose fault is this? It’s not only the employer. [...]

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Questionable accounting on the decline

Questionable accounting, Long Island is familiar with that. We’ve seen Sanjay Kumar go to jail for his part in accounting fraud at CA Inc. David Brooks, former chief executive of DHB Industries has yet to face the law for his part in the accounting troubles at the body armor maker, but that didn’t stop the [...]

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AVZ Survey: Biz Blog helps out

Once again, your valued input is in demand.
Hauppauge-based accounting firm Albrecht, Viggiano, Zureck & Co. once a year releases its Long Island Economic Survey and Opinion Poll, a business focused questionnaire it sends to business leaders in the area.
The firm has already sent out 6,000 surveys, but this year it is asking participants of LI [...]

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Another bad survey for Cablevision

Does Cablevision get the short end of the stick?
A week after the Bethpage-based cable company finished a close second in service quality to Verizon in a PC World survey, a new survey says a third of Cablevision subscribers are considering switching to another service provider.
According to a survey conducted by Flake-Wilkerson Market Insights, 40 percent [...]

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USA in 16th? You must be joking

The No. 1 superpower in the world is 16th when it comes to broadband speed.
The United States averages download speeds of 1.9 Mbps, that’s about the DSL range, placing it well below the pack, according to an article in Computerworld.
For example, Japan, which holds the top spot, averages 62 Mbps, South Korea averages 45 Mbps, [...]

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FiOS wins in photo finish

Last year, Cablevison was ranked the No. 1 Internet service provider in the nation by a PC World survey. This year the Bethpage-based company dropped to 2nd place.
Can you guess which ISP placed 1st?
Verizon’s FiOS fiber optic service knocked Cablevision out of the winners circle, but according to the survey results, it was pretty close.
For [...]

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Pindar to survey vineyard visitors

The largest winery on Long Island wants to know what makes people desire to visit our local wine country.
Pindar Vineyards said it will ask tasting room visitors to fill out the Long Island Wine Country Visitor Survey which contains a series of questions designed to gather their demographic as well as their motives for visiting.
Ten [...]

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Is it Mac or PC for LI’s bizpeople?

Readers of LI Biz Blog are most likely members of the business community, and most likely plugged into all sorts of technology. But what kinds?
Let’s inventory the tech we hold dear.
First, is it Mac or PC?
And Verizon, AT&T, Sprint or T-Mobile?
Vista or XP?
Blackberries?
iPod or Zune?
Firefox or Explorer?
Plasma, LCD or DLP?
Gateway or Dell?
Write a brief rundown [...]

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Hamptons beaches among the best

When it comes to beaches, Long Island has some of the best.
Here’s the proof. Florida International University Professor Stephen Leatherman, who calls himself “Doctor Beach,” released his list of the top 10 beaches in the United States today, and Long Island beaches landed two spots.
Southampton’s Coopers Beach earned third place while Main Beach in East [...]

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There’s your seat, get to work

Orientation, it’s not just for college anymore.
According to another study conducted by Menlo Park, Calif.-based Robert Half International — I hope you don’t tire of these surveys because I find them fascinating — a third of new employees aren’t properly orientated at the start of a new job.
But two out of three … ain’t bad, [...]

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Team building to the extreme

If the old trust fall isn’t good enough for you — you know, when you cross your arms in front of you and fall backwards, trusting appointed teammates to catch you — then perhaps you’re ready for some more innovative, and even adventurous, team-building activities.
According to another survey conducted by Robert Half International’s The Creative [...]

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MacArthur comes in fourth for cheapness

It may not be grand, its terminal might not offer Wi-Fi, but Long Island MacArthur Airport is the region’s top when it comes to cheap fares.
The Bureau of Transportation Statistics released a study listing the five airports with the lowest fares, as well as the five with the highest.
Here are the highest:

Anchorage
Cincinnati
Honolulu
San Francisco
New York Kennedy

And [...]

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You know the Long Island Sound is polluted, don’t you?

The Long Island Sound is a fun and generally beautiful body of water, but we all know it’s not the cleanest … don’t we?
Nope. According to a Stony Brook University survey, most people are not informed about the polluted state of the Sound, as well as the different factors that dirty the waters.
The survey also [...]

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Skills, schmills, it’s the smile I’m after

Hey, you impersonal and unsocial loner know-it-alls, your skills might mean squat.
According to a new survey conducted by temp rancher OfficeTeam, bosses are more impressed by soft skills than they are by hard-edged technical expertise.
Sixty-seven percent polled said they would rather hire an administrative staff member with strong organization and communication skills, even if their [...]

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Who can rise to the challenge?

When the boss jumps ship there is often an in-house tussle for the empty seat. Too bad some suggest that bout is being fought by nitwits.
According to a study conducted by The Creative Group, which is owned by Menlo Park, Calif.-based Robert Half International Inc., 39 percent of advertising and marketing executives have no faith [...]

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