There have been quite a few "employment" related news pieces this week. Another company declares a hike in its hourly pay (you may also want to check this out), more new job numbers, and the world's largest company is in the news again. Check out what happened this week below so you can sound super smart and on top of it when you chat with your mother-in-law at Passover/Easter/whatever holiday you celebrate festivities this weekend. 

1) US Economy Gained 126,000 Jobs in March, an Abrupt Slowdown in Hiring from The New York Times

"The labor market’s yearlong streak of robust monthly job creation was broken on Friday with the Labor Department’s report that employers added just 126,000 workers in March, a marked slowdown in hiring thatechoed earlier signs of a winter pall on the economy. Analysts blamed the punishing weather in the Northeast as well as the plunge in oil prices. "The American energy industry is adjusting very quickly to low oil prices, and so we’ve seen this in the counts of the number of rigs that are active and are seeing in mining and energy-related industries," said Carl Tannenbaum, chief economist at Northern Trust. "The bad news is we’re losing some jobs. The good news, is we hope, that the average consumer is saving a tremendous amount of money in lower gasoline prices.""

2) McDonald's Joins Trends in Raising Pay from The Wall Street Journal

"McDonald’s Corp. plans to raise wages by more than 10% for workers at U.S. restaurants it operates—fresh evidence of the rising wage pressure in the American labor market. Starting July 1, McDonald’s will pay at least $1 an hour more than the local minimum wage for employees at the roughly 1,500 restaurants it owns in the U.S. The move follows similar efforts by other major U.S. employers including Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which is raising hourly pay for 500,000 workers to at least $10 next year, and reflects wider public pressures over income inequality as well as intensifying competition for low-skilled workers."

3) When Wal-Mart Comes to Town, What Does it Mean for Workers? from NPR

"One of the biggest objections critics often raise about Wal-Mart is how it treats its workers. The company has long been hammered by critics for its low pay and erratic work schedules. And its worker policies have a major impact on economies: With more than 2 million people on the payroll — 1.4 million of them in the U.S. — it's the third-largest employer in the world, behind the U.S. Defense Department and the People's Liberation Army of China. So when Wal-Mart sets its sights on an urban area, it brings controversy — but it also brings jobs."

4) 67.9% of Americans Getting New Jobs Aren't Even Looking for New Jobs from Business Insider

"Most people who get new jobs aren't even looking new jobs. That's according a new research paper by Carlos Carrillo-Tudela, Bart Hobijn, Patryk Perkowski, and Ludo Visschers, published by the San Francisco Fed. The results of their study show that "more than three-quarters of workers who switched employers did not report active job search in the previous three months. Thus the bulk of job-to-job transitions does not adhere to the usual interpretation of the labor market matching process in which employees actively seek out job openings posted by employers.""

5) 5 Things We Learned about Silicon Valley Culture from the Ellen Pao Trial from Mashable 

"After three years, Ellen Pao's long, difficult legal battle with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers is finally at an end. And although Pao didn't get the outcome she'd hoped for, she seemed to take solace in the fact that she was able to tell her story — salacious details and all — to thousands of people around the world. For five weeks, Silicon Valley watched with rapt attention as the trial aired the normally cloistered inner workings of one of the tech industry's most powerful firms. Big-name power players who normally hide behind carefully crafted media messages were grilled by top-notch lawyers, as reporters gathered day after day to watch."

6) Future Of Work: Using Gamification For Human Resources from Forbes

"2015 will be the year gamification inside the workplace migrates from a few isolated pilots to a new way to engage and recognize high performing employees. Gamification takes the essence of games — attributes such as fun, play, transparency, design, competition and yes, addiction— and applies these to a range of real-world processes inside a company from recruiting to learning & development. Gaming concepts have begun working their way into key HR processes in two ways: as a serious game such as the example below from PwC in recruiting new job candidates to cloud based gamification engines offered by Badgeville, BunchBalland Axonify.  Both forms of gamification are moving into the enterprise as companies look for new ways to attract, engage, incentivize and retain employees."

Lexi Gordon is a Lead Consultant for exaqueo, a workforce consultancy that helps organizations build their cultures, employer brands and talent strategies. Contact exaqueo to learn more about how we can help you build a workforce that’s aligned with your company culture and develop an employer brand that will allow your business to scale the right way.