If you are polishing your resume, the old-fashioned chronological resume with the most recent job on top is still the favorite, according to 75 percent of those surveyed by  Accountemps, a staffing firm that specializes in temporary accounting, finance and bookkeeping professionals. The company quizzed 150 senior executives at large firms.

"Chronological resumes allow job seekers to present their career progression to employers in a straight-forward, easy-to-follow way," Max Messmer, chairman of Accountemps and author of "Job Hunting for Dummies," said in a press-release about the survey. "Functional resumes, which emphasize skill sets rather than jobs held, are popular among professionals in career transition or who have had lengthy gaps in employment, but they are not a favorite of employers. It is often better to address a career challenge directly than to try to write around it."

Address employment gaps in your cover letter. "In this economic environment, hiring managers understand that people could be out of work through no fault of their own," Messmer advises.

The Pew Research Center published a study yesterday saying that the media's coverage of the gravest economic crisis since the Great Depression has largely been covered from the top down and that the voices of the unemployed and others who have suffered have largely been absent.

What do you think? I have a weird reaction to these studies about the "media." Of course, I am a member of the "media" and happy to be working, actually.  But, then again, I'm also a mother, and a wife, and volunteer etc., etc. So it seems disconcerting. Are they talking about me? Jane? Anyway -- I hope I've been including the voice of the people in my stories. But I also think that any one who is unemployed, and there are many who are, or have been, already understand the pain and sorrow that goes with it.  I can write about that and I have, but I think we need to bring more than an individual's sad tale to the readers. I wrestle with whether those tales are exploitative. In my opinion, when we, or rather when I, write about an individual's suffering, I want to place it in a larger context, because, otherwise, it smacks of voyeurism. Comments? Am I missing something? Please let me know.

I guess I'm on a little bit of a manufacturing jag because of being so discouraged about last week's jobs numbers. Just to give you an idea of what I mean, Pennsylvania lost 97,600 "goods-producing" jobs between August 2009 and August 2008. During that same period, 93,900 service jobs were lost. Of the 97,600 goods-producing jobs, 73,500 were in manufacturing. Just to give you an idea, that's about 10,000 more jobs more than the entire populations of Norristown, Doylestown, West Chester and Media combined-- the local suburban county seats. Nationally, manufacturing lost 51,000 jobs in the month of September, alone.

"Pennsylvania has lost more than one-quarter of its manufacturing jobs in eight years and 50,000 factories in the last decade," Scott N. Paul, executive director of Alliance for American Manufacturing, told the Philadelphia Inquirer's editorial board on Monday. One problem, he said, is that students coming out of schools are not prepared to take on skilled manufacturing jobs.  Well, if the jobs aren't there, why train for them? However, if the workforce isn't there, the investment won't be either.

One solution might be to require public works projects to use American-made goods, even if it does come with a higher price tag. But how should one then balance the interests of taxpayers in lower taxes against the interests of businesses that would benefit by getting lucrative contracts? That was a question from one of our editorial board members. It was a good question. Paul's answer was that there should be some kind of cap -- if the difference between a foreign-made item and a local item is more than 20 percent, for example, then the requirement would be waived.

The Alliance for American Manufacturing is a combined management and union enterprise advocating for manufacturing. 

So what would it actually take to bring back more manufacturing? (With the idea that manufacturing equals jobs.) Scott Paul, executive director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, talked about that at a meeting of the Inquirer editorial board yesterday. Paul said one of the biggest issues is how China prices its currency in conjunction with the U.S. dollar. The current pricing structure gives China a 20 to 40 percent advantage when it comes to selling goods, he said. Obviously, it is difficult for Americans, including American companies, to buy American products when Chinese goods are less expensive, especially because of currency imbalances, he said. 

In the 1980s, Paul said, there was a similar problem with the yen and with some European currencies. President Reagan negotiated a change and the U.S. trade balance shifted more in America's favor. Other disparities, including the cost of labor and fewer regulations, are less of a problem than the currency imbalance, he said. Creating the market for American manufactured goods would be a first step to encouraging investment in manufacturing. 

The Alliance is a joint management and labor policy and lobbying group dedicated to promoting a pro-manufacturing environment. (Yes, they do work together, as shocking as that may seem!)

By the way, did any of you go to the Alliance's event at Lincoln Financial Field last night? I was unable to attend, but I'd be curious to hear some reports.

The last set of numbers that came out from the U.S. Labor Department profoundly depressed me. I really don't see how the economy is going to emerge from this mess. Besides the big number of 263,000 jobs lost and an unemployment rate of 9.8 percent, it was the many, many less-publicized numbers that disheartened me as much.  Weekly wages declined by $1.54. No one is making any money anyway. Overtime hours are down. The work week is now down to 33 hours, the lowest in a long time. The manufacturing workweek declined as well, after a couple of months of growth. My contacts in the temporary staffing industry and in recruiting tell me they are seeing a pick-up. And yes, the numbers indicate a pathetic growth of 800 jobs in "employment services." Yet temporary help jobs are still declining -- by 1,700 jobs.  Nothing will move until those numbers move.

And frankly, why should they move? We aren't making anything, ergo, there's little for the service industry to serve. A knowledge economy? Hmmm. Again, what endeavors require knowledge? Tonight there's a town hall meeting on manufacturing at Lincoln Financial Field that addresses the topic. The organizer is the Alliance for American Manufacturing and besides the executive director of the organization, the speakers include Sen. Bob Casey and the head of a manufacturing company. The Alliance also includes labor unions, including United Steelworkers -- unions, like many, who are interested in a strong manufacturing sector.

Maybe there will be some answers there, although I'm not sure exactly what Eagle Jeremiah Trotter or former Eagle Vincent Papale, both on the lineup for tonight, will add to the debate.

If nothing else, the price is right. It's free, the parking is free and the event includes a tour of the Lincoln Financial Field. Refreshments available. Time is 6 p.m. on the clubhouse level.    

Finally, my apologies for the break in the blog. I had a combination of a couple of short vacations, taking kids off to college, adjusting to them being gone and some out-of-town assignments, but you can expect more faithful blogging going forward.

Firings continue as more Philly-area chief financial officers expect to layoff members of their crew instead of adding new finance folks in the fourth quarter (which, can you believe it -- starts in four weeks!!??). But the real news here is that both the layoff and hiring numbers are small. It's 10 percent firing, six percent hiring. The remainder are expecting to hold onto the status quo. That's the good news from Robert Half International, a staffing firm that specializes in finance hiring and, obviously, survey taking. This Philly news is based on interviews with 200 local CFOs.

In a suffocating economy, a breather counts as good news. You can see how we stack up with the national stats by clicking here. 

In honor of Labor Day, I'd like to invite you to the movies. Has anybody been following the divorce of Unite-Here? You'll love this video dual. Five years ago, the former needle workers and garment workers' union (Unite) merged with the hotel and restaurant employees' union (Here). The relationship didn't work out and now they are involved in an ugly and confusing divorce. Philadelphia has been a hot bed in the divorce because unlike Las Vegas and Atlantic City, where the former Here leadership retained control of the union, the Unite leadership in Philly took over control of the hotel and cafeteria workers' locals.

Now both sides are duking it out in Philly. You can read the story I wrote about it last month. The question is whether the Unite people (now known as Workers United) should back off from what were traditionally Here locals. Or is five years of leadership enough for Unite to retain control of these two Philly locals? Anyway, Happy Labor Day. I'm at the parade this morning, covering it for our city desk. Enjoy the movies.

This one is from the viewpoint of the Here organization in Philadelphia.  

This one is from the Unite, Workers United, Philadelphia Joint Board point of view. 

Next week, I'm going out to Pittsburgh to meet Rich Trumka, the number two guy at the AFL-CIO and a complete shoo-in to take over the nation's largest labor federation when current leader John Sweeney retires this year. So what should I ask Trumka? Trumka's a former miner and a lawyer who grew up in southwestern Pennsylvania. One of the top officials in the United Mine Workers told me that he was happy that Trumka would be leading the AFL-CIO because, as he said, Trumka has chutzpah. He used another word related to the male anatomy

I've met Trumka before and he is very personable, but I find that, at least in public, most leaders of large organizations are personable. 

Please, send me your suggestions. My question is whether unions have any ability whatsoever to turn around the flood of layoffs we've seen.  

Pennsylvania's Department of Labor and Industry put out a report yesterday with a minuscule piece of good news. The unemployment rate for our larger region, encompassing Philadelphia, the surrounding Pa. counties, Camden and its nearby counties and parts of Delaware and Maryland, dropped by one percentage point to 8.5 percent in July. Nice reading, but close to meaningless.It probably reflects a diminishing labor pool as people leaving the job market in desperation. You really need to see some movement for it to matter, but any glimmer will do...

Philadelphia is hurting the most with more than one in 10 unemployed.  It's now up to 10.3 percent from 7.1 percent a year ago. Lowest among the four suburban counties is Chester, with a 6.5 percent unemployment rate. The others are 7.4 percent in Bucks, 7.6 percent in Delco and 7.1 percent in Montgomery County.