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In an employer's market, some recruiters and employers feel that they can get away with behaviour that no respectable human resource professional would contemplate in better times. While it may seem that with a seemingly endless supply of applicants hunting for work that consequences are minimal, they should consider the impact that poor treatment of job applicants will have on their professional reputations and on the bottom line of their businesses when the economy improves.

Do you want to know which companies were awarded big contracts for goods and services, and might logically be needing extra help? Good news: government departments are generally required to disclose contracts larger than $10,000, so the information you seek will eventually be made public. The various departments disclose contracts separately, but the Treasury Board Secretariat has kindly assembled a directory of links that can help you find what you are looking for.

Need to contact someone about a Canadian government job? Want to know who you might be working with? Need a name or two to show you've done your research? Maybe you just need an inside address for a formal cover letter or the location of your future workplace. All of that can be found on-line.

Anonymous sources report that Santa's once-booming business will be forced to put more elves on the unemployment lines once this holiday season is over. "This is not your usual seasonal workforce reduction", says elf rights activist Elrond Hubbard. "It's something much more serious, and many of are very concerned."

Santa himself was unavailable for comment, and his representatives from Scrouge, Scrouge & Grinch would not confirm or deny the reports.

Have you ever wondered if that customer support rep you waited hours to speak with is from another planet? Well, it just might be the case, if not now, perhaps in the near future, as Earthly companies look to lower operating costs even further, according to Xark!*ga*@h, a spokesbeing for Arcturus-based recruitment firm Galactic Solutions.

User Trinity sent this link about huge layoffs at EA that will put plenty of experienced game developers and the like into the market. EA Lays Off 1500 Despite Record Digital Revenues

A reader recently asked for information about an unidentified advertiser of jobs that has been posting job ads on various job boards using the address jobpostings101(AT)gmail.com. While I did not have any special information about the identity of the poster, be it an employer, agency or individual recruiter, a search of Google showed where they have been posting ads, for how long and what they advertised.

Try as you might, you will be hard pressed to find a computer running any flavour of Linux or other free software in a store, or visible where the curious can use it. Sure, you might happen upon an individual with one of the new netbooks running Ubuntu, but you can hardly be blamed for thinking that your only choices in software are the latest Microsoft products or Apple's Mac offerings. Now, however, coffee drinkers in central Ottawa can use free software to stay connected while they enjoy their java at a local fair trade co-op shop.

Sunday, June 21st, was National Aboriginal Day in Canada. While many people marked the day with gatherings and cultural activities, elsewhere, the Earth did not stand still. Most in the world of information technology didn't even notice. The big software companies continue to produce programs with support for English and a selection of popular languages, leaving other cultures to hope for support by enthusiastic open source developers or fade into irrelevancy in a digital age.