The Suite Spot
Grabbing A Bite: Chewing over job losses
John Challenger is no gastronomical snob. On a typical workday, you're just as likely to find this labor market expert in line at Potbelly's, a Windy City favorite, for a toasted Italian hoagie, as at the tony, members-only Metropolitan Club of Chicago. "I'm hooked on those subs," he says.
But when it's time for an old-fashioned business lunch, Challenger usually heads up to the 67th floor of the Sears Tower, where the Metropolitan's panoramic views make you feel you can see all the way to China. How appropriate.
As head of the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Challenger's job is to help downsized workers reposition their careers for a new economy that many fear will outsource more jobs to cheaper labor markets like China and India.
But Challenger does not blame outsourcing for the slow pace at which jobs have been created in this recovery. In between spoonfuls of beef minestrone soup, served over a bed of Spanish orzo, he explains why productivity and technology gains are mostly to blame. And as he works his way to the main course of grilled shrimp caesar salad, Challenger reminds us that globalization is a two-way street. "We want to bring consumer goods back at low prices for our markets," he says, but Americans agonize that job growth is overseas and not here.
The good news: Challenger believes there will be huge opportunities for workers who speak multiple languages or have scientific expertise, especially in the life sciences. The bad news: Challenger doesn't think the next big job boom will take place until the next economic cycle, around 2008. In the meantime, it's more of a hoagie economy than a filet mignon one. -Paul J. Lim
Book Nook: Trump-eting Himself
By the third sentence of Donald Trump's impeccably timed new book, you know you're dealing with the same "short-fingered vulgarian" pilloried for his excesses on the pages of spy magazine in the late 1980s. "Business Rule #1," Trump intones, after reminding readers that his last literary effort, The Art of the Deal, was a national bestseller: "If you don't tell people about your success, they probably won't know about it." Brash, arrogant, unrepentantly over the top--that's to be expected from the Donald, no? Which is perhaps why How to Get Rich --so titled, says Trump, because it's the question he's most often asked--surprises with its touches of sentiment. In the chapter "A Week in the Life," Trump hollers at shiftless contractors, discloses a fondness for McDonald's, and shamelessly drops names of celeb pals like Regis, Hugh Grant, and Melanie Griffith. But he also includes this gooey morsel: "Keep a box by your desk for mementos of the people and events that matter in your life and career. Reviewing the contents every now and then will keep you aware of your good fortune." Other surprises--like a chapter called "Read Carl Jung"--await, but lest you think Trump has gone soft, get-rich tips like "Sometimes You Still Have to Screw Them" abound. And, for the record, the hair--in all its strange glory--is totally Trump. Page 151 promises: "No animals have been harmed in the creation of my hairstyle." -Joellen Perry
This story appears in the April 19, 2004 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
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