Employment

American companies are so eager to hire highly skilled foreign workers that a cap on new visas has been reached within a matter of days. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced Friday that it has received more than 85,000 applications from employers seeking visas for computer programmers, engineers, physicians and other educated workers with specialized skills. Of the total visas, 20,000 are set aside for people with graduate degrees from American universities. Because the 85,000 limit was exceeded within five days of the April 1 opening date, a lottery will be held to distribute the visas.

Re "A thin jobs docket for law grads," April 2 Thank you for shedding light on what has become a pervasive issue among recent law school graduates like myself. As a fellow Southwestern Law School alumnus, I sympathize with Michael D. Lieberman's plight, as I too was greeted with unemployment after graduating and passing the bar exam. At issue here is Southwestern's lack of empathy regarding its recent graduates. Startlingly, Southwestern's only communication with me since graduation has been in the form of letters and calls seeking donations.

The best way to hire productive employees is to look for people with qualifications, talent, honesty and commitment. Now, however, a small but growing number of employers are looking for something else as well: job applicants who don't smoke. As much as we despair of the death and damage caused by tobacco, this new employment criterion strikes us as a lamentable and unwarranted intrusion into applicants' private lives - and one that should worry anyone in this country who has an elevated risk for any sort of injury or illness.

Barbara Piasecka Johnson, a former chambermaid who married into the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical family and walked away with part of its epic fortune after a bitterly contested battle over her husband's will, died Monday in her native Poland. She was 76. Her office, BPJ Holdings, in Princeton, N.J., said she died after a long illness. One of the world's richest women, she was a longtime resident of Monaco. Known as Basia, in 1971 she became the third wife of J. Seward Johnson, a son of Johnson & Johnson co-founder Robert Wood Johnson and a director of the New Brunswick, N.J.-based company for 50 years.

WASHINGTON -- Employment growth slowed last month as the private sector added 158,000 jobs, a sharp reduction from February and below analyst expectations, payroll processing firm ADP said Wednesday. The March figure was well below the 237,000 private-sector jobs added in February, a number that was revised up from the initial report of 198,000. Economists had expected ADP would show about 200,000 private-sector jobs were added in March. The ADP report is a key private data point ahead of the government's monthly unemployment report, which is due Friday.

President Obama's recent Middle East trip showed what good things can result from thoughtful, direct presidential involvement. The president addressed young Israelis, reassured allies in the region and brokered an Israeli apology to Turkey for a deadly raid on a flotilla attempting to take supplies to Gaza. The president should employ that same sort of diplomacy toward North Korea. An increasingly dangerous confrontation is building between the United States and North Korea. The outrageous rhetoric pouring out of Pyongyang makes it difficult to do anything more than dismiss North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Un. But abandoning diplomacy would be extremely dangerous.

SAN FRANCISCO - Michael D. Lieberman decided to enroll at Southwestern Law School after reading that 97% of its graduates were employed within nine months. He graduated in 2009, passed the bar on his first try but could not find a job as a lawyer. He worked for a while as a software tester, then a technical writer, and now serves as a field representative for an elected official. Lieberman, who earned his undergraduate degree at UC San Diego, is one of dozens of law graduates across the country who have joined class-action lawsuits, alleging that law schools lured them in with misleading reports of their graduates' success.

California's economic growth revved up in February as employers added 41,200 jobs, one of the highest monthly gains since the Great Recession ended nearly four years ago. The payroll gains helped push the unemployment rate down to 9.6% from 9.8% in January, according to data released Friday by the state Employment Development Department. The growth in net new jobs, buoyed by increased consumer spending, was another positive sign for a state that has steadily gained jobs over the last year, hitting a monthly high of 74,000 in January 2012.

Like the sluggish box office, the jobs picture in Hollywood isn't looking pretty so far this year. Employment in the motion picture, television and sound recording category fell 7.3% to 114,700 jobs in January, compared with the same period a year ago, according to the latest figures from the state's Employment Development Department. In fact, the employment level in January was the lowest of any month since January 2001, when employment also stood at 106,300 jobs, according to the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp.

About 5 million Californians got a first glimpse at what they might pay next year under the federal healthcare law. For many, that coverage will come with a hefty price tag. Compared with what individual policies cost now, premiums are expected to rise an average of 30% for many middle-income residents who don't get their insurance through their employers. Alternatively, lower-income consumers will reap the biggest savings and are projected to save as much as 84% off their coverage thanks to federal subsidies.