If you work in Greece, chances are you can retire at age 50. Why does Greece have such low retirement ages? Over the years, strong unions negotiated a myriad of concessions as they dealt with weak governments, explains Landon Thomas Jr of the New York Times.

At present, there are 580 categories that deem work in those fields hazardous enough for early retirement. Here are some examples:

• Hairdressers -- Hairdressers who work with dyes, chemicals and ammonia, which are labeled hazardous, qualify for early retirement. Early retirement is age 50 for women and age 55 for men.
• Coal mining and bomb disposal are other categories that entitle workers to early retirement.
• Radio and television presenters fall into this category because of the bacteria on their microphones.
• Musicians playing wind instruments are early retirees because they deal with gastric reflux as the puff and blow.

Most investors understand the relationship between job growth and the U.S. economy: For a sustained U.S. economic expansion to occur, there must be job growth.

Further, politically, the responsibility for lowering unemployment rests with the party in power -- President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats. That's how the American political system works. It doesn't matter whether the problem started on your watch -- if you hold the office, you're responsible at election time. End of discussion.

Unemployment has been a major concern for Americans over the past couple of years, but we get a bit of good news that job openings rose by 7.6% in January, compared with December.

Indicating that employers are at least starting to hire again, new job openings rose to 2.7 million. This is the highest level since back in February 2009.

While looking around NYTimes.com I stumbled across this rather scary-looking graph. That's a graph of the job losses in the past recessions, and ours is that rather nasty-looking dark blue line. Notice how steep the decline compared to other recessions at the same time.

Yes, this recession has been rather ugly, but I am not telling you any "breaking news" here. The article points out that 6.1% of the economy's nonfarm payroll jobs were lost since the beginning of the recession. Unfortunately, we can't be certain that we have reached the end of the job losses.

There's good news and bad news regarding the new $15 billion jobs bill just passed by the U.S. House, 217-201.

The good news is, as a result of the Senate's passage of the bill earlier, and only minor alterations, the Senate should make speedy work of approving those revisions, before the bill is sent to President Barack Obama.

According to a recent nationwide survey conducted by Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, the glory days of America's labor unions are fading. At least they're fading in the eyes of the general populace.

Speculation varies widely about the reasons for the tarnishing of organized labor's luster. However, the decline of union favor is quite real. The approval of labor unions has decreased across a very wide demographic cross section of America, including in union-oriented households.

Ianthe Dugan is on target. Exceptionally connected with both Wall Street and Main Street, she wrote about employment in The Wall Street Journal (subscription required): "Working Two Jobs and Still Underemployed." Though written a few months ago, the article presciently places WSJs finger on the pulse of post-employed reality for many people today.

We meet a former employee working two jobs to earn a third of what he used to earn in a manufacturing job. Part of the "mancession," he is "part of a growing group of underemployed -- people in part-time jobs who want full-time work or people in jobs that don't employ their skills. Since the recession began two years ago, the number of people involuntarily working part-time jobs has more than doubled to 9.3 million, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, the highest number on record."

It appears Senate Democrats have wised-up and adjusted their expectations to the reality of Senate, where the "Party of No," the Republicans, wields nearly equal power.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D.-Nevada) dispensed with elaborate jobs bill negotiations and trimmed the jobs package to four items for which he knows he can get at least a filibuster-preventing 60 votes: a hiring tax break, an increase in highway spending, an extension of the Build America Bonds program, and tax breaks for small businesses, Bloomberg News reported Friday.

What might get the Republicans to bite on the jobs bill currently under formulation on Capitol Hill? A lack of an estate tax.

The bipartisan Senate bill that may come for a vote this week is not likely to include an extension of the estate tax, which expired at the end of 2009, Reuters reported Tuesday (however, Washington's likely, second heavy storm/blizzard in a week, expected to arrive Tuesday night, may delay the vote: most federal offices were closed again Tuesday for snow clean-up).

Last Thursday, MEMC Electronic Materials (WFR) announced that CEO Ahmad Chatila won't be accepting a $500,000 bonus for 2009. Instead, the money will go to retraining 450 workers that will be laid off from two plant closings. This story somehow has flown under the radar and did not get the attention it deserves.

Like many companies last year, MEMC did not meet its performance targets for 2009. And still no different than many other companies, it, too, decided to award more than $600,000 in bonuses, using "discretionary authority." These bonuses were awarded "in consideration of achievement of individual performance objectives."

One of the world's preeminent economists and former central bankers had some good news and not-so-good news for investors.

Speaking on NBC's Meet The Press on Sunday, Former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said, "The recession is over. It bottomed back in the middle of the year."

However, Greenspan added that, as many economists agree, the economic recovery will have to continue for some time to absorb the slack in the labor force to lower the U.S. unemployment rate significantly.

Even though the economy is still sluggish, things are much better than a year ago, when it looked like the global financial system was about to fall apart. In fact, it may be a good idea to expand your business.

Keep in mind that during times of big change, there are also big opportunities. However, to take advantage of these, you really need to go beyond your own abilities. In other words, you need to think about hiring.

Unfortunately, the hiring process is scary and complicated -- with many rules and risks. But an excellent new book can help out: Hire Your First Employee (get your free copy). Actually, I had a chance to talk to the author, Rhonda Abrams.

Jobless claims are big news in the financial markets and can cause the stock market to move; politicians to scurry looking for new programs and claim to be able to create or "save" a certain number of jobs.

Just this week the Labor Department reported January unemployment dropped to 9.7%.

Unemployment rate in the U.S. unexpectedly declined in January to 9.7%, while the U.S. economy shed 20,000 more jobs during the month. Since the Labor Department released the mixed jobs data, futures recovered from their losses and now point to a higher open.

First, the good news. The 9.7% unemployment rate is the lowest level since August. Economists had expected the unemployment to remain at 10% or rise to 10.1%. The so-called underemployment rate -- which includes part-time workers who'd prefer a full-time position and people who want work but have given up looking -- also fell to 16.5% from 17.3%.

Initial claims for unemployment rose by 8,000 to a seasonally adjusted 480,000 in the week ended January 30. This surprised economists polled by Reuters who anticipated a drop in claims falling to 460,000 from a previously reported 470,000. A reason given for the rise was the backlog in filings due to short staffing at some state offices.

Meanwhile, the four-week moving average of new claims rose 11,750 to 488,750 last week. The number of workers still receiving aid after one week jumped 2,000 to 4.6 million for the week ended January 23. This too, was above expectations of 4.58 million. The percent of insured in the labor force was unchanged at 3.5%