Work at Home Trend Is On The Rise, Even Among Non-Entrepreneurs

Employees Are Catching Up With Entrepreneurs On Working At Home

First Published: May 21, 2012 EntrepreneurJourney.com

In the past, it was thought that working at home was a luxury that could only be afforded by entrepreneurs. However, in the post-industrial economy, a greater numbers of paid employees are choosing to work at home. Due to the availability of technology and the increasing popularity of working at home, more employers are offering the option to work at home than ever before. 

I was looking for some stats to illustrate this trend. The most reliable I was able to find is a publication by Stats Canada made available in 2010. Let’s look at some numbers: 

Self-employed people working at home in 2000 = 1.4 million

Self-employed people working at home in 2008 = 1.8 million

Percentage of the workforce working at home in 2008 = 11.2% 

Percentage of people who are working at home and employees = 48% 

Percentage of people who are working at home and entrepreneurs = 52% 

More university graduates (22%) are working at home than high school graduates (7%). 

More male employees (29%) worked at home than female professionals (19%). 

More self-employed females (67%) are likely to work at home than males (56%). 

City employees are more likely to work at home than those who live outside a city. 

Now, if you are an entrepreneur and already working from home, you are well aware of the advantages of working at home. If you are an employee and would like to work from home, talk to your manager or HR dept. regarding work at home opportunities provided by your company. If you would like to search for work from home jobs, enter these keywords in your search queries: “work at home”, “part time”, “work from home”, and so on. 

Will India’s Stalled Economy Pick Up?

World Bank Cuts India’s Growth Forecast

First Published: ADawnJournal.com November 2, 2013

The days of the 8 percent GDP growth are distant memories and it seems like India’s economy has nowhere below to go, except up.

According to the global credit rating agency Moody’s, India should see a growth of 6.5 percent by the second half of 2015. On the same note, Moody’s expects fixed investment to grow 3.5 percent in 2014 as well.

However, the World Bank predicts a different picture. In a report released in recently, the World Bank cuts India’s GDP growth from 6.1 percent to 4.7 percent for 2013/2014 fiscal year and expects economy to go up to 6.2 percent in 2014/2015 fiscal year.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) even predicts a more conservative growth 3.8 percent for 2013 and 5.1 percent for 2014.

India’s central bank chief ,Raghuram Rajan, expects the economy to pick by the year end due to restarting $115 billion dollars stalled resource projects and better than expected agricultural production. However, whether the interest rate hike is eminent is still uncertain.

India’s economy grew at around 8 percent between 2002 and 2013. In 2010-2011 it reached its peak at 9.3 percent, but reached a ten-year low, 5 percent, in 2012-2013.

The Best Android Flight and Trip Tracking Travel Apps

My Top Favourite Free Android Flight and Trip Tracking Travel Apps

 

First Published: Mar 18, 2012 EntrepreneurJourney.com

Travelling will never be the like the old days due to what technology brought us on our smart phones or tablets via hi-tech apps. Just 3 years ago, I could not have possibly imagined that just forwarding my trip confirmation email to these app email addresses can perform magic instantaneously on my android devices and all the travel itinerary and detailed hotel information will be organized day by day. Today, I will discuss my top 5 favourite travel apps you should try to make your next travel smooth and hassle free. 

WorldMate by WorldMate - A very popular mobile travel app. Free version has lots of features which can not be found on some other paid version apps. Among all other app websites, only on WorldMate’s website did I find the Check-In button that lets you check in from home and receive a boarding pass before leaving home. WorldMate does have a paid version for other platforms, but not for Android. However, I would not buy a paid version for a $10 annual fee when I can buy other paid apps for a one time $5 or $10 only. 

TripIt by TripIt Inc. - Tripit is another travel organizer app that shows all your trip details in one place, including flights, hotels, cruises, restaurants, concerts, etc. Many other travel apps uses TripIt or have the ability to sync with TripIt. So having a TripIt account gives you the advantage of sending your travel details to other apps without sending a confirmation email to each of them again. 

Kayak Flight Hotel Car Search by Kayak - Kayak is an all-in-one app that lets you search hotels, flights, setup price alerts, etc. and at the same time you can track your flights. The only thing I can complain about with Kayak is that it takes up more space on your device as it is more than just a flight tracker. 

FlightTrack by Mobiata - When it comes to flight tracking, FlightTrack does the job very well. However, there is no free version. The basic version costs $4.99 and it does not offer to sync with Tripit or anything else - you need to enter your flight information manually. The pro version costs $9.99 and has the ability to sync with TripIt. Its major disadvantage is that it can only track flights - nothing else. 

World Economy, Recession, and Investment Opportunities

Reading the World Economy

First Published: ADawnJournal.com May 31, 2009

While there is a lot of talk about the current economic strife affecting a large part of the globe, it is natural that there will be different levels of concern in different nations. This is a global recession, and it is affecting people on each continent. But when one says “global”, does that mean that everyone is in the same boat? Well, no, of course not. There are different levels of indebtedness and different prospects for recovery in just about every independent economy. How countries have prepared for a time just like this will affect how able they are to deal with it. Some countries are not, for their purposes, in recession at all.

Reading the finance pages of daily newspapers, it can be tempting to try and keep score, as we watch one economy after another slip through the trapdoor. When one country goes it is natural to look at its near neighbours and its historical allies and trading partners in order to see if they will follow – or how their own plans will be affected. It is easy to see, in retrospect, how the major world economies slipped into recession, as credit was given in too cavalier a manner to people who were ill equipped to pay it back. There are some countries who have fallen in a secondary wave because their industries have been hit by a reduction in orders from recession-bitten nations.

Then there are other countries who have managed to remain as yet untouched by the grim hand of recession. It is interesting to look at these countries and see what they have in common – usually it is the fact that they have strong infrastructures, an industry that the rest of the world relies on even in times of financial privation, or have been more or less isolationist from a trade point of view. Some combination of the above is a recipe for being largely recession-proof – but at the cost of being less likely to profit from a global boom.

Reading the recession is worthwhile, whatever your reasons for doing it. If you are a potential investor, it helps to know what countries are ripe for investment opportunities and which are to be avoided at all costs. If you are concerned about your own position within an industry, it can help to see how that industry is faring worldwide. It is also true to say that the first people to see (and maybe profit from) th e end of the global recession will be those who follow the financial news from all over the world.

Although this world is split up into hundreds of countries, and those self-same countries are often devolved into administrative regions, there are generally global consequences to local issues. You may not know today how a drop in the price of a certain commodity will affect your own life, but by watching the stories as they play themselves out you can give yourself a firm grasp of the issues that may not matter right now, but will begin to pretty soon.

Will There Be A Recovery?

Recovery Confusion? Yes. No. Maybe?

First Published Date : July 12, 2009 ADawnJournal.com

As weeks go by in 2009 and we wait for the increasingly bizarre financial drama to play itself out to a conclusion we can at least rely on the assembled highly-paid financial experts who make up institutions no less venerable than the International Monetary Fund and OECD to favour us with the information that there will be a recovery, definitely, next year, but it might not be as strong as we imagined. On the other hand it might be. Then again, at least there will definitely be growth in the economy. There probably will, anyway. We don’t know how much. What we do know is that it will follow a contraction in 2009, and that contraction will be around 4%. Or maybe less than that. Maybe 2%.

The thing is, these conclusions are arrived at after no small amount of study and analysis by people who genuinely know how money behaves, and they have certainly got more of an idea how things are set to pan out than most of us – more of an idea, in fact, than at least 99.9% of us. And that last figure is not a forecast, it is a fact. But when the forecasts we read differ so considerably from week to week, and these forecasts emanate from people who really know this stuff, who digest the important figures with absolute certainty due to careers spanning decades – what on earth are the relative greenhorns to think? If the experts are predicting zero growth one week and 2% the next, 4% contraction one week and 2% a month later, what are we to do with that?

It would do the reader and indeed the writer a massive disservice to call any of us financially illiterate. It could even be said that one of the few bright sides of the global recession is that it has made the average individual a lot more financially savvy. People who could not have distinguished a contraction from a recovery a year ago, who eighteen months ago knew only that bulls and bears could have been found together in a Chicago sports awards dinner, all of a sudden have a lot more of an idea what is happening – even if they are largely powerless to prevent anything. The fact that we all know a little more about the markets is something which will hopefully work in favour  of preventing a similar recession any time in the near future.

For the time being, what can we believe with any concrete certainty? Well, the rest of this year will see continuing contraction, on balance. We can be fairly sure it will be light in comparison with the contraction that has gone before it. We can be sure, too, that next year will see a recovery of sorts. A recovery with appreciable growth might be possible. We should definitely see some growth. But don’t put any money on that coming true, because if the IMF are not certain, who can be?