The U.S. Department of Labor - Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes a "M onthly Jobs Report"  soon after the beginning of each month. Each report describes the previous month's employment situation, based on data such as the number of jobs that were added to the economy and the unemployment rate. According to t he  November Jobs Report,  t he US economy saw an increase of 228,000 jobs last month while the unemployment rate decreased slightly to 4.1%. 

The Automatic Data Processing, Inc. Research Institute provides an alternative look at our country's employment situation. Their monthly  report, which is always released two days prior to the publication of the BLS Employment Situation, showed an increase of 190,000 jobs within the private non-farm sector. According to Market Realist, this report includes private non-farm payroll while the BLS report includes both private and government sectors.

M ark Zandi, Chief Economist at Moody's Analytics, stated in a recent Architect Magazine article that he "believes the job market is red hot, with broad-based job gains across industries and company sizes."  Zandi also maintains his belief that the construction sub-sector's volatility is simply related to the ongoing impact of the hurricanes, and predicts improvements in the coming months. 

The Year of Ransomware

2017 was the year of ransomware, and it was bad. According to STEALTHbits, d ata breach settlements in 2017 have totaled nearly $170 million, and the number is still climbing. T he marketplace for this type of malware grew by 2,502% and its sales increased to $25 million, up from $400,000 in 2016. 

Some of the biggest cyber stories of 2017 were: 

• Equifax Breach - impacted 145 million Americans (social security numbers and other highly confidential information)
• Yahoo Breach - reached all of Yahoo's 3 billion users

• Krack Attacks - a flaw in WPA2's cryptographic protocols, the true impact of which will not be known for some time

• Wanna Cry Ransomware - over 150 countries, over 200,000 individual devices
• NSA - WikiLeaks - let to the exposure of national secrets and several of the agency's cyber tools many of which were zero day viruses, leading to the exposure of  national secrets

Cyber Security Predictions for 2018

• Mobile malware will increase
• The Internet of Things (IoT) is a weak link
• Rise in cryptojacking

The new year is approaching quickly, and many managers are looking toward the future, crafting plans for their team's or company's success. Often, this includes determining future hiring needs as well as forging new initiatives relating to personnel. To help you move into 2018, here is a roundup of the top three management articles from this year.