Percentage of IT workers who said the ability to acquire new skills is very important when evaluating a job opportunity, according to research from Robert Half Technology: 68
Percentage of respondents who said they are very concerned about keeping their skills current in the next three to five years: 64
Percentage of chief information officers who said their companies do not have training and development programs for IT professionals: 44
Source: Robert Half Technology.
Ranks of Mark Zuckerberg ($17.3 billion), Dustin Moskovitz ($4.2 billion) and Chris Hughes ($950 million), on the list of ultra-wealthy technopreneurs aged 30 and under according to Wealth-X: 1, 2, 3
Combined net worth of Mark Zuckerberg and two of his Facebook co-founders, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes, representing nearly 90 percent of the total fortune in the list: $22.4 billion
Source: Wealth-X.
Percentage of Americans who said they would not want treatments to enable them to live dramatically longer lives, even if new medical treatments could slow the aging process and allow people to live to at least 120 years old, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center: 56
When asked how long they would want to live, percentage of Americans who cited between 79 years and 100 years: 69
Percentage of respondents who think that most other people would choose to live to 120 and beyond: 68
Source: Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.
Percentage of senior managers who said they are uncomfortable being friended by their bosses on Facebook, according to a survey by OfficeTeam: 68
Percentage of respondents who are uncomfortable being friended by the employees they supervise: 62
Percentage of senior managers who are uncomfortable being friended by business contacts: 74
Source: OfficeTeam.
Forty years ago, estimated percentage of jobs in the U.S. that required only a high school diploma or less, according to the California Workforce Association: 75
Today, percentage of jobs that are available to those without some form of postsecondary education: 37
By 2020, estimated shortfall in the number of workers with college degrees in the U.S. economy: 1.5 million to 3 million
Source: California Workforce Association.
Percentage of the parents doing back-to-school shopping this year who are looking for deals to help them save money on back-to-school items, according to a survey conducted by Harris Interactive on behalf of Offers.com: 97
Of the parents with school-aged children, percentage who plan to do their back-to-school shopping in August: 47
Percentage of parents doing back-to-school shopping this year who plan to shop in-store: 78
Source: Harris Interactive.
Percentage of Americans who could not give an accurate description when asked what an antioxidant is, according to a survey for MonaVie by Wakefield Research: 92
Percentage who could not recognize one or more sources of foods rich in antioxidants, even though 75 percent of Americans say they actively try to eat foods full of these nutritional molecules: 91
Source: MonaVie.
Percentage of women who depend on the convenience of frozen foods when getting dinner on the table for their families, according to a survey from Edelman: 55
Percentage of respondents who say frozen vegetables are their No. 1 go-to item in the frozen food aisle: 60
Source: Edelman.
Year that Nathan Ames obtained the first patent for a moving stairway -- though it was never built, according to the U.S. Census Bureau: 1859
Year that Jesse Reno built the first practical escalator -- or "inclined elevator," as he called it -- at Coney Island, N.Y.: 1896
Length of the longest escalator in the western hemisphere at the Wheaton, Md., station of the Washington Metro System: 230 feet
Source: U.S. Census Bureau.
Percentage of consumers who plan to send their children back to school in style with new clothing, according to the results of PriceGrabber's first 2013 Back-to-School shopping survey: 68
Ranks of laptop computers, electronic tablets and computer accessories on the list of items in the electronics category that consumers plan to buy: 1, 2, 3
Source: PriceGrabber.com.
Idle Thought
"How beautiful it is to do nothing, and then rest afterward." -- Spanish proverb
(Readers can contact John MacIntyre at johnmacintyre(at)bwr.eastlink.ca.)