In Brief
Mortgage Applications Drop 22 Percent
According to the Washington, D.C.-based Mortgage Bankers Association, mortgage application volume fell 22.6 percent last week.
The association’s Market Composite Index was 822.8 for the week ended Feb. 15 compared to 1,063.5 the previous week. However, mortgage application volume for the week was up 33.9 percent compared to the same period last year.
The association’s Refinance Index was down 27.9 percent compared to the previous week.
The association said the average interest rate for a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage was up to 6.09 percent from 5.72 percent.
CPI On The Rise
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the January Consumer Price Index increased 0.5 percent over the December CPI to 211.
January’s CPI was 4.3 percent higher than in January 2007. The CPI for urban wage earners and clerical workers increased 0.5 percent in January compared to December, and by 4.6 percent higher than in January 2007.
Execs: Skip Job-Seeking Gimmicks
Marketing and advertising may be creative fields, but executives in those industries say for job candidates not to get too creative with their job hunting tactics.
In a recent survey by the Creative Group, a marketing and advertising staffing agency, 52 percent of marketing executives said gimmicky resumes are unprofessional, and 46 percent of advertising executives said gimmicks are acceptable only if they do not detract from the information in the resume.
Marketing and advertising executives also shared some of the most gimmicky resumes they’ve received, including: “The job seeker sent a bowling pin and said, ‘I’ll bowl you over;’” “One candidate took a picture of himself with every one of the client’s products and sent three photos a week for an entire month;” and “One person put up posters of himself in the garage where the executives parked.”
Snow Days Not Just For Kids
A new survey shows that a third of commuters across the country have hit snags because of extreme weather over the past three months.
Of those affected, 23 percent have gotten to work late, 16 percent have had to leave early and 6 percent couldn’t make it in at all. Even more workers had their free time interrupted, with 61 percent of all commuters seeing their time on the road lengthened by bad weather.
The survey, sponsored by The Workforce Institute at Kronos Inc. of Chelmsford and conducted by Harris Interactive, included 1,472 commuters.
Progressive Files Rates In Mass.
The direct-to-consumer auto insurance genie may be out of the bottle in Massachusetts, as Progressive, the nation’s third-largest auto insurance group, announced it has filed private passenger auto rates with the Massachusetts Division of Insurance.
If the filing is accepted, Massachusets drivers will be able to buy car insurance at Progressive’s web site as soon as May 1. Progressive said its filed rates are roughly 18 percent lower on average than rates paid by Bay State drivers in 2007.
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