Study Reveals Gender Gap over Social Media Privacy

Most women using social media are just as willing to reveal personal information about their relationships, jobs, brand preferences and political and religious affiliations as men — but when it comes to details like phone numbers, location, and email or physical address that might put their personal security at risk, women are significantly more wary than men.

More HERE.

Housing Vacancies and Homeownership

Homeownership Rate (HR)

The homeownership rate in the third quarter 2011 (66.3 percent) was lower than the third quarter 2010 rate (66.9 percent). The homeownership rates in the Midwest and South were lower than their corresponding third quarter 2010 rates.
Rental Vacancy Rate (RVR)
The rental vacancy rate in the fourth quarter 2011 (9.4 percent) was approximately the same as the fourth quarter 2010 rate (9.4 percent).

Homeowner Vacancy Rate (HVR)
The homeowner vacancy rate of 2.3 percent in fourth quarter 2011 was lower than the fourth quarter 2010 rate (2.7 percent).p>
4th Qtr 2011
(HR): 66.0 percent
3rd Qtr 2011
(HR): 66.5 percent

More HERE.

State Economic Profiles 2011

The Office of Advocacy’s Small Business Profiles for the States and Territories supply data on small businesses in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The publication also provides national-level data and limited data on the U.S. territories. The usefulness of the publication is the great detail it provides about small businesses at the state level. The following topics are covered: the number of firms, demographics of business ownership, small business income, banking, business turnover, industry composition, and employment gains and losses by size of business.

2011 Small Business Profiles for the States and Territories
2011 Small Business Profiles for New York State [PDF]

Market concentration: the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index calculator

"Since 1982, the U.S. Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission, and state attorneys general have used the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) to measure market concentration for purposes of antitrust enforcement. The HHI of a market is calculated by summing the squares of the percentage market shares held by the respective firms. For example, an industry consisting of two firms with market shares of 70% and 30% has an HHI of 70²+30², or 5800.

"According to the DOJ-FTC 2010 Horizontal Merger Guidelines, the agencies will regard a market in which the post-merger HHI is below 1500 as 'unconcentrated,' between 1500 and 2500 as 'moderately concentrated,' and above 2500 as 'highly concentrated.'"

See the tool HERE.

How to call NYC's 311 when you're not in NYC

311 is New York City's main source of government information and non-emergency services. Whether you're a resident, business owner, or visitor, help is just a click, text, or call away.

Call 212) NEW-YORK (212-639-9675) from outside New York City.

There are also text, Skype, TTY, Twitter, and iPhone app options.

More HERE.

Proposed NYS Senate & Assembly districts available in GIS format

The New York State Legislative Task Force on Demographic Research and Reapportionment (commonly known as "LATFOR") has published its proposed new lines for State Senate and Assembly districts based on the decennial 2010 Census.

LATFOR posted its proposed district maps in PDF format, and also provided "block assignment lists" to delineate the proposed districts. The block lists indicate which Census blocks (the smallest level of Census geography) correspond to which district. But the Task Force didn't make the maps available in a format that you can easily use with mapping software or online maps.

In order to enable others to visualize and analyze these districts on maps, the Center for Urban Research (CUR) at the CUNY Graduate Center has converted these lists into two formats compatible with desktop and online mapping applications: "shapefiles" and KML files. (Shapefiles are commonly used by most desktop geographic information system, or GIS, software packages. KML files are used typically in Google Maps, Google Earth, and other online mapping applications.)

More HERE.

Global Employment Trends 2012: Preventing a deeper jobs crisis

The world faces the "urgent challenge" of creating 600 million productive jobs over the next decade in order to generate sustainable growth and maintain social cohesion, according to the annual report on global employment by the International Labour Organization (ILO).

"After three years of continuous crisis conditions in global labour markets and against the prospect of a further deterioration of economic activity, there is a backlog of global unemployment of 200 million," says the ILO in its annual report titled Global Employment Trends 2012: Preventing a deeper jobs crisis. Moreover, the report says more than 400 million new jobs will be needed over the next decade to absorb the estimated 40 million growth of the labour force each year.