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Acknowledging that nonprofits are not immune to these more challenging economic times, the United Way Capital Area said Friday it has laid off about 10 percent of its more than 70 employees.

The Austin nonprofit says it was forced to make cut the seven employees because of the slumping economy’s effect on its budget.

“We are tightening our budget belt on the operations side to avoid impacting our agency grant commitments,” says David Balch, president of United Way Capital Area. “We greatly regret the loss of valuable staff and thank them for being part of our family here, and will do all that we can to assist our colleagues in finding other positions.”

The nonprofit says it’s offering severance pay and associated benefits to the employees that have been laid off.

United Way also said Friday that its grants for upcoming 2008-2009 fiscal year will total $3.9 million to 36 Central Texas nonprofits, up from $3.4 million this year online cash advance. The group says it wants to “assure the community that our proposed investment … is paramount.”

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The public will be able to pick up pieces of memorabilia at an auction of Gold’s Gym equipment this weekend.

Everything is being sold at Saturday’s auction at the gym at 768 South St. in Honolulu— from treadmills and stairsteppers to free weights and circuit machines, according to auctioneer Joe Teipel.

Teipel said memorabilia includes pieces from the original Gold’s Gym in Venice Beach, Calif., and items with the distinctive Gold’s logo.

Teipel will hold auction previews on Friday and Saturday mornings; the auction begins at 10 a.m http://easy-quick-payday-loans.com. Saturday.

Gold’s Gym International announced last month that it would close the popular gym at the end of August. Approximately 1,500 active memberships were transferred to the Powerhouse Gym at 432 Keawe St. in Kakaako.

The gym has donated some of its equipment to local high schools, which also will be the beneficiary of any unsold items.

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Prudential, Washington Mutual and State Farm are among the companies participating in a diversity career and college expo hosted by the Tampa Bay chapter of the National Society of Hispanic MBAs on Sept. 13. Other companies taking part include the American Cancer Society, Granite Services International and Yum Brands.

The University of South Florida, Nova Southeastern University, DeVry University, Walden University, the University of Phoenix and other educational institutions will provide information about admission to graduate programs, financing a masters in business administration and scholarships.

The expo’s diversity partners include the National Black MBA Association, the Association of Professional Latinos in Financing and Accounting, Hispanic Young Professionals and Entrepreneurs, Tampa Bay Higher Education Alliance, CENTRO, National Association of African-Americans in Human Resources and Jobing.com.

The event is scheduled for 10 a.m freecreditscore. to 2 p.m. at the Carrollwood Cultural Center in Tampa.

The National Society of Hispanic MBAs has 32 chapters and more than 7,000 members in the United States and Puerto Rico. Its mission is “to foster Hispanic leadership through graduate management education and professional development,” said a release.

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Southend Building Products Inc. in Charlotte has promoted Paul Atkinson to chief executive, succeeding company founder Will Dellinger.

Atkinson most recently was director of sales.

“Paul has helped grow Southend Building Products into the company that I envisioned when I started it in 2001,” Dellinger says. He notes the company’s sales in the first half of the year were up 27 percent from a year earlier. The business declines to disclose revenue figures.

Atkinson will continue to lead the company’s sales operations.

Southend Building specializes in reclaimed and green building materials how to get a free credit report. The company focuses on finding old mills and factories and extracting building materials for resale. The products it sells include lumber, flooring and antique bricks. Southend Building, based at 2130 S. Tryon St., has 10 employees.

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Good Eats, the start-up grocer that had planned to lease space where Corti Brothers grocery has operated for years on Folsom Boulevard in East Sacramento, plans to announce Wednesday that it will "back away" from its effort to locate there to give the Corti family a chance to resolve things with the building’s landlord.

In an open letter to grocer Darrell Corti and residents of East Sacramento, Good Eats partners Michael Teel — the former chief executive of the Raley's Inc. grocery chain — and Michael Ashker said they reached the decision after meeting with Corti last Friday.

"We have always held Mr. Corti and Corti Brothers in highest regard and our intention remains to find ways to work together with Darrell Corti," the letter states.

The partners said the possibility of opening their own store at the Corti site at 5810 Folsom Boulevard began when approached by a real estate broker last October about leasing there and were told that Corti Brothers would not be renewing its lease cash til payday loan. Negotiations began in earnest in April after the landlord confirmed that Corti wasn’t renewing, they said. They signed a lease agreement in July.

Corti, president of Corti Brothers, has said that he learned without warning in early July that he had lost the month-to-month lease for the store. He said he planned to close the Folsom Boulevard location Sept. 30, but that the store was profitable and would seek a new location.

It's unclear, however, whether the decision by Ashker and Teel means the Good Eats deal for that site is dead or on hold.

A separate Good Eats kitchen is opening at Folsom Boulevard and Seville Way, the partners stated.

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• Job growth in Florida was only 0.5 percent in 2006-2007, down from a high of 4 percent in 2004-2005 and compared with 1 percent for the U.S. in 2006-2007.

• The industry with the biggest job loss was construction, down 8.3 percent in 2007. The biggest gainers were services such as personal services and health care.

• Unemployment was 4.1 percent in 2007, up from 3.2 percent in 2006.

• Hispanics, and men, were the groups that saw the largest increases in unemployment in 2007.

• Underemployment, including people who are not working enough hours and who are discouraged from looking for work, was 8 percent in 2007, but for African-Americans the figure was 11.3 percent and 10 percent for Hispanics.

• Fifteen percent of the unemployed have been without work for at least half a year.

• In the U.S. as a whole fewer people are in the labor force now than in 2000, before the last recession. However, in Florida, labor force participation has increased. The exception was African-Americans, who never recovered the labor force participation rates they had in 2000.

• Job growth, unemployment, and related statistics have worsened in 2008, so the current situation for workers is much worse than indicated by these annual figures for 2007. As of July 2008, Florida unemployment was 6.1 percent, which was 2 percent higher than a year earlier.

• Workers wages in Florida did not grow at all in 2007, and for the nation actually fell.

• Florida’s median wage, $14.70 per hour in 2007, fell from 27th place in the nation’s states in 2006 to 30th place last year.

• African-Americans and Hispanics have been losing ground compared with non-Hispanic Whites. In 1979, African-Americans and Hispanics made over 80 percent of what Whites made, but by 2007 the figures dropped to less than 77 percent.

• Wage inequality is still extremely high in the state. In 1979 a high wage earner at the 10th percentile earned 2.92 times what the bottom a low-wage worker at the 20th percentile earned no fax payday advances. In 2000, the ratio grew to 3.48 and in 2007 it was 3.55.

• Median household income in Florida in 2007 ($45,794) was 91 percent of the corresponding U.S. figure, and the median four-person family income ($68,494) in Florida was 93 percent of U.S. norms. This is in line with historic Florida performance on these measures.

• Official poverty in Florida in 2007 was 12.5 percent, up one percent from the year before, and identical to the U.S. poverty rate of 12.5 percent.

• In 2007, Florida had the 3rd highest percentage (20.2 percent) of residents without healthcare coverage among the 50 states. It ranked 46th in private sector employer-provided health insurance. The state ranks extremely badly on these measures.

• In 2007 Florida ranked 50th of the 50 states in private sector pension coverage.

• Private sector unionization of Florida workers was only 2.5 percent in 2007, contributing to lower wages, wage inequality, and lower rates of healthcare coverage and pension benefit coverage.

• From 2000 to 2007 the Miami-Ft.Lauderdale and Tampa Bay metropolitan areas had the 2nd and 3rd highest rates of inflation among major metropolitan areas in the nation.

• Miami-Ft. Lauderdale ranked 9th in the country for cost of living in 2007.

• Floridians pay an average of 7.4 percent in state and local taxes, ranking 47th in the nation. However, because so little of Florida’s taxes can be deducted on a federal tax return, the total tax burden for Florida residents is actually higher than it is for a typical U.S. resident.

• Ninety percent of Floridians drive a car, truck or van to work, and almost 80 percent commute alone. With rising gas prices, this puts a heavy financial burden on working people.

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