It's all about jobs.

With the official unemployment rate up to 9.8 percent and the unofficial rate as high as 15 percent or so, policy makers are talking the talk at least about how jobs are the number one priority.

 Does it really make any difference if there are more women on boards? 

 A study from Heidrick & Struggles and WomenCorporateDirectors of 400 directors indicates the answer is "probably", at least if you're talking about attitudes towards a number of important issues.  On the one hand, it found that men and women directors respond in much the same way to some key topics.  At the same time, there are a quite a few notable issues where male and female directors most definitely seem to be on Mars and Venus.

The unemployment rate may be stubbornly stuck above 9 percent and workers in most professions are afraid to ask for raises and feel like they are doing a lot more for the same pay.

However, this is not the case with accounting and finance professionals. According to Robert Half International's 2011 Salary Guide, starting salaries in these fields are expected to rise an average of 3.1 percent in the coming year. Business analysts, tax accountants and financial analysts are among the professionals projected to see notable increases.

Most mergers and acquisitions fail to meet the companies' original goals for the transaction. But it seems that one crucial factor contributing to success is the compensation and benefits programs the parties use.

That sounds a bit like a no brainer, but apparently, it's something many companies ignore.

Seems the employment outlook for jobs in accounting and finance is looking up ever so slightly.

Eight percent of 1,400 CFOs surveyed by Robert Half International plan to hire full-time accounting and finance employees in the fourth quarter, while 7 percent anticipate reducing staff. The net, of course, is a 1 percent increase. While that's not exactly a number to get very excited about, it's the first net increase since the first quarter of 2009, according to Robert Half.  Most CFOs (84 percent) expect to make no changes to their personnel levels.

This piece published today by Project Syndicate is as insightful a critique as I've seen of the consensus that has emerged among policymakers that government deficits must be cut to restore economic growth.

Not that we haven't taken a stab at that ourselves.

The JetBlue flight attendant who flipped out on the annoying passenger and then slid down the inflatable slide, beer in hand, has become something of a celebrity or folk hero on the internet, including Facebook, where several pages have been created devoted to the individual.

However, as many people enjoy their cathartic glee, employers besides airlines should be taking notice, especially on a day when The Labor Department reported an unexpectedly big drop in productivity in the second quarter and just days after yet another Chinese factory tried to commit suicide.

The IPO market continues to rebound. A total of 10 companies went public in July following 12 the prior month.

Altogether, there have been 74 IPOs, year-to-date, through July, up nearly 370 percent from the prior year, according to Greenwich, Ct.-based IPO research firm Renaissance Capital.

The Dodd-Frank Act may have gone a little further on some issues than many people had anticipated. But one potential issue that did not see meaningful change is the separation of the chairman and CEO functions.

The Act requires that the SEC issue rules requiring each public company disclose in its annual proxy materials the reasons why the company chose to have either the same person, or separate people, serve as the Chairman and CEO.

Employers with underfunded defined benefit (DB) pension plans can receive billions of dollars in temporary pension funding relief as a result of legislation recently signed into law, according to a new analysis by professional services company Towers Watson.

Under the Preservation to Access to Care for Medicare Beneficiaries and Pension Relief Act of 2010, employers can elect to amortize funding shortfalls for any two plan years between 2008 and 2011, over a 15-year period, or make interest-only payments for two years, followed by seven years of amortization.