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.

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.

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 folks at CareerBuilder are desperately trying to put a positive spin on the dismal job market.

In a press release Wednesday the online employment firm celebrated the "resiliency" of Americans by pointing out the fact that 58 percent of those laid off in the last 12 months have found new positions. Nice try, guys.

Blaming "administrative" reasons for a weekly jobless claims figure that exceeded forecasts by almost 10 percent seems pretty lame to me.

After all, surely the forecasts could have anticipated some of these "administrative" issues, no? And this is the fourth straight week that the number has risen.

The first quarter of next year will see the strongest IT hiring in a year in the U.S., according to staffing firm Robert Half. Seven percent of chief information officers surveyed said that they will add staff, while 4 percent expect to reduce headcount, a net result that's three points higher than last quarter, according to Robert Half Technology's IT Hiring Index and Skills Report.

It's also the most optimistic forecast since the first quarter of 2009, Robert Half said in a release today. The firm noted that 89 percent of CIOs plan to maintain current personnel levels.

CFOs take note: when you've just been on a plane from Hong Kong to New York for 16 hours, and you've headed straight to the office, don't expect any friendly nudges to let you know that you really could stand a hosing down by the local fire department.

According to a new survey, employees have no problem pointing out potentially embarrassing items to their co-workers. Telling their bosses? That's a different matter entirely. In a poll of 4,400 workers, CareerBuilder found that 67 percent of employees will gladly tell a colleague that his zipper is undone.

Other than when I'm unemployed -- which, given my line of work and my single-digit IQ, is always a distinct possibility -- I tend to steer clear of job sites.

From what I can see, most of these websites feature crumby jobs that don't remotely match your skills. In fact, it seems like many of the sites mostly employ search engines that sift through resumes and help-wanteds in an attempt to match up key words. Once, on a lark, I sent my resume to one of these sites, indicating that I was highly trained engineer with degrees from Columbia and Stanford. Two days later, the site sent me a listing for a job as a train engineer on a route from South Carolina to Connecticut.

Footwear-maker Skechers USA on Wednesday announced that CFO Fred Schneider has resigned from the company. The reason? Yep -- to pursue other interests. 

Based on his experience in the industry, Schneider's other interests likely lie in retail. Having graduated from Ambassador College in 1978, Schneider went on to served as an audit and due diligence partner at KPMG Peat Marwick for 17 years. For part of that time, he worked on the account for L.A. Gear, the once high-flying apparel company. During the engagement, he worked with Robert Greenberg, the former hairstylist who founded L.A Gear. The footwear specialist, which began selling aerobics shoes just as the exercise fad took off -- and was a Wall Street darling for years -- eventually went bust in 1998.

Right now would unquestionably be a lousy time to be coming out of college and having to look for a job. And if you're a grad looking to get hired by not just any place but one of the best places to start, you might be even more troubled by where you'd be looking: Big Four accounting firms.

Oh the horror for all the non-number crunchers out there.

Yes, according to BusinessWeek's rankings of the best career-launching companies, the pinnacle of first post-undergraduate jobs are: Deloitte, Ernst & Young, PricewaterhouseCoopers and KPMG, in that order.

Based on criteria of average pay, how much entry-level hiring a company does, three-year retention rate, diversity, signing bonuses, 401(k) matching, mentoring and internal promotion, you apparently can't beat the Big Four.