Morgantown, U.S.A. — SustainU, a leading producer of clothing using fabrics made from 100% recycled materials that are manufactured in the USA, announced a new sustainability-focused program with Eastern Mountain Sports, The national retailer is now carrying men’s and women’s graphic tees in 49 of its leading stores. The co-branded collection will be distinguished by an “EMS, Powered by SustainU” hangtag.

“We are very excited to be working with EMS. They are a ground-breaking company, looking to offer their customers both environmentally and socially sustainable clothing options,” said Chris Yura, CEO and founder of SustainU. “Less than 2% of the clothing sold in the US is actually made here. It is vital that we begin to bring this part of our economy back and the jobs that go with it.”

Since 1994, the American textile and apparel-manufacturing sector has lost more than 1 million jobs, 65% of the entire industry. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that an additional 25% of the jobs (53,7000) will be gone before 2020. ”As an outdoor retailer, Eastern Mountain Sports is committed to doing everything we can to preserve and protect our planet,” said Eastern Mountain Sports CEO Will Manzer. “That’s why we’re proud to partner with SustainU to reduce the environmental impact of our graphic t-shirts while supporting a small, American business.”

Eastern Mountain Sports is offering the co-branded collection in two men’s and two women’s graphic tees in retail locations, including its online web store (EMS.com). “We look forward to growing our 100% recycled, made in the USA programs in the near future as consumers get more and more on board with these products,” said Jen Edes, EMS Sr. Director Sourcing & Product Development.

A complete list of stores carrying the SustainU line can be found at www.sustainUclothing.com/EMS.

SustainU produces high quality apparel using fabrics made from 100% recycled materials that are manufactured in the USA to provide extraordinary comfort and wear, while reducing environmental waste, carbon emissions and water use. Our mission is to change the way clothes are made to improve the environment, reinvigorate America’s manufacturing sector, and educate the world about how clothing can positively impact people’s lives.

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Washington, U.S.A. — New analysis released by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) of employment data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reveals that, while men have seen faster job growth than in the recovery, women’s job growth sped up in the third year. Within each industry, however, women have either lost proportionately more jobs or gained proportionately fewer jobs than men over the course of the last three years.

June 2012 marks the end of three years of recovery since the Great Recession officially ended in June 2009, a period that saw job gains for both women and men of more than 500,000 in several industries (Education and Health Services for women, Professional and Business Services for men and women, and Trade, Transportation, and Utilities for men).

In year three of the recovery (July 2011 – June 2012), men gained 19,000 fewer jobs than they did in year two (July 2010 – June 2011). In contrast, women gained 500,000 more jobs in year three than they did in year two.

Still, men are slightly ahead overall in terms of job growth, but women are finally beginning to catch up. As of June 2012, women have regained 38.7 percent of the jobs they lost in the recession, while men have regained 45.2 percent of the jobs they lost in the recession.

Women have either lost proportionately more jobs or gained proportionately fewer jobs than men in every industry over the course of the last three years. Even in the female-dominated Education and Health Services industry, men’s employment increased by 9.1 percent between June 2009 and June 2012, while women’s employment increased by just 4.8 percent. Still growth in this sector helped women pick up 713,000 jobs in the last three years and 64.5 percent of the 1.1 million jobs added to payrolls in the industry since June 2009.

“The recovery is finally reaching women,” said Dr. Heidi Hartmann, president of IWPR and a labor economist. “Women got more than one-third of the job gains in the third year of the recovery, much better than their share the previous year, despite the fact that women are bearing the brunt of state and local government cuts,” she said. “Economists don’t know why men seem to have a hiring or layoff advantage in every industry, but the start of a catch-up in year three is good news for women.”

For men and women considered together, over the last three years of the recovery, the largest growths in payroll numbers were seen in “Professional and Business Services” (1.4 million jobs) and “Education and Health Services” (1.1 million jobs). Men and women both lost the largest number of jobs in “Government” (a combined loss of 633,000 jobs across all three levels of government). Job loss in the public sector disproportionately affected women who lost 64.1 percent of the 633,000 jobs eliminated.

The industries with the greatest gender difference in job change were “Mining and Logging,” where men’s employment grew by 23.6 percent while women’s employment grew by 17.5 percent, and “Manufacturing,” where men’s employment increased by 4.0 percent and women’s employment actually decreased by 2.7 percent. The “Leisure and Hospitality” industry, where men’s employment grew by 4.3 percent and women’s employment grew by 3.5 percent, had the smallest gender difference in job gains.

In the three years of the recovery, women gained just over half a million jobs and men nearly a million jobs in “Business and Professional Services” (504,000 for women and 937,000 for men). While women gained more than half a million jobs in “Education and Health Services” (713,000), men gained more than a half million jobs in “Trade, Transportation, and Utilities” (613,000).

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Northwestern University and IBM recently announced they are collaborating on new business and technology curricula to help students gain the latest skills in business analytics. The new courses of study, Masters of Science degree programs with analytics concentrations in the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science and the School of Continuing Studies, will better prepare students and current professionals who are seeking new analytics skills for today’s competitive job market.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that there will be a 24 percent increase in demand for professionals with management analysis skills over the next eight years. The need for this specialized talent is being fueled by an increased use of business analytics by companies to better understand the explosion of data generated online, via social networks and mobile devices, or through real time sensors.

With so much data residing within and shared across these digital sources, organizations are seeking new ways to understand, measure, act and even predict outcomes based on customer and social sentiment.

The demand for new higher education programs such as those at Northwestern illustrates the evolution of analytics. Once considered an area of focus for technology majors, it has moved beyond computer science and is now a required competency across businesses from finance and IT to human resources and marketing.

“Business leaders are faced with an enormous, and ever-increasing, amount of complexity,” says Julio M. Ottino, Ph.D., dean of the McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern University. “It is critical that we prepare the next generation of leaders with the skills to find trends and patterns in this vast amount of data.

The field of analytics provides powerful tools to find meaning and opportunity amid complexity. We are committed to preparing students to excel in this emerging field, and we value the support of IBM in our efforts.” The work between Northwestern and IBM is part of an ongoing effort to expand and strengthen education curricula to meet the growing demand of highly skilled analytics business workers of the future.

As part of its Academic Initiative, a program that offers colleges and universities access to the latest advances in technology and business industry expertise, IBM is providing Northwestern with curriculum materials, project-focused case studies for students to gain hands-on experience in analytics, access to a wide spectrum of software solutions and IBM thought leaders as guest speakers, as well as faculty awards to accelerate program development.

“As data of all shapes and sizes swell at record speeds, the need will continue to grow for those individuals with an advanced understanding of how to interpret and respond to this information,” says Deepak Advani, vice president of predictive analytics, IBM.

“IBM is privileged to work with Northwestern University to help share the latest developments in analytics, technologies and processes, and help prepare future business leaders to tackle complex societal challenges that increasingly will be addressed by understanding and responding to data instantly – from health care to retailing experiences to public safety.”

The collaboration extends a long-standing relationship between the two organizations. In addition to the focus on expanding analytics curriculums, Northwestern faculty are also working alongside IBM researchers at the TJ Watson Research Center to explore material science, engineering and computing innovations.

Harnessing the Power of Analytics

For those that have wondered how social media sites like Facebook and LinkedIn are able to identify acquaintances as potential friends, the core ingredient is the use of ‘prescriptive’ analytics — sophisticated algorithms help the system scan billions of bits of data and identify patterns that ultimately lead to long lost friends. This is just one example of some of the unique coursework that the new McCormick Master of Science in Analytics degree will challenge students with beginning Fall 2012.

Beyond social media applications, analytics offers enormous potential for world-changing insights. By applying these technologies in new ways, basic citizen services to complex systems can be transformed to work more effectively and efficiently, from electrical grids to healthcare to global trade.

“Business analytics is going mainstream, so it’s important for us to integrate traditional study with interactions across the business community that allow students to see how these capabilities are impacting business,” said Diego Klabjan, associate professor of industrial engineering and management sciences and director of the Master of Science in Analytics.

“With this new program we are giving students the opportunity to learn by doing. The goal is to offer students an academic setting that closely mirrors the corporate environment they’ll jump into after graduation.”

The program combines mathematical and statistical study with instruction in advanced computational and data analysis, including forecasting, business intelligence and data mining, as well as simulation and predictive analytics techniques, and big data analytics.

Students will learn to identify patterns and trends, interpret and gain insight from vast quantities of structured and unstructured data, and communicate their findings in practical, useful terms. In addition to fundamentals, students will engage in a unique gateway class involving case studies where analytics is used to develop a solution to a current business challenge submitted by U.S. based companies.

Substantial importance will also be devoted to the business side of analytics so that the students are taught how to communicate the value of their work, lead a team, and cope with other business related issues.

The Master of Science in Analytics is a full-time, cohort program designed for students with undergraduate degrees in engineering, science or business. Housed within the highly ranked Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences, the program will introduce students to professional situations through a summer internship and an industry-supplied capstone design project.

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