HR professionals shouldn't have to walk a tightrope.

Liz Ryan has written a passionate plea to companies everywhere, arguing that human resource professionals need room to re-invent their jobs. Her prescription, in a nutshell, is fewer forms, more innovation. A human resources vet since “Cyndi Lauper ruled the airwaves,” she doesn’t paint a pretty picture of what HR has to deal with these days. HR departments have both an image problem and a work overload to contend with, she says, and they’re often put in an impossible position:

Now HR people are besieged. They are embattled. Employees hate them, management hates them, and jobseekers hate them most of all. It’s no fun being an HR person with many, many employers today. HR people are the bad guys. They make the rules and enforce them, they’re forced to take away perks and benefits and they lay people off on a regular basis. HR people still talk about Engaging Employees with the Mission, creating cultural Pixie Dust, and making their organizations Employers of Choice, but they don’t say it with as much force as they used to. If they did, their co-workers would laugh out loud or suck their teeth in disgust.

What went wrong, Ryan contends, is that management for the most part simply stopped listening to their HR staff’s best ideas. Turning HR into the “policy police” didn’t help either, in her estimation. Her article is a sobering read, but she also articulates a shining hope for human resources:

I look forward to the economic uptick that will lower unemployment and remind CEOs why they ever hired forward-looking HR people.  I can’t wait for the day when employers are fighting over talent, when sharp and human-focused HR leaders don’t despair for their profession. I’m eager to hear how innovative HR managers will spur collaboration, non-linear thinking and team-and-individual greatness in their shops.

That last sentence in particular is an excellent summation of the contribution that great human resources staffers can make. Let’s hope Ryan’s article gets in front of the right people.

In the meantime, Kris Dunn has his own ideas for how HR types can make things better right away, and it starts with a little tough truth. A human resources professional, Dunn believes there are five lies in HR that are holding back departments everywhere. The worst myth, he thinks, is that HR is responsible for employees’ work/life balance. He remembers Jack Welsh stirring up a hornet’s nest at the HR conference in New Orleans last year when he said “there’s no such thing as work/life balance, there are work/life choices.” At the time, his remarks were seen as insensitive, particularly to women in the corporate world who take time off for family. But Dunn says:

The truth: Employees are responsible for their own work/life balance, and if they want more money, promotions and fame, they’re going to have to work harder than those around them…If you happen to be a team member reading this, the reality is that the business world is chaotic, and everyone’s winging it, to a certain extent. Most companies try to staff at levels relative to the work at hand (more revenue always helps in that regard), but it’s always going to feel like a free-for-all at times.

This is tough-love stuff, for sure, and his other top myths aren’t any easier to swallow: companies always want to provide the best possible benefits for all employees (“if we had any guts,” he writes, “we’d tell employees: ‘We’re not Mom.’”); excellent performance is always rewarded financially; companies always want the best and the brightest; everyone’s always equal in the workplace.

It’s possible to not agree with all of Dunn’s points and still take away an important message: when it comes to making their jobs better, there are simple (if radical) things that HR professionals can do to help themselves. Until employers embrace Ryan’s human resources utopia, that may be the best start for beleaguered staffers.

When looking for a career transition, consider the warning signs.

Last time, we considered where job seekers or those looking to make a career transition might look for an industry with huge upside. But there are plenty of industries staring at a steep downside right now, as well, and it can be just as important to know where not to look for a job right now. It’s also worth considering if your own field is topping the not-hot job lists right now.

The Department of Labor has targeted 10 careers it expects to have the largest wage and employment declines through 2018. According to the government, department stores, topping the list, are likely to have lost 159,000 jobs between 2008 and 2018. That’s 10 percent of the industry! Right behind them are semiconductor and other electronic component manufacturers, with a staggering one-third of jobs projected to be lost in that same time period. Auto parts manufacturers, postal workers, printers, sewing-apparel providers, newspaper employees, miners, gas attendants and wired-telecom workers are all expected to take a huge hit.

Besides fair warning for anyone considering those fields, the news is bound to mean anxiety for anyone currently in those fields. Yahoo! Hotjobs’ Margaret Steen has some advice :

What should you do if your industry is on this list? First, don’t panic. The job declines in these industries are projected to take place over a decade. And many jobs—a majority in most of these industries—will remain even after 10 years.

Still, it’s good to start thinking about Plan B. Build your savings and start researching what other industries might be able to use your skills. If you’re nearing retirement and had been planning to move into a different field, you might want to make the move earlier. And if you have many years of work ahead of you, you should consider seriously whether it’s feasible for you to stay in your industry for the long term.

When thinking about careers to avoid,there’s also careercast.com’s list of 10 worst careers for 2010. Since most people probably aren’t even sure what a “roustabout” is (an oil rig or pipeline worker), there’s very little chance of accidentally winding up with the survey’s top worst job. Lumberjack, ironworker, dairy famer, welder, garbage collector, taxi driver, construction worker, meter reader and mail carrier rounded out the list.

One of those fields in particular has been making the news lately, and not in a good way. Just last week, Peter L. Mosca of realtytimes.com reported that:

For the first time since the start of the economic downturn, every state and the District of Columbia reported losing construction jobs over the past twelve months, according to a new analysis of state-by-state employment data released by the Associated General Contractors of America. The research found few signs of a construction industry recovery with only six states reporting construction job increases between November and December 2009.

The online ad research and consulting firm Borrell Associates made their projections for best and worst industries for job openings in 2010, and they had grim news for the retail industry, which they expected to grow a meager 1.3 percent. The outlook for federal government jobs and financial services was even worse, with projected losses of 3 percent of jobs and 12 percent of jobs, respectively.

Finally, if all this news about where not to work starts getting you down, check out the hilarious (and merciless) Avoid This Job site.  It’s not just funny, it’s good advice.

Could one of these growing industries be the road to a new career?

Job seekers often hear that despite the continuing rise in unemployment, the bleak hiring outlook, and the uncertainty of a drawn-out economic recovery, they shouldn’t worry because “there are still jobs out there!”

They’re meant as words of encouragement, of course, but at a certain point, an exasperated job hunter can’t be blamed for wanting to yell “Oh yeah? Where?”

Where, indeed. Since the mid-90s, there has been plenty of research to go around about the best careers for each new year, and the rise of the Internet has only increased the number of outlets putting the job market under a microscope. At a certain point, in fact, the problem becomes too much information. It can be difficult to get any practical job-search wisdom without looking at a cross-section of the most reliable sources and looking for trends.

The best place to start in any given year is U.S. News & World Report’s annual list of the 50 best careers. Among their top choices for 2010 are: computer software engineer, x-ray technician, firefighter and financial advisor. The magazine’s list is useful because it divides the careers into categories, and one of those categories in particular—health care—has been a fixture on most lists of rapidly expanding job opportunities for several years running now.

Some may consider many of the careers they cover simply too specialized to be useful. However, they do make an interesting point about the field of science and technology:

This category includes the fastest-growing occupation—with a 72 percent growth rate that far outstrips the 10 percent average across careers — of biomedical engineer. Biomedical engineers help develop the equipment and devices that improve or enable the preservation of health. They’re working to grow cardiac tissue or develop tomorrow’s MRI machines, asthma inhalers, and artificial hearts.

Of particular note are two careers that are popping up on a lot of these lists: physical therapist and actuary. The former was also the number two choice for Jessica Hanley in her Yahoo! Hotjobs look at the most “surprising paths to fortune and fulfillment.” One of the biggest selling points for a physical therapy career, besides the fact that many such businesses are expanding into idle commercial space while the overall job market shrinks, is that it generally takes only two years to get the associate’s degree in physical therapy necessary to become a physical therapist assistant. There is expected to be a 33 percent growth in the field over the next eight years. Elementary school teacher, graphic designer and registered nurse also topped Hanley’s list.

Payscale.com’s Carol Tice also discusses physical therapy assistants—along with occupational therapy, sales positions, green jobs, repair technicians and computer security specialists–in her list of growing jobs in the small-business sector for 2010. Tice writes:

If you’ve been focusing your job search on major corporations, you may be missing out on the hottest hiring spot in our slowly dawning economic recovery: small business. Small businesses employ just over half of all private-sector workers, according to the Small Business Administration, and they generated 64 percent of all net new jobs over the past 15 years. Historically, as businesses start to hire again coming out of a downturn, small businesses lead the way.

Then there’s careercast.com’s list of the 10 best jobs for 2010, led by the aforementioned actuary. Computer fields take the next two spots—software analyst and computer systems analyst, respectively—while the rankings of mathematician, statistician and accountant show math skills are always in demand. Incredibly, only one health care field made the top ten: dental hygienist. Perhaps the biggest surprise is historian, at number five, which earned points for a strong hiring outlook, low stress level and healthy income.

Of course, the flip side of these bright spots on the job landscape is that there are plenty of careers in freefall, which anyone looking to transition might want to avoid. We’ll take a look at those next.

Or are they? According to new figures, they're all the rage.

We all had a feeling that the traditional notion of an “office” isn’t what it used to be, and now the latest from the U.S. Census Bureau confirms that more Americans than ever are working from home. In the last year that the government has figures for, 2005, the number of home-based workers jumped by almost two million, from 9.5 million in 1999 to 11.3 million in 2005. The report “Home Based Workers in the United States, 1999-2005” also shows that the number of people who worked exclusively from home jumped from 6.7 million to 8.1 million in that same period.

What this would seem to mean for employers is that workers are demanding more flexibility in their workplace. Among the top reasons cited in the 2005 census for reasons to work at home were “better child care arrangements,” “better arrangements for care of other family members” and “allows for school.”

But perhaps the biggest surprise is that it was most often a “requirement of the job” to work at home, according to 77 percent who did. Employers, it seems, want to redefine the workplace, too.

Another big surprise was the big incomes being pulled in by home-based workers: nearly half of them made $75,000 per year, or more. According to the bureau:

The most popular occupations among those who reported working at home were professional (25 percent), executive, administrative and managerial (22 percent) and sales (18 percent).

High-paying jobs were more likely to involve working at home for some or all of the work time. In 2005, 46 percent of people who said they worked at home some or all of the time earned at least $75,000 per year, compared with 34 percent of non-home workers who made at least that much. Those who worked both at home and in an office had the highest percentage of high-paying jobs — about 54 percent of whom made $75,000 or more annually in 2005.

But there was some trade-off: roughly a tenth of those who worked at home at least some of the time in 2005 said they worked 11 or more hours per day. Still, about a quarter of home-based workers felt they had flexibility in their work hours.

Chances are good that when the results from the 2010 census are in, those numbers will be even greater. Business Week noted that the number of people who are self-employed and working exclusively at home in 2005 increased from 3.47 million to 4.34 million , and they see this as further evidence that the so-called “homepreneur” trend .

In his first write-up on the phenomenon last year, John Tozzi said:

More than half of all U.S. businesses are based at home. These companies often are dismissed as quaint hobbyist ventures, but new research suggests that’s a mistake. An estimated 6.6 million home-based enterprises provide at least half of their owners’ household income. Together these “homepreneurs” employ one in 10 private-sector workers, and by many measures they’re just as competitive as their counterparts in commercial spaces.

With so many layoffs, will more and more workers pack it up and go home, and what kind of brain drain could that create for traditional businesses? Too early to say, maybe, but it’s clear that the definition of the American workforce is continuing to shift.

It’s official: we’re in for a long roller-coaster ride on the job market. After an unexpected drop in unemployment numbers, the government has released new figures that found the number of people filing for unemployment rising once again last week, to 473,000—a gain of 31,000.

The hope, of course, had been that we’d seen the worst of this recession, and that job numbers would steadily improve. The new info means layoffs aren’t slowing as fast as we might have hoped, but it doesn’t change the general consensus that the job picture is improving. The four-week average for new jobless claims dropped by 1,500 to 467,500, and that’s among the best numbers we’ve seen throughout his whole recession (keep in mind, the total of jobs lost is now believed to be around 8.4 million since the end of 2007).

But it’s going to be a long haul. With that in mind, Caroline M.L. Potter over at Yahoo has written a great article about “Super Staying Power” in the workplace.

Sometimes our culture is so focused on upward mobility that we forget about the importance of holding on to the job we have. Naturally, getting the best information possible out there to jobseekers is important, since generally they’re under much more pressure to make a job situation work. It’s also important for human resource professionals to keep up with the latest on how to keep employees happy and maintain an efficient, productive workplace. Even in this job market, there are way too many talented people looking for the Next Best Thing for anyone to rest on their laurels.

But what about employees keeping their bosses happy? In times like these, that’s more important than ever. Job security is at a premium right now. Potter quotes Jason Seiden, author of “Super Staying Power: What You Need to Become Valuable and Resilient at Work,” and the most interesting thing about the top points addressed in her article is that they’re not necessarily the common-sense arguments one might expect. In fact, they’re practically counter-intuitive.

For instance, it might seem obvious that if someone is not exactly clear on his or her work goals, the best thing to do would be to seek as much clarity as possible. But maybe not. According to point number two, “Don’t ask for clarity”:

Nobody seems to get enough feedback or direction these days, and if your workplace is in flux, as many are, you’ll probably get even less. Get over it, says Seiden. ‘When a worker asks for ‘all the details’ about a project, her boss is going to see a lack of critical thinking, a lack of being able to handle ambiguity.’ And, a lack of independence.

He urges professionals to create their own environments at work and resolve problems themselves, ‘whether your boss is a micromanager or not.’”

The other points addressed are “have confidence,” “use positive language” and “find passion where you are.” It’s all good advice, and in this shifting job market, a good reminder that staying focused on one’s present job situation can sometimes be priceless. Change is constant, and not always a bad thing by any means. But a strong showing in one’s current job performance can set up great things down the road.

Every time there’s an economic downturn, the debate over a shorter work week becomes a hot topic. It’s back again with a report from the New Economics Foundation which claims that cutting employee hours nearly in half can cure what ails the global economy. The British think tank’s “21 Hours” study begins with the assertion that:

A ‘normal’ working week of 21 hours could help to address a range of urgent, interlinked problems: overwork, unemployment, over-consumption, high carbon emissions, low well-being, entrenched inequalities, and the lack of time to live sustainably, to care for each other, and simply to enjoy life.”

The report argues that the current work week is arbitrary, and that despite the reduction in paid hours, “experiments with shorter working hours suggest that they can be popular where conditions are stable and pay is favorable.”

In an interview  with the BBC, “21 Hours” co-author Anna Coote claims a radical rethinking of the work week would benefit both employers and workers, saying “we could even become better employees—less stressed, more in control, happier in our jobs and more productive.” Meanwhile, the foundation’s policy director Andrew Simms went for the crowd-pleaser: “Hands up who wouldn’t like a four day weekend?”

Since the current recession began in 2008, human resource experts in the U.S. have been tossing around this same idea. The HR Hero ezine published a great article on the subject this month, which jumped off from the assertion by economist Dean Baker that even President Obama’s own economic team doesn’t believe his stimulus package can heal the job market anytime soon. With employers already worried about possible future layoffs, Claudia N. Lombardo writes, shorter workweeks offer an alternative, and she addresses some of the HR worries:

A big concern for employers, particularly in a failing economy, is whether shortening the workweek reduces productivity. Employers may wonder how their company will continue producing at the same level with a reduction in employee hours.

Interestingly enough, according to Aaron Newton, author of “The 4 Day Work Week: Working to Live, Not Living to Work,” a recent survey of more than 10,000 workers revealed that on average, people spend more than two hours each day on personal matters (e.g., surfing the Web or calling friends) while at work. That adds up to 10 hours a week. The study shows that a four-day workweek wouldn’t necessarily reduce production if the focus remains on work.”

Lombardo cites statistics from around the world to back up the argument that maximum time spent on the job does not necessarily equal maximum productivity. If France, with its 35-hour work week, and Norway, with a labor base that works 26 percent fewer hours per year than Americans do, can produce a greater gross domestic product per work hour than the U.S., doesn’t it follow that “face time” at the office may be overrated?

Maybe, but keep in mind that this debate has been going on for nearly a century in the United States. In fact, it was 1926 when Henry Ford famously predicted that “the short week is bound to come because without it the country will not be able to absorb its production and stay prosperous.”

But that major shift in the U.S. workplace never did come. The idea bubbles up every few years, and employers often seem ready to pull the trigger. In a 1997 U.S. News/Bozell survey, almost two-thirds of managers polled said shorter work hours would make workers more productive. But uncertainty on the part of both businesses and their employees has kept it from gaining traction in the mainstream.

It could be that the Great Recession forces a major rethinking in our basic notion of the work week. There are only so many creative alternatives to layoffs, and shorter hours at least offers a certain win-win situation. Last year, the New York Times reported that some employers were trying to save jobs by switching their employees to a 24-hour work week. The article quotes human resource experts and economic analysts, and basically suggests that a strategy of flexibility in these economic times will beat out “the layoff mentality”:

Kim S. Cameron, a professor at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, found in doing research that the more that companies opt for flexibility in downsizing, the better they fare when the economy turns around.

‘When firms can deliver the message that their employees are human resources, rather than human costs or liabilities, they see higher profitability, productivity, quality, customer satisfaction and employee loyalty over the long term,’ Professor Cameron said.”

Nobody likes a bad boss. Or do they? According to a new study, the answer is: maybe, if he or she gets results. According to “Perpetuating Abusive Supervision: Third Party Reactions to Abuse in the Workplace,” bosses who behave badly may be allowed to run amuck, depending on their productivity.

The effect a tantrum-prone supervisor can have on the employees taking the abuse has been looked at before, but this study by University of Iowa researchers is the first to examine how workers who weren’t specifically targeted react. Not surprisingly, one of their primary concerns is not becoming a target themselves. But, in an unexpected workplace take on “the ends justify the means,” participants in the study also showed a remarkable willingness to overlook the boss’ behavior.

In fact, the results hinted at a larger and rather shocking possibility: that managerial style has very little to do with a supervisor’s perceived effectiveness at all.

To gather their data, the researchers had a group of subjects read about a fictitious CEO that portrayed him either as a high performer or a low performer and as either a verbally abusive person or not abusive. When asked to rate the CEO, the subjects gave high marks to the productive high performing CEO no matter his management style. In contrast, the non-abusive but poorly performing CEO was given low marks as an executive, despite his likeability.

The researchers said this could have an impact on how companies evaluate employees because previous studies show that employees who feel they are abused are less productive. Since most organizations rate employees using some kind of third-party assessment — by a boss or co-worker, for instance — organizations that do not specifically have a system in place to assess a supervisor’s behavior may be allowing behavior that leads to lower productivity in the long term.

That last point is, of course, key for human resources professionals. What this study is saying, in effect, is that employee evaluations by their peers may not reveal everything we need to know about hostile workplaces.

The consequences for falling into a false sense of security can be dire. Just last month, ironically, the Conference Board released a report which found that job satisfaction in the U.S. is at its lowest level in two decades. To say this is a long-term trend may be a significant understatement, since the group’s first survey was taken in 1987. The 2009 results found 45 percent of U.S. workers satisfied with their job, a steep drop from 61 percent in 1987, and the lowest level in the history of the polling. There, was, unfortunately, no real upside:

The drop in job satisfaction between 1987 and 2009 covers all categories in the survey, from interest in work (down 18.9 percentage points) to job security (down 17.5 percentage points) and crosses all four of the key drivers of employee engagement: job design, organizational health, managerial quality, and extrinsic rewards.

‘Challenging and meaningful work is vitally important to engaging American workers,’ adds John Gibbons, program director of employee engagement research and services at The Conference Board. ‘Widespread job dissatisfaction negatively affects employee behavior and retention, which can impact enterprise-level success.’ In fact, 22 percent of respondents said they don’t expect to be in their current job in a year.

The conclusions to be drawn from the study aren’t pretty. While it’s tempting to say that this must be fallout from the recession, the trending over time suggests that there are core values at stake here. A healthy workplace—even in these challenging times—is more important than ever.

For quite some time now, it’s seemed like you can’t turn around without finding someone tweeting, re-tweeting, or updating their Facebook status. The reality of social media has sunk into every corner of our culture.

Every corner, apparently, except one: HR. It’s hard to believe that the workplace could be so slow to deal with the social networking phenomenon, but a new study reveals that 75 percent of employers say their business has no formal policy instructing employees on the appropriate use of social networking sites on the job.

The study, “Employer Perspectives on Social Networking,” is being released along with the report “Social Networks vs. Management: Harness the Power of Social Media,” and compiles data from 34,000 businesses in 35 countries.

Beginning in October 2009, these employers were asked four key questions:

• Does your organization have a formal policy regarding employee use of external social network sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn?
• In which of these areas has your policy been effective?
• In what two areas do you believe external social networks can provide the biggest boost to your organization in the future?
• Has your organization’s reputation ever been negatively affected as a result of employees’ use of social networking sites?

Three out of four employers reported their business had no policy governing social networking, and on top of that, another five percent couldn’t determine if such a policy existed or not!

The implications of these results are huge, for both businesses and workers. In a world where many people don’t think twice about regularly logging in to these sites, employers stand to lose a significant number of number of man-hours to shared Flickr streams and Ashton Kutcher’s latest posts.

In fact, 63 percent of employers who did have social networking policies in place reported that those policies improved productivity. More than a third also said their social-networking policies had helped to protect their company’s intellectual property and other proprietary information.

HR professionals should also consider that the lack of a policy can leave both managers and their employees feeling vulnerable. Many workers have already adopted a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy when it comes to social networking at work, and may think the lack of specific guidelines protects them from disciplinary action. Managers may be frustrated by a perceived lack of support when they think social networking is leading to a loss in productivity. This is one case where any policy may be better than nothing — only 2 percent felt that their company’s guidelines were not effective.

About two-thirds of the existing policies cover only restrictions on the use of social networking. However, the study also revealed that many employers feel this type of site, when properly regulated, has potential in the workplace, and that this upside should be considered when drafting a policy. Nearly 60 percent saw a bright future for social networking in their own business, believing it could be useful in building their brand (20%), improving collaboration and communication (19%), recruiting talent (15%), and hiring (13%).

According to MarketingVOX, there are even bigger possibilities — and pitfalls — for social networking in the corporate world:

“Social networks have become a goldmine of information for companies skilled in the art of connecting the dots - a little-noticed development that is beginning to concern companies. In many cases mining such information is completely legally. For example, one can examine public statements by company staffers - especially if they are inconsistent - that can point to new initiatives under way.

Bob Fox, head of a competitive intelligence program for Canadian entrepreneurs advises firms to monitor competitors’ comments in the media, on industry blogs, at conferences and, yes, on social networks like Twitter and Facebook.”

The study concludes that, in general, employers are taking a “wait and see” attitude toward social networking. That may be true, but “wait” is a word that doesn’t mean much in the 24/7 culture of social networking,

Sometimes a small change can mean big change for the employment market. That’s what analysts are saying about the January unemployment numbers released last Friday by the Department of Labor.

Is the news all good for jobseekers? No, but it’s much better than anyone expected. Consider this: After losing 150,000 jobs in December, the U.S. economy lost only 20,000 jobs last month, a small statistical change that could signal much bigger things—most notably, that after a string of brutal jobs reports, the worst may be over. After revising its numbers from the end of last year, the Labor Department determined that unemployment fell to 9.7 percent last month from 10 percent.

Job-market watchers have jumped all over the unexpected good news. On the White House blog, Council of Economic Advisers chair Christina Romer wrote that “while unemployment remains a severe problem, today’s employment report contains encouraging signs of gradual labor market healing.”

Employment did rise in a few areas, including retail trade and temporary help employment, as well as manufacturing. The results of the Labor Department’s survey of households showed that 541,000 more Americans had work in January. But Romer’s choice of words may be an even bigger indicator in itself, as it marks the first time anyone analyzing the labor market has really talked about “healing” for the jobs outlook. Could the jobless recovery finally be getting back its jobs?

There are several caveats, of course. First of all, as Romer herself notes, the DOL’s revised numbers revealed that more than a million more jobs than previously thought have been lost in this recession. The new numbers suggest 8.4 million jobs have been lost in this recession, and it will likely take several years for all of those jobs to be restored to the economy.

But let’s look at that in a different light. Economic analysts believe we could add as many as 1.5 million jobs to the U.S. economy this year. For proof that 2010 is beginning to show signs of an improved outlook, look no further than CNN/Fortune’s new list of the best companies to work for in 2010. Out of those, almost a quarter have at least 500 openings each, which equals almost 88,000 jobs. In other words, Fortune’s top companies are hiring.

The top rankings this year, by the way, went to:

1. SAS
2. Edward Jones
3. Wegmans
4. Google
5. Nugget Market
6. DreamWorks Animation
7. NetApp
8. Boston Consulting Group
9. Qualcomm
10. Camden Property Trust

To some degree, this year’s list of top companies is just a reshuffling of last year’s, but it’s interesting to consider who moved and who didn’t. North-Carolina-based software firm SAS jumped all the way from #20 to #1, while Edward Jones remained at #2 and Google held at #4. Camden Property Trust made the biggest upward move in the top 10, from #41 to #10. Meanwhile, Cisco Systems, Genentech and Goldman Sachs all fell out of the top 10.

Unlike 2009’s list, not all of the top 10 companies had positive job growth this year, and the upticks were generally small in any case.

However, judging from what the companies are saying about their hiring for this year — and all of those openings — expect that to change on next year’s list.

Affiliated Computer Services, a Fortune 500 company and global leader in business process outsourcing and information technology services, has introduced a new service offering, ACS Transition Services - Powered by RiseSmart.

Said Mark Squiers, executive managing director of ACS Human Resources Outsourcing services, in the company’s press release:

This is a new model for transition services, one that is geared to providing strong returns for both employers and employees. By eliminating costly traditional services like office space and group seminars, which have been found to be of low value to employees, the focus is on aggressively helping workers find a new job. Valuable services such as professional resume writing and personalized support for individuals remain, while companies have the ability to quickly deploy the additional services without dealing with infrastructure issues.

We are delighted to partner with ACS as we continue to transform the way outplacement works, both for employees and employers.