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Where are the jobs? 2014 INC 5000 List might provide some answers…

2014 INC 5000 data viz

          What do Domino’s Pizza, Microsoft, Timberland, Tough Mudder, Intuit, Vermont Teddy Bear, E*Trade, Lending Club, Morningstar, Oracle, Fuhu, Cold Stone Creamery, Under Armour, and GoDaddy have in common? They all have appeared on Inc Magazine’s INC 500 list of the fastest-growing American private companies. Looking at the last year’s INC 5000 list might help us draw employment insights and identify best industries and places to look for a job. By definition, these company are experiencing tremendous growth, and as such, could be representative of future job opportunities in the US. In addition, according to Forbes , small businesses added over 65% of the net new jobs in the past two decades. So, where are the jobs?! Based on INC 5000 data, Chicago, IL employs over 5% [56,813] of all INC 5000 workers. Another 14% [144,847] of INC 5000 employees work in California. Top 3 industries by employment include: Human Resources, Business Products & Services, and IT Services . Together, they are responsible for almost 400,000 jobs, or 38% of the grand total.

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AT&T iPhone6 Upgrade: 2-Year contract vs. Next plans

iPhone6Upgrade Options with AT&T

         

         If you are getting ready to upgrade to iPhone6 through AT&T, you might be in for a surprise or two. The first surprise is that back in July of last year, AT&T changed its phone upgrade eligibility date from 20 months to 24 months.

         Using a 2-year contract option, this change most likely means that you did not qualify for an iPhone6 pre-order last Friday, and will probably have to wait till after September 19th’s official release to place your upgrade order. If you are not willing to wait, you can pay AT&T an upgrade surcharge ($40 if your upgrade date is later this month) to upgrade immediately.

         Alternatively, you can take a completely different route, and go with a Next 12 or Next 18 installment plans and forget about service contracts and early termination fees altogether. At first glance, it’s pretty hard to follow AT&T’s case for the Next plans.

         In this post I will present my own calculations and conclusions pertaining to different scenarios when either a 2-year contract or one of the two Next plans works better. Since Samsung Galaxy S5 is offered at the same price as iPhone6, these calculations will work for all of the Android lovers out there as well.

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