If you're one of the millions of workers left behind after layoffs, sweating over an inflated workload, fretting that you might be next, you already know how demoralizing a "reduction in force" (RIF) can be. If you're managing layoff survivors, you have even more reason to worry.

In 2001, China became the first centrally-planned economy admitted to the World Trade Organization (WTO) — the only global international organization designed to facilitate multilateral trade between its member nations.

In light of recent product recalls, this question nags: Has Chinese product quality actually deteriorated, or not? Opinion is split. Some argue forcefully that Chinese products have suffered in recent years, or at the very least, were never of high quality in the first place.

About 46 million Americans — 15 percent of the population — do not have health insurance, according to the latest U.S. Census data. Approximately $100 billion would be needed to provide them with coverage. Can we afford it? And where would the money come from?

Since 1980 China's economy has grown at an average rate of 9.8 percent a year — that's compared to 2-3 percent for developed economies like the U.S.

January brought an uptick in foreclosures in the still-troubled Phoenix real estate market — discouraging words after the drop in foreclosure-related activity in the waning months of 2010. But is it a new trend?

Social isolation in the U.S. has been on the rise for decades, according to research conducted in 2006 by sociologists.

Measuring the performance of workers on an assembly line is simple: Count the objects produced and find out how long the process took. That should reveal the productivity of the factory workers. But how do you determine the performance of knowledge workers?

Phoenix Metro home prices continued their decline in December, and are expected to keep dropping for the foreseeable future.

The newly released census reports that Arizona's population was just about 6.4 million as of April 1, 2010 — a number considerably lower than estimated. In fact, the Census Bureau's own 2009 estimate was 204,000 too high, and the Arizona Department of Commerce overshot reality by 291,000.