Today we learn that a GE Healthcare subsidiary will close its Sanford plant, throwing 225 people out of work by the end of 2009. The Portland Press Herald has a reporter and photographer on the scene, working on a story.

At least initially, it looks like this closure has more to do with corporate consolidation than current economic conditions. Employees told our reporter, Beth Quimby, that they had been expecting the announcement for months, after GE purchased the plant in April.

At uncertain times like these, you see a lot of articles describing the so-called "hot jobs," which offer the best opportunities for employment and job security in the coming years.

Some occupations on these lists are predictable.

Earlier this week, new University of Southern Maine President Selma Botman spoke at a USM Corporate Partners breakfast about how difficult it is to find enough nurses with graduate degrees to train the next generation of nurses.

I've always thought that an AFL-CIO slogan, "the people who brought you the weekend," is about as good a line as can be imagined. It's tight, concise and carries a big message, a reminder that as tough as work can be in the early 21st century, it was a heck of a lot tougher for our grandparents or great-grandparents.

It's easy to forget the historic contributions of the nation's union movement, during this era of the individual, when the Internet is creating desktop entrepreneurs in droves and people are as likely to be focused on a "Survivor" contestant in Gabon as on their next-door neighbor.