Small businesses lost 18,000 jobs in February, according to a report by payroll giant ADP.

Intuit is seeing small businesses beginning to hire again, based on a survey of its online payroll customers.

The Internal Revenue Service has made an administrative determination to accept the position that medical residents are excepted from FICA payroll taxes based on the student exception for tax periods ending before April 1, 2005, when new IRS regulations went into effect.

The Senate approved a job creation bill Wednesday after 13 Republicans agreed to vote for the measure, which includes tax breaks for businesses that hire or retain employees.

Despite lean budgets for many businesses today, cash bonuses continue to be the leading incentive for recognizing employee performance, according to a survey of CFOs.

The Senate voted to consider a $15 billion job creation bill after five Republican senators agreed to overcome a filibuster on the measure, which would provide tax breaks to companies that hire and retain employees.

Our Generational Viewpoints article this issue features Baby Boomer John Nicolopoulos, born in 1956, assurance partner of Boston-based Caturano and Co. (www.caturano.com), and Generation Y assurance manager Nichole VanPelt, born in 1981, of the same firm. We asked Nichole and John the following question: "How important is soft-skills training to your firm?"

The fourth year of Ernst & Young's Discover Tax Leadership Conference drew 102 minority college students from all over the country to New York (braving the cold) to learn about tax - and themselves.

Everybody has secrets.

A series of surveys conducted in the past decade suggests that CFOs may be staying in their jobs longer.

Small businesses with less than 50 employees slashed 12,000 jobs last month, the smallest decline since July of 2008, but businesses in the service sector actually added jobs for the second consecutive month.

CFOs were more optimistic about the economy and their own companies in the fourth quarter of last year, according to a new survey.

A measure of the overall confidence of accounting and finance employees dipped slightly in the fourth quarter.

Staffing company Robert Half International has introduced a set of online salary calculators for a number of industries, including accounting and finance.

One-third of small businesses question their ability to access credit in 2010, according to a new survey.

Accounting Principals, the accounting and finance recruitment unit of MPS Group, has released its 2010 Salary Guide for Accounting and Finance Professionals.

Intuit has created a Lacerte and ProSeries Tax Certification program that 1040 tax preparers can use to demonstrate their proficiency and firms can use to test their existing staff and find qualified job candidates.

Several years ago, the most critical generational issue facing CPA firms was attracting and keeping bright new talent. Today, the generational scales have tipped; it's no longer the youngest employees who are causing concern - it's the most experienced employees.

ACCOUNTING STAFF CUTBACKS SHOULD SLOW

IMGCAP(1)]Everywhere you turn, people are talking about the next generation: Millennials, Generation Y, Nexters.