This summer, Americans were paying, on average, $4.09 per gallon for regular unleaded gasoline to fuel the vehicles they rely on to get to and from work everyday. This represents an increase of $1.14 over the same time last year.Salary.com™ set out to calculate just how much the escalating cost of commuting to work is eating into the average worker's take home pay. To accomplish this, we established some reasonable criteria.The average worker travels, round-trip, 29 miles each day. Vehicle fuel economy varies, but we will assume an average fuel efficiency rate of 18.8 miles per gallon. We will... view article details

Everyone has worked a summer job at some point. For some those jobs may be their true calling, but for many they are a place to gain some valuable skills and foster passion for their future careers.Read on to see the most popular summer jobs our readers held, and how the skills learned there can help in preparing for a future career. Babysitter Respondents who had this summer job 35.9% A babysitter must learn the fundamentals of relating to young children. Valuable skill for careers in: Child Care Young children get in a lot of scrapes. Successful babysitters learn to use basic fir... view article details

From CNN Money and the compensation experts at Salary.com6. Market research analyst Why it's great If you want to know what the next big thing is, this is your field. Before launching a product or service, companies turn to market research analysts who collect and evaluate data about consumer wants, needs and buying habits. You get to work on a huge variety of projects: In a single day you might run a taste test on a new vodka flavor, evaluate a re-branding campaign for a hot dog and analyze political polling data. What's cool Testing products before they hit the market. You talk to lots of pe... view article details

Q: I have started a new job under the assumption that I would be working out of my employer's home-based office for about four months. Now he is telling me I need to work from my home. I have an associate's degree with over five years of experience in the administrative and HR fields. I am doing accounting, HR, business development, project administration, and travel coordination. He thinks I am doing a great job. I only make $28,000. Should I ask for a raise? Since I am working from home and using my own computer and materials, I think he should increase my pay. He doesn't pay for any of my ... view article details

A federal program designed to help jobless veterans find work is proving very popular with its target audience, according to numbers released this week by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.The VOW to Hire Heroes Act, signed into law in November 2011, calls for the creation of a program that pays for unemployed veterans to receive training in fields where skilled workers are in high demand, as determined by the U.S. Department of Labor. The resulting Veteran Retraining Assistance Program, or VRAP, began accepting applications on May 15.In the six weeks since VRAP launched, the program has... view article details

One of the most important and generous benefits a company can offer is tuition reimbursement, a contractual arrangement between employer and employee that outlines specific terms under which the employer may pay for the employee's continuing education. Today, tuition reimbursement benefits are also called tuition assistance, and vary greatly from company to company. It generally takes a solid, well-established company to be able to offer what could amount to $10,000 per semester or more for eligible employees. So don't look for too many startups to include tuition assistance as a regular part... view article details

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that health care is expected to generate more new jobs than any other industry over the next several years. As Baby Boomers age there will be a need for more home health care services, residential care facilities and nurses to staff them. Medical group practices and integrated health systems are predicted to become larger and more complex, resulting in an increased need for office and administrative support workers. High job turnover, additional anticipated retirements in the industry and the slowing number of foreign healthcare workers being allowed to e... view article details

No One Knows Blue Collar Jobs Better than Mike Rowe At one point or another, you've probably seen someone performing a "dirty" job and said to yourself "You couldn't pay me enough to do that." But Mike Rowe, host of TV's Dirty Jobs, gets paid to do exactly that. And, in an interview with Salary.com last week, said he thinks more people should follow suit. Rowe says America is in the midst of a skilled labor shortage, as hundreds of thousands of available blue collar jobs go unfilled because workers lack the necessary training. But even more upsetting, Rowe said, is the attitude of many Amer... view article details

There has never been a better time to plan your career path. In today’s war for talent, there are more job vacancies than unemployed individuals to fill them. Career growth will certainly evolve in the future. A report by Dell Technologies estimates that 85% of the jobs today’s learners will be doing in 2030 haven't even been invented yet – good luck future Marty McFly! So whether your plan for career growth in the new year is to enter the workforce for the first time, move into a more senior role, or make a lateral move, you should start strategizing now. But with so many possibilities, how d... view article details

Jobs that pay $50K or more You Can Have a Job You Love AND a Nice Paycheck How do you define success? Do you want a job that you love, or a paycheck that satisfies you? In a tough economy where jobs are scarce, many of us believe that we must, to some degree, choose between one and the other. The reality is, lack of money is one of the top causes of stress in the United States. According to the American Psychological Association’s most recent annual Stress in America survey, 75 percent of those surveyed said money was a significant source of stress in their lives, while another 70 percent cite... view article details