This will cheer you up - unless one of these people works for you.

As compiled by AOL…

You are invited on Wednesday, Dec. 3, at 9:00 AM, as three local small business experts will present a one·hour seminar designed to teach small business owners how to address challenges in growing their businesses.

With health insurance premiums continuing to increase, everyone needs tips from a professional on how to control the cost of health insurance. At this seminar, you will learn:

• How a Health Savings Account can reduce your premiums by 40%
• What is IRS Section 125 and how does it help you to purchase tax deductible benefits
• How to shop for the most affordable health plans

There will be other presentations as well, including on finding a business banker that will help you grow, and the SBA 504 loan program.

It’s an open house event, no RSVP needed.

About.com on finding the leaders in your organization:

One of the most important tasks within your organization is to identify and develop your next generation of talent. I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately as a client company has grown to the size where it needs to consider succession planning especially for the key roles within the company. Life is short; bad things happen to good people, but your company can be prepared for all exigencies.

With credit locked up and consumers on the sidelines, small businesses should be sleuthing for any and all ways to shave expenses. Chopping heads only gets you so far–slice into muscle and you may be too hobbled to ride the rebound.

Forbes offers 14 creative cost-cutting ideas…

David Brooks offers his interesting opinion at the New York Times…

Recessions breed pessimism. That’s why birthrates tend to drop and suicide rates tend to rise. That’s why hemlines go down. Tamar Lewin of The New York Times reported on studies that show that the women selected to be Playboy Playmates of the Year tend to look more mature during recessions — older, heavier, more reassuring — though I have not verified this personally.

This recession will probably have its own social profile. In particular, it’s likely to produce a new social group: the formerly middle class. These are people who achieved middle-class status at the tail end of the long boom, and then lost it. To them, the gap between where they are and where they used to be will seem wide and daunting.

The phenomenon is noticeable in developing nations. Over the past decade, millions of people in these societies have climbed out of poverty. But the global recession is pushing them back down. Many seem furious with democracy and capitalism, which they believe led to their shattered dreams. It’s possible that the downturn will produce a profusion of Hugo Chávezes. It’s possible that the Obama administration will spend much of its time battling a global protest movement that doesn’t even exist yet.

The US Department of Labor has revised the USERRA notice that employers should have posted in their break rooms. Here is the latest version…

It shouldn’t be any surprise, and it isn’t to people educated in economics… The New York Times says since Congress raised the lawful minimum wage, entry-level jobs have declined more than any other area of the job market.

From the fall of 2007 to this October, the share of 16- to 19-year-olds working fell by 8 percent, the largest decline of any age group, and the outlook for youths and low-skilled workers in coming months is bleak, economists say, with the industries most apt to employ them, like home-building and retail sales, taking steep dives.

From Forbes:

Taking the hit for a mistake is tough–but it goes a long way to galvanizing relationships.

Millenials - employees under 30 - may well be unhappy with the technology you use in your business. Their answer: to go around your IT department and use the technology solutions they prefer.

Here’s a fascinating Accenture study discussed at ReadWriteWeb.com.

The health insurance choices companies are submitting to employees during the open enrollment period now under way largely follow what they have done in the recent past.

As companies struggle to keep their health care bills from rising out of proportion to other expenses, many have resorted to raising co-payments or deductibles and trimming some types of coverages. Some companies have raised premiums. More also promoted high-deductible policies mated with medical savings accounts, termed consumer-driven health plans, although industry officials debate their impact.

From the Las Vegas Business Press…