Harvard's WorklifeWizard Launches Spanish-Language Website

Business Wire, June 13, 2007

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- The WorklifeWizard, the Labor & Worklife Program's web-based resource and research tool, expands its reach by unveiling an unprecedented Spanish-language website, ElMundoLaboral.org.

As with the Harvard Law School-based WorklifeWizard.org, the new ElMundoLaboral.org site aims to be a premiere resource for worklife issues, providing a diversity of career resources for people working throughout the U.S. and a cutting-edge research tool for management, labor, policymakers, scholars, journalists, students, and others interested in the world of work.

"We are committed to helping people from Wall Street to Main Street, from Maine to Arizona, regardless of political stripes, gender, race, ethnicity, education, or income," explains Terry Babcock-Lumish, Wertheim Fellow at Harvard Law School. Our site empowers workers to remove the veil that continues to shroud salary information. In the 16th century, Sir Francis Bacon asserted, 'ipsa scientia potestas est' - knowledge is power." Babcock-Lumish continues, "The WorklifeWizard and ElMundoLaboral represent modern-day efforts to support individuals throughout American workplaces."

The website includes a salary checker in Spanish, whereas before, all available options have been English only. In addition, the site includes content on relevant news and issues, profiles of featured occupations and earnings (compare your salary to that of a favorite Hollywood star or Red Sox pitcher, or learn about military or CSI careers), and links directly to the English-language version for seamless interactivity. Upon completion of the survey, respondents are entered in drawings to win a safari trip to South Africa, an autographed Jim Rice baseball, or Amazon.com gift certificates.

The WorklifeWizard program is headed by Richard Freeman, Herbert Ascherman Professor of Economics at Harvard University, who remarks, "Since launching the WorklifeWizard on Labor Day, the site has been very popular, but we are always interested in understanding how to expand or improve, particularly so that we might better learn and help. "We want to know about American worklives beyond what surveys or pundits can tell us. When workers have questions about issues like discrimination, training, negotiating a raise, or switching careers, they can ask our team of experts."

WorklifeWizard partners include BusinessWeek, United Professionals, PhDs.org, the AFL-CIO's Working America, the Communications Workers of America, and SmartEconomist.com.