On the Job

by Gail Repsher

Salary.com's Salary Wizard is now available at Hoover's Online, the business portal operated by Hoover's Inc.

Salary Wizard allows users to research pay by industry, region and job. The tool will be available on Hoover's Career Development channel for free.

Salary.com also provides compensation advice, negotiation tactics and other compensation news. Content from the Wellesley, Mass., company also is available at Yahoo!Careers, WetFeet.com, Vault.com and Career Creations.com.Late last month saw the launch of the new Web site www.disAbility.gov. Its creator, the Presidential Task Force on the Employment of Adults with Disabilities, said the site provides one-stop online access to resources, services, and information available throughout the federal government for people with disabilities and their families.

Topics addressed include children and youth, civil rights, education, employment, health, transportation and housing. The site will highlight employment trends, including the demand for technology workers.The percentage of U.S. home office households with Internet access approached 81 percent by the end of 1999, a dramatic increase from 26 percent at the end of 1996, International Data Corp. recently reported.

The Framingham, Mass., firm, a provider of information technology industry analysis, expects the percentage to approach 92 percent in 2004.

"A small business operating out of the home, which in the past was constrained by problems of logistics, can now easily establish a global presence via the Web," said Merle Sandler, an IDC senior analyst.

IDC expects dial-up methods to remain the most popular way to connect home offices to the Internet through 2004, but noted that cable modems and DSL connections will become increasingly popular.