It's Labor Day. A day to honor those that bust their butts every day of the year by giving them a day off to do yard work, close up the cabin and get the kids ready for back to school. Here are a few random facts about Labor Day. 

Labor Day marks the sad unofficial end of summer here in the United States, but did you know that Labor Day was actually started in Canada? It became a holiday in 1872 in Toronto and workers in the U.S. decided that they wanted in so ten thousand workers took a day off of work and marched through the streets of Manhattan and they got their wish, but it wasn't a national right away. Labor Day became an official holiday in Oregon in 1887 and President Grover Cleveland named it a national holiday in 1894.

Our ancestors in the 1800's worked 12 hour days every day just to make ends meet. That's an 84 hour work week and kids as young as five worked in mines. Eight hour work days didn't become the standard until the early 1900's, so tell your kids that the next time they complain about having to clean their rooms.

The commute is becoming a thing of the past as more and more people are working from home these days. According to the 2010 Census, almost six million employees worked from home in their jammies and that number is only expected to grow as technology advances. Long commutes and high gas prices may be what's causing people to want to work more from home, but think about this: What time do you leave for work every day? New Census figures estimate that over 16 million commuters leave their homes before 6am to get to work on time. I do it every day and I can tell you from eight years of experience that some days, especially in the winter, it's a very hard thing to do. According to the Census, it's not like we have to leave before 6am to catch the carpool. almost 77 percent of workers drive there alone. Less than one in ten carpool and only five percent use public transportation.

Did you know that there are 15 employment fields that are responsible for most of the jobs in the U.S.? It's true. Retail sales, cashiers, office administrative assistants, restaurants and nurses account for 25 percent of the jobs.

Sorry ladies, but men still make more than we do. The average male employee makes roughly 29 percent more than women, so if your salary is $37 thousand per year, a man in the same position will make about $48 thousand dollars a year doing the same job.

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