Internet: Web site can provide help for wedding toast

Your best friend is getting married, and you don’t know what to say on the wedding day.

InstantWeddingToasts.com may be what you’ll need. The Web site offers customized wedding toasts and templates that you can personalize by adding some names and personal memories.

Toastmasters can fill out a questionnaire and have a professional speechwriter write the toast for $65. Templates where you fill in the blanks with personal information cost $17.95.

Sixty percent of visitors to the site are the best man, with the rest the maid of honor, the father of the bride or other family members.

Topeka: Agency to offer seminar on holiday shopping

Consumer Credit Counseling Service will share ideas and methods designed for wise holiday spending during their “Surviving the Holidays” workshop in Topeka.

The workshop will cover such topics as shopping without credit cards, inexpensive gift ideas, smart shopping strategies and ways to avoid post holiday bills.

The free course will be from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the Topeka Library, 1515 SW 10th St.

To make reservations, call (785) 234-0217 or (800) 383-0217.

Consumer Credit Counseling is a division of Housing & Credit Counseling Inc., which provides counseling and education on money management, tenant/landlord issues and first-time homeownership.

Labor: Rate of unemployment in tech industry slows

The number of U.S. tech jobs fell by 113,000 in the first six months of 2002, but the rate of job loss appears to be slowing, a new report says.

More than 5.2 million workers hold tech jobs, down from a peak of 5.7 million in March 2001, according to the report released Thursday by the American Electronics Association.

Tech industry employment has declined every month since March 2001 a year after the tech bubble first showed signs of bursting with the shutdown of dot-coms and steep stock market declines.

But there are signs of improvement.

Only 700 jobs were lost between May and June 2002 the smallest month-to-month decline since May 2001, which recorded about 16,000 jobs lost.