Kate Renwick-Espinosa was weeks into a four-month maternity leave from VSP Vision Care when her boss called and asked to stop by.

Northern California’s economy hasn’t edged far enough into recovery to encourage strong hiring. The bouncing stock market, shaky European economies and an upcoming presidential election have many managers wondering what kind of business climate they’ll be dealing with a year from now.

“We intend — on our own as the majority party — to do all that we can to put people back to work.”  So says Senate Majority Leader Darrell Steinberg. Well, that certainly is good news.

Kevin Manzer gave up being a cop to clean carpets.

Blair Sapeta isn’t setting aside money for her retirement. She’s just 31 years old and has more immediate financial concerns.

Looking back, it’s easy to see how some local government pension plans wound up underfunded. As described in last month’s issue, much of the blame goes to generous legislation passed during California’s boom cycles.

Today, there are more than 8 million women-owned businesses in America, generating nearly $1.3 trillion in annual revenue. Women continue to launch enterprises at a faster rate than the national average, according to the latest Census data. In fact, women have been launching and growing businesses faster than men for the past two decades.

It’s the middle of the night, and the whole world is sleeping — except for the nearly 24 million Americans who are working the night shift.

For decades America has been steadily approaching a major social development — a time when the number of women in the work force would surpass the number of men. That moment has now arrived, brought on by, of all things, a recession.

California will need close to a million new medical assistants, lab techs, respiratory therapists and other skilled health workers in the next 20 years in addition to new doctors and nurses, a recent study estimates. But the state doesn’t have enough educational capacity to train them all.

Tasked with finding matches for the highest-ranking positions in business, executive recruiters rely on their networks to find candidates. With websites such as Facebook and Twitter linking personal and professional worlds, it seems like a natural move to forgo the phone tree in favor of web connections.

Markus Bokisch has grown into the kind of man who doesn’t mind having his wife in his business. But it didn’t happen overnight.

For decades, the contours of the Capital Region economy seemed etched in stone. Government, manufacturing and construction employed the bulk of the population. After the boom and bust of the past decade, however, the job profile of the future could be almost unrecognizable.

Nearly 70 percent of California’s high school foster youth dropped out last year. Of the 10 percent that make it to higher education, just 3 percent are likely to graduate.

This summer, the Milken Institute released its second report on manufacturing in California. Seven years the institute sounded the alarm that California was losing its manufacturing edge, the driving force for postwar prosperity from the aerospace industry through high technology. The institute said policy makers should pay attention to the state’s manufacturing decline.

Many things can claim victim status in the wake of the current economy, but local MBA programs aren’t one of them.

Despite significant tuition costs, ranging from $12,000 to $40,000, MBA programs are at worst holding steady in enrollments, and many are actually enjoying surges — not just in applications but in qualified applications.

Late on a work night, Amy Mathews picked up her ringing BlackBerry to find a frantic customer on the other end. On an airplane nearing departure for Buenos Aires, a woman realized her debit card was on the verge of expiration. She would be out of the country for weeks without an easy way to access cash. Mathews knew she held the solution in her palm. From her BlackBerry, the corporate banking manager at Mechanics Bank fired off a couple emails and got a new debit card ordered in minutes.