Bringing in new owners and managers can disrupt a small business even under the best of circumstances. When death forces those changes on a business with little or no warning, the stress multiplies exponentially.

Consider the annual physical and why both doctors and America’s work force find them frustrating: The worker has to carve out time to take all the exams and tests, often in different locations and on different days, and doctors lament the lack of time to discuss the results with patients.

In an economy where company officials are making hard financial decisions, spending thousands of dollars on training might seem like an unnecessary expense.

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.

Steve Moore, of Rex Moore Electrical Contracting, spent a decade handing over the reins of the family business to a fourth generation.

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.

Even in the best economy, employers fight a financial tug of war with the people who work for them. One side wants more pay and benefits while the other side wants to trim costs. When the economy takes a nose dive, though, the tug of war can get a lot rougher. State and local government jobs are getting much of the attention in Sacramento this year as furloughs and layoffs have increased tension with workers. But Sacramento’s private sector has seen temperatures rise, too.