RJ and Makay

A survey of 1,000 middle class Americans by First Command Financial Services has identified ten traits people look for in a financial planner. The top two, selected by about three-quarters of respondents in both cases, were “knowledgeable” and “trustworthy.” Seventy percent said their planner had to be "honest," making that number three on the list.

Here's the entire top 10 list:

While overall unemployment fell to 8.8% in March, the job situation in the financial sector had mixed results. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data for the "financial activities supersector," which consists of the Finance and Insurance sector and the Real Estate, Rental, and Leasing sector, show that unemployment in the supersector climbed from 6.9% in February to 7.1% in March.

In number terms, the supersector did add 6,000 jobs in March, though, improving slightly over the last two consecutive months of job losses. At 7,610,000, however, the number of employees in the supersector is still 741,000 shy of its December 2006 peak of 8,351,000 and lower than the headcount at anytime from 2001 through 2010. The supersector's unemployment rate is still more than triple the low of 2.1% it achieved in December 2005.

Although the latest government figures show overall unemployment has fallen from 9.4% to 9%, it appears joblessness in the financial sector is on the rise.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), there are fewer people working in the financial sector than at anytime in the last 10 years. The preliminary numbers show 7,606,000 workers in the industry for January. This represents a loss of 60,000 jobs since last January and a loss of 742,000 jobs since the peak in February 2007, when the financial sector boasted 8,348,000 employees.