The next six to twelve months should reveal a lot about the U.S. labor market. Although the unemployment rate continues to hover near double-digits at 9.6 percent, some economists believe that strong productivity from U.S. workers over the past few years is one of the key factors that have kept employers from hiring.

The latest quarterly productivity figures, due out on Nov. 4, are expected to rise 1.7 percent for the third quarter after falling 1.8 percent in the second quarter.

According to a study of 7,259 mathematicians who graduated between 1900 and 1960, successful academics did a far better job of mentoring students during the first third of their careers than during the final third of their vocations.

The study, which was conducted by researchers at Northwestern University and published in the June issue of Nature, found that students who were mentored by mathematicians who were in the first third of their career went on to train 29 percent more students than expected, according to an article about the study published in The Christian Science Monitor. By contrast, students trained by mathematicians in the final third of their careers ended up training 31 percent fewer students than expected.