Tuesday, April 22, 2014

It's almost like employers are trying to stay below 50 full-time workers

What could be causing this?  It's a mystery!  Newsbusters: "NBC's Martha White: 39 Paragraphs on All-Time Record Number of Temps, Not a Word on Obamacare."  The David Gregory school of jern-a-lists.

8 comments:

Jack Temp said...

The amount of temp jobs in America doubled between 1983-1987, tripled between 1983-1991, sextupled between 1983-1995, and nontupled between 1983-2000. Since 1983, the temp industry has grown five times faster than overall employment. What else to blame for this 30-year trend but Obamacare?

Anonymous said...

Seriously. A news report about the all-time record number of temps could have been written at any time during the last five presidencies.

Eric said...

Good news: the Census department re-classified temporary workers as "freed from job lock."

Anonymous said...

1983-2010 temp stats don't count, once you're freed from fact lock.

Eric said...

I swear that I had no advance knowledge of this WSJ quote: "Others have begun restructuring their businesses, reducing their employees' hours, for example, or trimming their total head counts to fewer than 50 full-time workers."

It's like I'm psychotic or something.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304049904579517941827283028?mg=reno64-wsj

CBIZ kit said...

You may be psychotic, but you're not going to be crazy about this:

http://blog.cbiz.com/2014/04/small-business-hiring-in-March.html

The CBIZ Small Business Employment Index (SBEI), a barometer for hiring trends that surveys data from 3,500 companies with 300 or fewer employees, increased by 1.01 percent during the month of March. Historically for the SBEI, the month of March has reported hiring increases.

With staffing declines in January and February, we looked to the uncertainty surrounding areas like the Affordable Care Act as something that could be impacting small business hiring. Taking the March reading into account, it seems as if employers are becoming more comfortable with these regulations.

At-a-glance: 26 percent of the companies in the index added to their payrolls for the month of March while 20 percent decreased employee totals. 54 percent of the companies in the index had no change.

Eric said...

CBIZ, eh?

Washington Post: "Disturbing trends in small-business hiring."

"Small businesses added a modest 72,000 jobs in March, down slightly from 76,000 the month before and well off a peak of 113,000 back in November, according to report published by payroll company ADP on Wednesday. Of those, companies that produce tangible goods (as opposed to services firms) added only 9,000 jobs.

Meanwhile, Intuit, a business software company, reported that small-business hiring ticked up a minuscule 0.01 percent in March, following zero job growth in February.

But it gets worse. Small firms’ share of the nation’s net new jobs (191,000 in March) dipped below 40 percent for only the second time in the past year, according to ADP. Since the start of 2013, the only time small businesses have accounted for a smaller portion of job gains was last October, when the government shutdown brought small-business hiring to a screeching halt across the country."

CBIZ kit said...

[i]CBIZ, eh?[/i]

Ha, you're right. What the heck would an accounting and management consulting company know about the thousands of small businesses they're paid to assist? CNIX isn't even a respected, major national pollster, like U.S. Bancorp (basis for the WSJ link).

Dueling reports, eh?

http://smallbusiness.foxbusiness.com/legal-hr/2014/04/21/nabe-economists-optimistic-on-hiring-sales/

Fox Business (4/14): "NABE Economists Optimistic on Hiring, Sales

53% of respondents said sales today are increasing.

"Though sales growth reported in the April survey was weaker than the previous quarter, forty-three percent of survey respondents say their firms have plans to hire over the next six months.

As before, a little more than one-fourth of respondents’ firms added employees last quarter, and one-quarter of the firms report shortages of skilled labor. The percentage of survey panelists who expect their firms to add workers or increase overall capital spending increased strongly from that reported in the January survey."

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-02-07/gauging-small-business-hiring-in-january

Business Week (2/14): "Respondents were more bullish about future job creation plans than at any point since September 2007... An employment report released this week by the Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy anticipates a strong year for small business hiring in 2014."

https://wellsfargoworks.com/run/optimism-hits-highest-level-in-five-years

Wells Fargo/Gallup (2/14): "Small business owners are the most optimistic they have been in five years, according to the latest Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index, and expect their businesses to increase cash flow and hire more employees in 2014.

In a small business survey conducted January 6 – 10, the overall score increased to a positive 45 (+45) in January, up from a positive 24 (+24) in October 2013. While this score is the highest it has been since the third quarter of 2008, it is still well below pre-recession levels.

More small business owners said they expect to increase hiring in the next 12 months than in last quarter’s survey (22% compared to 16%).
In January, business owners once again said their top concern was finding new business (21%). Other top concerns included the economy (11%), government regulations (11%), hiring (8%) and healthcare (8%)."

http://www.reuters .com/article/2014/01/08/us-usa-economy-jobs-hiring-idUSBREA0712P20140108

Reuters (1/14): "U.S. small businesses hired the most workers in nearly eight years in December, the latest sign of vigor in the labor market and the broader economy.

The National Federation of Independent Business said on Wednesday small business owners added an average of 0.24 workers per firm last month, the largest since February 2006.

"Job creation is slowly moving in a positive direction," the NFIB said in a statement.

It said just under a quarter of owners had job openings they could not fill, the highest reading since January 2008.

Fourteen percent reported using temporary workers, up one point from November."