Evolution of our Halloween Mailer

Anyone who has ever worked with family knows it can be difficult at times. My mom (Vice President of Sales Susan Ryan) and I butt heads on our marketing graphics at times.

Usually it's a matter of two different visions. So usually the graphics I design get two or three revisions after she finally dictates what she wants.

Here's the original graphic that didn't make the mailer sent out today:



Meet Dora, my new puppy. She's 10 weeks old and a sheltie mix. I adopted her last weekend from the local animal shelter. My girlfriend bought her that costume (against my will), so she had to make it into a graphic wearing the pumpkin outfit.

But Susan wanted something closer to what we did last year:


So the comprise turned out to be the following graphic of Dora trick-or-treating at a spooky house.



If you didn't get the mailer, click here to see it in its entirety. To sign up for our newsletter, click here.
 
I hope you enjoyed it! I'm still looking for more dog photos for our Dog-Gone Temps graphics, that you can find here on the blog. Send them to newseditor@ryanstaffing.com and be sure to check out the blog to see who's pooch gets featured.

Have a happy and safe Halloween!

BJD: Mahoning Valley Jobless Rate Drops, Still Highest Among Ohio Metros

Editor's Note: The following article ran in the Oct. 29 of the Business Journal Daily. Click here to read the article.

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- The Mahoning Valley’s jobless rate remained the highest among Ohio’s 13 metropolitan areas in September, despite falling by nearly a whole percentage point from August.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics put the Youngstown-Warren-Boardman Metropolitan Statistical Area’s unemployment rate at 12.4%, just above the 12.2% rate recorded for the Weirton-Steubenville MSA, which had the second-highest jobless rate in the state. Ohio’s unemployment rate during September was 9.7%. Among the state’s metros, the Columbus MSA posted the lowest jobless rate, 8.2%.

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Copyright 2009 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.

How to Handle H1N1 in the Office Poll Results

Last week I took the reigns on the monthly newsletter for the Portage County Human Resource Association. In that newsletter, I included a poll to find out how offices are handling the current flu season.

It didn't get the results I hoped for, but here are the results of our small sample.

The question was: How are you preventing employees from coming into work sick?

People answered:

• Providing hygiene materials and only ask that they stay home. We have not lifted other restrictions and will only do so on a case by case basis at this time.
• Encouraging them to go home if they exhibit symptoms.
• We can only ask that they stay home if they have a fever or are sick. If they come to work and we are worried about the spread of infection, then we will send them home.
• Asking them to stay home if they are sick.
• Difficult to prevent. If they come to work sick their managers/supervisors are expected to send them home.
• We offer access to short term disability. if sick over five work days we pay from first day.
• We have asked them to stay home when sick.

Please, help us with our survey. It'll only take a few minutes. The more answers we get, the better information we can put out to everyone.

Click here to get the survey.

Thanks!

SHRM: Labor Market Continues to Send Mixed Signals

Editor's Note: The following ran in a recent newsletter of the Society of Human Resource Management. Members can click here to read the entire article.

HR professionals are gaining confidence in the U.S. job market. They hope to start hiring again. They just don’t know when.

One-third of HR professionals surveyed by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) have some level of concern about the U.S. job market for the fourth quarter of 2009, with 35 percent saying that they are somewhat optimistic and 4 percent declaring themselves very optimistic about job growth in the nation for the last three months of the year. That’s a big change from the first quarter of 2009, when 73 percent of survey respondents expressed some level of pessimism.

But when it comes to forecasting staffing increases for their organizations, only 20 percent expect such an expansion in the fourth quarter of 2009. Many HR professionals are hesitant to predict when they might increase hiring. The statistics are revealed in the SHRM Labor Market Outlook survey report for October-December 2009, released Oct. 22.

Among highlights of the report:

• Fifty-nine percent of companies will maintain their staffing levels in the fourth quarter of 2009, with 14 percent planning to cut jobs.
• Thirty percent of companies conducted layoffs in the third quarter, even though only 13 percent of organizations had predicted layoffs when surveyed by SHRM before the third quarter.
• The government sector eliminated jobs at the highest rate—41 percent—of any sector in the third quarter, despite federal stimulus funds beginning to flow to state governments for job creation. Many state governments have been forced to make deep staffing cuts to balance their budgets in the face of rapidly plunging revenues.
• Nonprofit organizations added employees at the highest rate in the third quarter of 2009, with 24 percent conducting hiring.

Safety: The Call You Hope Never to Get

Short and sweet...The safety of every Ryan Staffing employee placed on assignment is our most important daily concern.

Over the past 25 years we have declined to place personnel in situations of concern.
We believe strongly that the safety issue is a joint responsibility between Ryan Staffing and its clients.

Because our clients have total control of the work environment and provide all the job training for our temps, we rely heavily on our clients to provide an accident free workplace. We do however realize that despite all this accidents will and still happen.

Last month we experienced the most severe industrial injury in the history of our company. It was a severe crushing injury that resulted in severe abdominal internal injuries as well as crushed bones.

The injury happened on an early Friday evening shift. Our client never contacted us about the injury. We learned second hand about the accident the following Monday afternoon.

As you can imagine by the time our client permitted us to see the accident scene it had been cleansed. The clients' attorneys would not let us talk to witnesses that could
shed light on what happened. Nearly four weeks later we still don't know what happened.

Because of our clients casual attitude towards this near fatal accident we decided to remove the rest of our temps from our client's location with two days notice. We no
longer had any confidence in our client's ability to provide a safe work environment. In short, we feared for the safety of our employees. This wasn't the first accident there.

The response we got from the client's corporate attorney was that if we removed our temps they would never give us their business again. To this day they have never inquired about the condition of the injured employee to my knowledge.

You're probably wondering by now where all this is heading. It's pretty simple. As a matter of corporate culture or morality or plain old just doing the right thing, Ryan Staffing will walk away from business if we believe our employees are at risk.

It's not an easy thing to do especially during times when any business is hard to come by. But I think, rather I know, that most all of our clients feel as I do about the safety of all our employees while on the job. And for that, we are most appreciative.

As a side note, the injured worker in this case is making good progress towards recovery. He has a long road to full recovery ahead of him but at least he has a road.

Thanks for listening.

Tim's Talking about Casinos, Browns v. Steelers part II and Health-care Reform

Last month's survey concerning Ballot Issue Three on allowing four casinos to be built in Ohio received a large response.

Nearly 73 percent support passage of the issue. The poll showed 22 percent against and 5
percent had no opinion.

Browns vs. Steelers
With the November elections just around the corner its time to look back at the past year and gauge your feelings about the direction the good old USA is heading.

And for all those with an opinion, you will be entered in this month's drawing to win a pair of tickets to the Browns vs. Steelers game in Cleveland on December 10th at 8:00 pm.

So check out this month's survey question!

Health-care Reform...Who'll Pay?

According to the professional services firm Towers Perrin, US employers will not absorb any additional costs resulting from healthcare reform. Instead, they plan to decrease benefits, raise prices and cut jobs.

(Editor's Note: Towers Perrin is a human resource and financial consulting company. In July, the company combined with Watson Wyatt to become the country's largest human-resource consulting firm with an annual sales of about $3.2 billion. So those guys probably know what they're talking about.)



In a separate poll conducted by Watson Wyatt, 73 percent of US employers think reform will increase overall healthcare costs and 86 percent view reform as weakening the role employer sponsored plans play in providing coverage.

Proud Papa
Have you ever wondered who at Ryan Staffing puts our electronic media communiqués out? It is none other than Corey Ryan., Electronic Media Coordinator for Ryan Staffing (You gotta like that title).

Seriously, Corey is a recent graduate of the Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio
University. He was fortunate enough to land a full time position as a reporter for The Valley Morning Star in Harlingen, Texas.

In his spare time (which is not a lot) he manages the publication of this e-letter, runs our blog and prepares other electronic marketing and recruiting programs for the company.

You can email your comments about things to him at newseditor@ryanstaffing.com. I'm sure
he'd love your feedback.

Tip of the Month: Now Would Be the Time

Demand for temporary staffing is on the rise. If you are a regular reader of our e-letter you know we keep tabs on the ASA Staffing Index which measures this demand. It has seen gradual increases now over the past nine weeks. It still remains about 21 percent lower than the same period in 2008.

If you read as much as I do about the future of our economy you know that the prognosticators are all over the board. (Editor's Note: This Wall Street Journal blog is very good at reporting and analyzing all of those conflicting economic indicators.) You don't know who to believe which means you can best rely on the signals your own business is sending.

If your business is showing positive signs but you're not sure it is sustainable you need to consider utilizing the services of a temporary help company. This is a text book time of why the industry was created.

You probably have worked hard to keep your core group of best employees gainfully employed during the current downturn. We have. You may have even taken advantage of the times to weed out some dead weight.

Using a staffing service allows you to re-build your workforce at a comfortable pace without the costs full time hires bring.

Utilizing the "temp to perm" approach can be like a "do over" as you re-tool your workforce.

If it's been a while since you have used temp help or if you are considering it for the first time I might suggest you take a trip back in our staffing tips archive. There you will find a treasure chest of brilliant information (I wrote it of course!) about how to best utilize the services of a staffing company.

Oh, and as a small tip of the month, keep in mind that the staffing index does have some correlation with the stock market as well. Happy Hunting.

NYT: $1.4 Trillion Federal Defecit

Editor's Note: The following article ran on Oct. 16 New York Times.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration said Friday that the federal budget deficit for the fiscal year that just ended was $1.4 trillion, nearly a trillion dollars greater than the year before and the largest shortfall relative to the size of the economy since 1945.

The number, while lower than forecast a few months ago, underscored the challenges ahead in shrinking the deficit even as the White House and Congress are considering more steps to stimulate an economy that is making a slow recovery. The political hurdles to finding a solution were evident on Friday as each political party immediately blamed the other for the growth of the deficit.

The shortfall for the fiscal year 2009, which ended Sept. 30, translates to 10 percent of the economy, according to a joint statement from the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, and the director of the Office of Management and Budget, Peter R. Orszag. For the 2008 fiscal year, the deficit of $459 billion was 3.2 percent of the economy, as measured by the gross domestic product.

Economists generally agree that annual deficits should not exceed 3 percent of the G.D.P., and that is the level President Obama had vowed to reach by the end of his first term in 2013.

But subsequent spending and tax cuts to stimulate the economy, and lower-than-expected revenues as the recession deepened before bottoming out, combined to push the administration’s deficit forecast to 4.6 percent of G.D.P. for the fiscal year 2013.

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Attn: Portage County HR

Here's how to join the Portage County chapter of the Society for Human Resource Management.

1. Click the image below.
2. Print that page out, and fill the form out.
3. Send out as directed on form.

WSJ.com: 'Clunkers' Sent Retail Sales Clunking

Editor's Note: The following article appeared in the Wall Street Journal on Oct. 15. For supplemental information on how Cash for Clunkers affected retail sales, check out this link.

Retail sales fell 1.5% in September with the end of the "cash for clunkers" program, but consumer spending rose in many categories, lifting hopes that the economic recovery is gaining momentum at the start of the holiday shopping season.

Excluding sales of autos and parts, total retail and food sales increased 0.5%. It was a welcome sign of consumer activity after the deepest downturn in a generation. August sales were revised downward 0.5 percentage point to a 2.2% increase. The government's monthly retail-sales tally isn't adjusted for inflation.

The retail-sales data prompted a few economic prognosticators to raise their forecasts for third-quarter gross domestic product. St. Louis forecasting firm Macroeconomic Advisers raised its forecast of third-quarter GDP to an inflation-adjusted 3.4% annual rate from 3.1% before the sales data came out.

On Wednesday, Federal Reserve Governor Daniel Tarullo said economic growth appeared "to have moved back into positive territory in the third quarter."

Whether that growth can be sustained is another matter. With unemployment still rising and myriad government programs propping up the U.S. economy, consumers don't appear able or willing to rush back to their old spending habits.

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WSJ.com: Job Openings Contract

Editor's Note: The following is from an Oct. 10 Wall Street Journal article. To read the article, click here.

The number of job openings declined in August, the latest sign that while the economy may be recovering, it isn't rebounding fast enough to get sidelined employees back to work.

There were 2.4 million job openings in August, down from 2.41 million in July and the lowest level since the Labor Department started tracking the data in December 2000. In August 2008, there were 4.65 million job openings.

Job separations outpaced new hires in August. The report showed that roughly 4.27 million people quit, retired or were laid off in August.

The data underscore the big hurdles still facing the economy. With wages stagnant and employers still cutting jobs, the economy's legs remain wobbly. The housing market and manufacturing industries have shown signs of improvement, but much of the recent growth has been supported by government programs that have expired or will soon.

With consumers cutting their debts and the job market stagnant, many economists worry that without new hiring, the economy's nascent recovery could slow down in the first half of next year.

Hiring activity remains at historic lows, with steep declines across most sectors, including mining and logging, construction and retail trade, according to Friday's report. Overall, hiring is down 28% since its July 2006 peak, with employers hiring 4.01 million workers in August.

A figure the Labor Department uses to gauge the ease with which workers can change jobs slipped slightly to 1.3% from 1.4% in July, signaling that switching jobs remains difficult.

Portage County Human Resource Invitation

Click image to increase size.

Federal Reserve: Small Business May Not Be What They Used To

Editor's Note: The following comes from a Oct. 6 blog entry on the Federal Reserve Bank in Atlanta's Web site.

During periods when national employment levels were expanding since 1992 (when this data series began), firms with less than 50 employees have made up approximately one-third of the nation's employment growth. During the employment declines associated with the 2001 recession, these firms made up only 9 percent of job losses. In the current recession, though, these very small firms have made up 45 percent of the nation's job losses.

Looking ahead, it's not clear whether small businesses will continue to play their traditional role in hiring staff and helping to fuel an employment recovery. However, if the above-mentioned financial constraints are a major contributor to the disproportionately large employment contractions for very small firms, then the post-recession employment boost these firms typically provide may be less robust than in previous recoveries.

Read Entire Article.

The Boss' Day Screw Up

Sorry, but I jumped the gun for Boss' Day. It is in fact Oct. 16, not Oct. 9 as indicated in the earlier post.

So don't put the fruit basket on his/her desk quite yet.

Don't Forget Tomorrow (Correction: Next Friday) Is Boss' Day

You didn't do it did you? You brown nose.


Ah, and you got him the fruit basket. Do you have no soul!

WSJ.com: Office Rents Dive As Vacancies Rise

Editor's Note: The following article appeared in the Oct. 7 Wall Street Journal. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125488352504069971.html?mod=djemTMB

Rent for office space is falling at the fastest pace in more than a decade as vacancies create a glut and landlords slash prices to attract tenants.

Nationwide, effective office rents fell 8.5% in the third quarter compared with the same period a year ago, the steepest year-over-year decline since 1995, according to Reis Inc., a New York real-estate research firm.

The decline came as companies returned a net 19.6 million square feet of space to landlords in the third quarter, slightly more than in the second quarter. For the first three quarters of this year, the net decline in occupied space totaled a record 64.2 million square feet, the highest so-called negative absorption recorded since Reis began tracking the data in 1980. (That doesn't count space that left the market as a result of the 2001 terrorist attacks.)

The vacancy rate, meanwhile, hit 16.5%, a five-year high, according to Reis.

Declining rents and rising vacancies in the office sector signal more woes for the commercial-real-estate market, which already faces a lack of credit and plummeting property values. With landlords more likely to default, financial institutions, which hold trillions of dollars in commercial-real-estate debt also face more pain. "It means more losses for the banks, because they will have to write off more bad debt," said Victor Calanog, director of research for Reis.

For tenants, however, falling rents represent opportunities to save. Landlords are offering concessions, in the form of free rent and build-out costs. "There's a recognition [from some companies] that this is probably a bottom, let me lock in long term," said Mary Ann Tighe, a New York-based leasing broker with CB Richard Ellis, who has negotiated corporate relocations for tenants including advertising firm Ogilvy & Mather and retailer Limited Brands.

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Last Chance To Win Springsteen Tickets

Win tickets to see Bruce Springsteen in Cleveland on Nov. 10. Answer our poll question by Wednesday October 7 for a chance to win. It will only take two minutes!

Good luck!

WSJ.com: Recession Spells End for Many Family Businesses

Editor's Note: This article ran in the Oct. 6 Wall Street Journal. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125478399429765967.html?mod=djemSB

Siblings Georgia, Jimmy and John Roussos have spent most of their lives working in the kitchen of the restaurant their father opened in 1954. The eatery managed to survive a hurricane and other setbacks, but it wasn't until this August that the recession took its toll, forcing Roussos Restaurant in Daphne, Ala., to permanently shut its doors.

After months of slow sales, family businesses are being forced to close, ending legacies and leaving behind a wake of sad customers and loyal employees. "Some family businesses that were just hanging on have said it's time to get out," says Dann Van Der Vliet, director of the Vermont Family Business Initiative at the University of Vermont.

An estimated 90% of U.S. businesses are family-owned or controlled, from traditional small businesses to a third of Fortune 500 firms, according to the Small Business Administration. Hard data are hard to come by on the number of small family-controlled enterprises that have closed in this recession, but experts say the prolonged slump has hurt a significant number. About 4.3 million businesses with 19 or fewer employees closed during the fourth quarter of 2007 through the fourth quarter of 2008, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

These businesses, often steeped in tradition and not as flexible to change, tend not to have formal plans in place to respond to crisis. "They've seen reductions in top line revenue that they just can't react fast enough to," says Beth Wood, assistant vice president of market development and family-business advocacy with MassMutual. Problems securing credit in this recession have also prevented some family businesses from getting the funding they need, she adds.

The economic downturn is really just the latest setback for family-run businesses. In the 1970s and '80s, exorbitant income taxes and estate taxes forced many to close, says John Ward, professor of family enterprise with Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. Before that, the anti-establishment movement during and after the Vietnam War made many children reluctant to take over the family business, he says.

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WSJ.com: Unemployment Will Stay Elevated

Editor's Note: The following article ran in the Oct. 02 Wall Street Journal. http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2009/10/02/feds-rosengren-unemployment-rate-will-remain-elevated/?mod=djemWEB&reflink=djemWEB

Unemployment in the U.S. is likely to remain elevated for the next two of years, but over time the country will return to “full employment,” Federal Reserve Bank of Boston President and Chief Executive Eric Rosengren said Friday.

Rosengren’s comments came as the U.S. Labor Department reported that employers shed many more jobs than expected last month, boosting the unemployment rate and underscoring that joblessness remains a big issue even as the economy shows signs of life.

Rosengren said the “unemployment rate will remain elevated for far longer than I would like,” and for the next couple of years. But over time, he said, “I think the economy will get back to full employment.”

Rosengren discussed the matter while answering audience questions following an address to the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce. He discussed unemployment as he responded to a question about the New England economy, which he said is in better shape than it was in prior recessions due to the health of local banks and the types of jobs in the region.

In his prepared remarks, Rosengren said the economy needs more time to heal before the Fed eases up on its accommodative monetary policy. The Fed needs to eventually ease its accommodative fiscal policy as well, he said later, but “first we have to get the economy in recovery mode and get us closer to full employment.”

He talked about the importance of returning to full employment without households becoming over-leveraged in the process. “The goal is not to get leverage back to where it was before,” he said. “The goal is to get the economy back.”

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WSJ.com: September Sales May Foreshadow Holidays

Editor's Note: The following is a story appearing in the Oct. 5 Wall Street Journal. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125470031540363025.html?mod=djemITP

Retailers and analysts will be closely watching September sales reports due Thursday from key store chains for any sign they may need to adjust their already-gloomy holiday forecasts.

Two analyst reports predict that Christmas-season sales will be flat with last year's dismal results while a third projects they will fall 1%. Stores have been slashing inventories in hopes they can avoid profit-sapping price cuts.

Retailers also are planning plenty of bargains to lure thrifty holiday shoppers. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. says it will offer about 100 toys priced at $10 -- compared with just 10 such toys last year. Consumers are still "under a lot of pressure," said Wal-Mart's chief executive, Mike Duke.

For consumers, "it's a badge of honor to not spend as much as they used to," Linda Heasley, CEO of specialty retailer The Limited, said at a retail conference in New York last week.

Analysts are looking to the September sales figures for stores open least a year -- a key measure of retailers' health and consumer spending -- for clues about Christmas. These results are predicted to fall 1% to 2% compared to September 2008. That would be a harbinger of a season filled with bargain hunting and last-minute gift shopping.

The projected September decline is particularly worrisome because a late Labor Day and later school-start dates helped boost the month's sales, and a decline in September sales last year makes year-ago comparisons easier.

To read the rest of the story

Fall Leaves Balance Between Beauty And Mess

WSJ.com: Job Losses in U.S. Continue to Slow

Editor's Note: The following is an article appearing in the Wall Street Journal on Thursday Oct. 1. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125431265253152341.html?mod=djemITP.

The pace of U.S. job losses continued to slow in September as the private sector shed fewer jobs than in the previous month, according to a report offering a preview of government data due Friday.

Meanwhile, gross domestic product decreased at a 0.7% annual rate in the second quarter, better than the 1% decline previously estimated, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. It was a big improvement over GDP's 6.4% decline in the first quarter.

Private nonfarm payrolls fell by 254,000 in September, down from the 277,000 drop in August, according to a report by Automatic Data Processing Inc. and forecasting firm Macroeconomic Advisers released Wednesday.

"We know that the pace of labor-market recovery always lags broader economic activity," said Ian Pollick, a TD Securities analyst. So "if the actual economic recovery is gradual we have to say the labor-market recovery is tepid at best."

Separately, the Chicago Purchasing Managers' Index provided a jolt of unexpectedly bad news, falling to 46.1 in September from 50. The drop below 50 indicates that manufacturing activity is contracting. A decline in new orders contributed to the fall, which was particularly surprising given improving regional reports elsewhere, such as the Philadelphia and New York Federal Reserve Bank manufacturing indexes.

September's job losses were the smallest since July 2008. Analysts expect a similar level of job losses in the official employment report the U.S. Labor Department is set to release Friday that includes public-sector jobs, though it may be slightly smaller than the drop ADP reported.

The job losses were especially severe among businesses with fewer than 50 workers. Those companies shed 100,000 jobs compared with the 93,000 jobs lost at medium-size firms and the 61,000 lost at large employers with 500 or more workers.

The labor market is slowly improving compared with earlier this year but it remains weak. Economists expect the unemployment rate to hit 9.8% in September, up from 9.7% in August. Even with the high unemployment rate threatening consumer spending in the third quarter, many economists are predicting GDP grew between 3% and 4%.

The anticipated return to growth is buoyed by Wednesday's report showing that second-quarter GDP wasn't as bad as expected. Both business investment and consumer spending, which is the largest component of GDP, were revised upward.

There were few signs that inflation could soon become a threat to the economy as the government's price index for personal consumption rose 1.4% in the second quarter instead of the previous 1.3% estimate. Excluding food and energy, the price index climbed 2%.

Poll Results: Casino Gambling in Ohio

We've had 92 responses as of late Wednesday morning for our poll question on casino gambling in Ohio. And so far, the vast majority are for Issue 3.

Here is a for argument from the Web and an against argument.

Overall, 76 percent said they are in favor of the bill. That left 22.8 percent against the issue and 5.4 percent without an opinion, according to our informal survey.

Remember, there is still time to answer our poll question to be eligible for the Bruce Springsteen tickets!

Here are some of the comments people posted after taking the survey:

The state of California hasn't prospered from casino gambling. They're bankrupt! Keep OHIO Clean. Better to work out tax agreements with neighboring states for Ohio residents gambling in their casinos. I would think THEY wouldn't want gambling legalized in OHIO either. So they would want to assist in the lobbying against Ohio gambling.

Even if the number of permanent jobs is not great, the construction and ancillary jobs created would be a good boost to the local economy. Timing is everything and soon the market will be saturated with gambling facilities and this will not be as lucrative as it is right now.

IF IT WAS STATE WIDE IT WOULD BE DIFFERENT BUT WITH IT ONLY TARGETING JUST LARGE CITIES, NO

I am almost considering voting against this issue simply because of the way they are advertising it. I received a flier in the mail yesterday and if I didn't know any better, I would think it is a bill to build a hospital or something other than a casino. "CASINO" was no where to be found on the flier. Almost trying to gain votes by deception.