Waiting for Congress
For many companies that build highways, hiring plans are on hold while Congress debates long-term plans to pay for construction projects.
“I’ve got paving crews that are ready, willing to go to work next week, but I don’t have contracts that I can have them go to work on,” said Ed Dalyrimple, vice president of Chemung Contracting Corp., based in Elmira, NY.
The company, which operates gravel quarries and asphalt plants and does highway and airport runway paving, relies heavily on government work in New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
“There’s work that needs to be done, but none of the states have authorized it,” Dalyrimple said. “If you look at the transportation bill in Congress, it just sits there.”
Worried about taxes
Jason Speer is nervously watching Congress and possible tax changes as Bush-era income tax cuts near expiration at year’s end. He’s a vice president of Quality Float Works of Schaumberg, Ill., which makes devices to monitor fluid levels in tanks.
Speer says he’d feel a lot better about hiring later this year if it weren’t for the uncertainty about federal taxes. Unable to anticipate his company’s costs, Speer says he can’t make decisions about growth and hiring.
Sales in the United States, the Middle East and South Asia have been strong, he says. And the company expects to grow 15 percent this year. But Europe has been a drag: Sales to the region are down 50 to 60 percent this year.
The company added two jobs this year but would have added a third if European sales hadn’t suffered.
“If that business was still what it was, we would
No wind in his sails
NRG Systems, a Hinesburg, Vt., maker of sensors to measure wind speeds for the energy industry, announced the first layoffs in its 30-year history in mid-May.
The U.S. wind industry is in the doldrums. That’s because a key renewableenergy subsidy is set to expire later this year, electricity demand is weak and electricity prices are low because of lower natural gas prices.
“This is the worst it’s ever been,” said Abby White, a company manager. “The U.S. market has pretty much dried up.”
Worldwide worries
An April survey of 122 technology executives by KPMG found that employers weren’t expecting to expand their payrolls as aggressively this year as they did last year. The main reason: Most of them are bracing for slower revenue growth.
The fallout from Europe’s shaky economy looms as the biggest concern. But slowing economies in Asia are also contributing to a more cautious approach to hiring, said Gary Matuszak of KPMG.
There’s not much confidence in the U.S. economy, either. Thirty percent of the survey respondents predicted that the economy won’t fully regain its health until 2014. Thirtythree percent expect it will be 2015 or later before the economy returns to where it was before the financial meltdown of 2008.