Posted on 09/10/2003 12:10:18 PM PDT by new cruelty
Gracias.
Yes, and I don't mean to over-simplify, becuase I know that a person can err in the direction of generosity as well, and I don't recommend that anyone martyr themselves financially for the sake of some employees who, honestly, probably won't appreciate it.
I guess all I'm saying is that "My $8-10 per hour employees don't appreciate me" is a *much* nicer problem to have than "I only make $8-10 per hour."
Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co. produces planes that meet every challenge on the battlefield, but the company faces one perplexing challenge that is difficult to beat: A cadre of well-trained and educated retiring workers.
Though Lockheed is not increasing hiring measurably during the next five years—increasing employment to 17,000 from 16,210 currently—as many as one-quarter of the company’s current workforce will reach retirement age in that time. Which means the company will be hiring the next five years, said Joseph Stout, director of communications.
At the company’s Missiles and Fire Control division in Dallas, the numbers are more staggering, with 40 percent of that group’s 4,000 workers reaching retirement age in the next four to five years.
Lockheed has an annual area payroll of $875 million, employees who work on major combat aircraft, air mobility and aeronautical research and development programs, including the F-16, the F/A-22, the F-35 and the T-50.
Many of those workers are engineers or have an engineering background that could prove difficult to replace. The issue is serious enough to merit attention from top officials. “It is something that we’re dealing with,” said Dain Hancock, president of Lockheed Martin. “We are starting to see some changes in priorities, moving more toward mechanical and electrical engineering and away from software, which was where many of the students have been focused for so long. I believe that is starting to happen at several of the engineering schools,” he said.
Dr. Bill Carroll, dean of the college of engineering at the University of Texas at Arlington, said, “You are beginning to see some changes in what students are studying and I think the local employers are doing a good job in letting us know what they are looking for.”
UTA is constrained by space and funds as to how many engineering students it can handle. “We have over 4,000 students this year. That’s a 2.5 percent increase over last year, but that’s about all we can manage unless we get a new building and we don’t anticipate that happening for several more years,” Carroll said, alluding to budget constraints facing public education in Texas.
Carroll said the area does produce a large number of engineering students, though they are spread out among several schools. “If you add up UTA, UTD, SMU, TCU and UNT, you’ve got nearly 10,000 engineering students. That’s a large number, probably as large or larger than the number at the University of Texas in Austin,” he said.
Still, Carroll says meeting the needs of local employers will be a challenge. “We’re all going to have to work together to solve this,” he said. Aside from Lockheed, other companies with retiring engineering workers include Bell Helicopter and Texas Instruments.
The employee crunch comes just as area leaders are attempting to attract a new Boeing jetliner assembly plant that could mean as many as 1,000 new jobs, along with additional jobs for suppliers.
The area also hopes to land a good chunk of the manufacturing for the Joint Strike Fighter contract. That decision, like the Boeing decision, will depend to a large degree on cost and labor force, according to Bill McHenry, deputy vice president for business development for Lockheed Martin.
Lockheed has instituted several programs to keep the engineers it currently has. One program has senior engineers mentor younger engineers. Another allows engineers to work in various programs around the company. Amy Pretland is a recent UTA graduate engineer hired by the company who has taken advantage of the latter program. “It really helped me understand the company I’m working for and I got to work on programs I wouldn’t have known about or known if I had wanted to work for them before,” she said.
- Fort Worth Business Press
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- A local company will create 400 new jobs and expand its operations on the west side of the city if the Columbus City Council passes legislation to create a 60-percent, 10-year jobs tax credit for the business.
Columbus Mayor Michael Coleman will introduce the legislation to the City Council next week. As part of the plan, CallTech Communications will invest $1.3 million to expand its operations to include a new facility on the city's northwest side.
"We are going to be aggressively working to attract and retain jobs for Columbus, and we are proud that CallTech in making a commitment to the city, not only to stay, but also to invest in new jobs," Coleman said.
CallTech, a provider of outsourced customer service calls, has a staff of more than 2,000 employees working at five call centers in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, Georgia and South Carolina.
The company provides customer service, technical support and sales support to its clients. It will retain 611 full-time positions at its west side location and create 200 new jobs at the facility. An additional 200 jobs will be created in a three-year period at a new facility on Farmers Drive.
Officials with Interlake Material Handling Inc. say they plan to expand the company’s Sumter manufacturing plant by adding 40,000 square feet onto its existing property.
The addition is necessary to support a growing retail segment of Interlake’s customer base. It also will allow the company to provide better service at a more competitive cost, company officials say.
With the anticipated volume growth, the manufacturing company expects to add between 25 and 30 jobs in the coming months. The new jobs will be mostly welding positions.
“The continued growth and investment in this plant is due to the leading performance in the areas of safety, quality and productivity,” said Chip Stokes, the plant manager. “Because of the people here and their passion for success, the company continues to see this plant as a growth platform for the U.S. business. It’s a great opportunity for our company, customers and the community.”
Construction on the new addition is scheduled to begin early next week, possibly Monday, Stokes said.
The Sumter plant has added more equipment and had some product line expansions since it was built here in 1988, but this is by far its biggest expansion yet.
“We thank all of our associates for making this a reality,” Stokes said.
Steve Rust, president of the Sumter Development Board, said the expansion is good news for the community. The news also is an indicator that the economy could be turning around, he said.
“I’m very pleased with Interlake’s recent announcement about its business expansion in Sumter,” Rust said Wednesday. “First, it creates new jobs for our residents and it adds to our tax base. Second, I think this is another indication that the economy has turned around and, within that turnaround, Sumter is competitive.”
Interlake has been “a good corporate citizen,” Rust said, adding that a year ago, the company replaced its old liquid painting system with a new electrostatic powder-based paint system. This upgrade cut Interlake’s emissions into the air from about 60 tons per year to zero. “I’m really proud of this company,” he said.
Interlake, located in the Sumter Industrial Complex, employs 204 hourly employees and 24 salaried workers. The Sumter plant, which was built in 1988, manufactures heavy-duty industrial and retail shelving and storage racks.
The Illinois-based company is the largest manufacturer of storage racks in North and South America. In addition to the Sumter plant, Interlake operates two other rack manufacturing plants — one in Illinois and the other in Mexico.
Interlake is a wholly owned subsidiary of Brambles, a global leader in support services, operating in more than 30 countries and across five continents. Brambles employs more than 30,000 people worldwide and has annual sales of more than $5.5 billion.
WASHINGTON, Sept. 17 /PRNewswire/ -- As many as 1.2 million new jobs could result over the next decade from widespread adoption of existing and advanced broadband technologies, according to a study released today by the New Millennium Research Council. The new report from Criterion Economics L.L.C. concludes that the more than 250,000 telecommunications service and equipment sector jobs lost between 2000-2003 could be restored inside of five years. Criterion Economics Senior Vice President Hal Singer said: "This study documents quantitatively what many others have only hinted at qualitatively. The 1.2 million jobs reflect the economy-wide stimulus that results from telephone and cable industries competing to roll out DSL and cable modem service, and gradually to roll out advanced broadband service to residential and small business customers, assuming they were constrained only by consumer demand and underlying costs."
Criterion Economics Chairman Robert Crandall noted: "According to the U.S. Department of Labor, employment in the communications services sector decreased from 1.2 million in December 2000 to 1.0 million in January 2003 -- a total of 170,100 lost jobs. Employment in the communications equipment sector decreased from 290,000 in December 2000 to 200,900 in January 2003 -- a total of 89,100 lost jobs. Across these two sectors of the communications industry, over a quarter of a million jobs were lost over the 25-month period. We estimate that the capital expenditures by broadband providers would more than restore those job losses by the end of 2008 if residential adoption follows this faster growth scenario."
The new Criterion Economics L.L.C. study shows that the new investments initially would focus on today's broadband technologies. Before accounting for the effect of more advanced access technologies, the authors estimate that capital expenditure on today's broadband technologies will reach $63.6 billion by 2021 and create a cumulative increase in gross domestic product (GDP) of $179.7 billion.
Singer said that: "The emphasis in investment would gradually change over time, with fiber optic in the 'last mile' eventually replacing more than one- third of today's broadband technology. Despite this displacement, the net effect of advanced broadband investment would be $82 billion of investment by 2021 under the slower deployment scenario."
Criterion Economics Chairman Robert Crandall noted: "Unleashing the full potential of broadband communications could generate $300 billion per year in consumer surplus. As we found in our earlier study, accelerating the adoption rate of current generation broadband technologies could increase the present discounted value of consumer benefits by as much as $500 billion."
According to the study, wider availability of broadband would result in large benefits for the retailing, transportation, home entertainment, and health care sectors. In addition, the computer industry would experience a surge in demand because consumers would acquire new PCs with more random access memory, faster bus speeds, better sound, and much higher capacity hard drives to take full advantage of advanced broadband services.
Dr Crandall said: "Lifting all remaining regulations on broadband would have an immediate impact on the economy by stimulating greater investment and accelerated job and income growth. For these investments to be justified, however, regulators must assure investors that the returns from investing in broadband technologies will not be appropriated through the regulatory process. The estimates of benefits assume that incumbent cable operators and local exchange carriers have an incentive to invest, which will require not only unbundling relief, but also elimination of existing common carrier regulations."
A copy of the Criterion Economics study is available at www.newmillenniumresearch.org.
Boosting a regional economy that has reeled for two years, Owens-Illinois Inc. made it official Tuesday: High-paying manufacturing jobs, 150 of them, are on the way to Windsor.
The Toledo, Ohio, company — North America’s No. 1 manufacturer of glass beverage bottles — will spend at least $119 million building and equipping a one-of-a-kind plant on newly rezoned land east of Windsor. At peak capacity, the center will spin out more than one billion 12-ounce beer bottles annually for Anheuser-Busch’s Fort Collins brewery.
“Nothing is on the scale of the Windsor project,” said Ken Lovejoy, the company’s vice president for facilities engineering. “This is a monster.”
Lovejoy joined Windsor and Weld County officials and area and state economic development boosters at a press conference Tuesday to introduce his company as Windsor’s newest resident.
“We’re fortunate to be in a place that can be both lucrative for business and is also a good place to live,” Weld County Commission Chairman David Long said. “They really stressed quality of life and work force during this process, and we offer those things.”
The project Lovejoy described is an even sweeter deal for Windsor and Weld than previously billed. Previous accounts put the project cost at $30 million, an approximation that the county’s top economic development official said covered just the building construction.
“They’ve got another $77 million in plant equipment,” said Ron Klaphake, president of the Greeley/Weld Economic Development Action Partnership, who coordinated the drive to bring Owens-Illinois to Windsor.
Lovejoy left open the possibility that his company’s total investment could go even higher.
“We owe that answer to ourselves, internally, before we can provide it to anyone else,” he said. “But it’s in the hundreds of millions.”
Average wages paid to the 150 employees working at the new plant also will be higher than the previously reported figure of $40,000 annually. New information, provided by Klaphake, boosted that to $49,781.
The town, county and EDAP coalition that swung the deal did so with a comparatively modest incentive package. It included:
• A $500,000 cash incentive grant from Colorado’s Office of Economic Development and International Trade.
• A $772,000 federal community block development grant for water and sewer infrastructure.
• A waiver of county transportation impact fees and development permits that Klaphake said totaled about $500,000.
• A 50 percent rebate on business and personal property taxes for a 10-year period, a figure Klaphake said would amount to about $1 million during that time.
• Water concessions from Windsor estimated to total $500,000.
“This was not an incentive-driven deal,” Klaphake said. “There were so many other factors involved.”
Until this week, it appeared the company’s choice was a close race between Windsor and Cheyenne, the only other contender for the project. But Cheyenne’s top economic development official said Monday he thought the city’s chances had evaporated.
Lovejoy confirmed the decision was a tough one.
“This was like a good football game,” he said. “It’s really too bad somebody had to lose.”
The new plant will be Owens-Illinois’ first in 23 years, Lovejoy said. “This facility is going to be absolutely world-class, state-of-the-art,” he said. “It will be at the epicenter for people who want to see the best in manufacturing technology.”
Klaphake said the company plans to attract 200-300 people annually, traveling from throughout the world to visit the one-of-a-kind bottle plant.
Drew Bolin, a development specialist with the state economic development office, said Gov. Bill Owens had become “like the managing partner on this project,” so keen was his interest in landing the plant.
“He really set this as an economic development priority.” Owens in a statement Bolin read at Tuesday’s press conference, said he was “pleased that Owens-Illinois will create 150 new jobs for Coloradans. This new $119 million facility is a huge economic win for northern Colorado.” The company’s announcement followed a long and complex real estate closing, a process that delayed the announcement until late in the day. Greeley resident Ruth Winder sold the 150-acre parcel that will house Owens-llinoisI to the Great Western Railway, which in turn sold a 90-acre plot to the company for its use. None of the participants would disclose the purchase price.
The company will break ground on the project within a month, and plans to start production by early 2005. Hiring will commence as the opening approaches, with 130 of the 150 jobs filled by local residents.
Bolin said the state’s package for Owens-Illinois includes a $60,000 “customized, fast-track training grant,” in which the company will partner with Aims Community College. Once hired, the production workers will be represented by the Glass, Molders, Pottery, Plastics & Allied Workers International Union, which has a long-standing labor relationship with Owens-Illinois.
Hourly, straight-time production workers under the union contract average about $40,000 in annual pay, Lovejoy said. “These are really solid jobs that can be very long term,” he said. “Our people work hard, play hard, and they’re paid well.”
Klaphake credited the cooperation among three public entities for paving the company’s way into Windsor. “The entire county commission was involved,” he said. “The planning commission made the 40-day rezoning process possible. It really impressed the company. They saw that these people were doing what it takes to make this work.”
Military insurer USAA will add more than 250 more jobs to its growing northwest Valley campus by year's end.
The hiring splurge will bring the San Antonio-based company's local workforce to 1,800 employees, who will work mostly in customer-service positions.
USAA's 575-acre campus eventually could accommodate up to 30,000 workers in the next 30 to 50 years. That could position it to one day become the Valley's largest employer. The company is focused on insurance and financial products for the military market.
...
The rest of 2003 should bring job growth to the Rochester area, at a rate that is third-highest in the nation, according to a survey released Tuesday.
Results of the Manpower Employment Outlook, which surveyed businesses in 470 markets around the country, surprised some area economists.
After all, the Rochester metropolitan area, ranked 46th nationally in size, ranked 19th nationally for losing jobs in 2002, according to a United States Conference of Mayors survey. And while the number of employed people has been steadily rising all year, the number of people with jobs in July was still 100 fewer than it was in July 2002.
“It’s a little hard to understand,” said Richard Deitz, an economist at the Buffalo branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. “Given the pattern of job growth, Rochester being one of the stronger employment cities in the country is not at all what I would expect.”
Others said the survey, which showed 53 percent of area companies expecting to hire during October, November and December, reflected growth in smaller businesses offsetting layoffs at major manufacturers such as Eastman Kodak Co.
“But there are thousands of small to midsize businesses that are definitely seeing things starting to change,” said Thomas T. Mooney, chief executive of the Rochester Business Alliance.
For example, Harris RF, which makes military radios, plans to hire 170 or more engineers and other workers over the next two years. And the Sutherland Group recently pursued 120 call workers — at salaries of $26,000 to $35,000 — for its call center in Henrietta.
Mooney also cited preliminary results from a RBA survey of 144 area businesses that showed 72 percent of companies have either increased or maintained the same level of workers in the last year. Eighty-nine percent of the companies expect to do the same in 2004.
“People are seeing signs of economic improvement,” Mooney said. “They’re cautious, but feel they’ve come through the downturn.”
XLI Corp., an area manufacturer with 50 workers, has seen some growth in customer orders in the last several months, said Frank LaPlaca, sales manager.
“It looks good for area businesses, absolutely,” he said.
The Manpower survey questioned 16,000 companies nationwide, including hundreds of small to large businesses in the local area, said spokesman Burt Parks.
Parks could not say which businesses were questioned, how many new jobs might be added or what percentage of the total work force was represented. “But it is a good indicator of the Rochester area,” he said.
Job prospects are best in construction, durable and non-durable goods manufacturing, transportation/public utilities, wholesale/retail trade, finance/insurance/real estate, education, services and public administration, according to the survey.
Those industries are the staples of the area economy, Mooney said. But he was surprised that health care, one of the economy’s fastest-growing sectors, was not mentioned.
Aaron Hilger, president of the Builders Exchange of Rochester, Inc., was surprised to see the construction on the list. The end of the summer usually means a slowdown for the industry, he said.
“But it certainly would be nice,” he said. “But I’m not sure how construction would have an incredible growth this time of year.”
CME Automotive will invest about $5.5 million in an expansion at its Monroeville operation and create up to 100 local jobs.
The Mount Pleasant, Mich.-based company will invest about $3 million to construct a 75,000-square-foot distribution center, David Stevens, vice president of administration, said Wednesday. Construction is expected to begin in the fourth quarter.
Additionally, the auto parts maker will invest about $2.5 million in new manufacturing equipment at its existing plant to increase capacity there, Stevens said.
The project, lured with an incentive package potentially worth $700,000, will create up to 100 manufacturing and distribution jobs. The company plans to add about 50 jobs in the first year, Stevens said. He did not say how much the new employees would earn.
A news conference announcing details is scheduled for today.
The expansion is needed to support the company's growth, Stevens said.
"We're launching some new work with Nissan. ... We're launching new work with DaimlerChrysler," he said. "We're expanding into new customers and new products."
CME, which last year reported annual sales of nearly $230 million, explored other possible locations in Kentucky and Michigan, Stevens said.
"The proximity to current and prospective customers, the outstanding local workforce and the serious commitment from the local level up to the state level, were critical in our decision," Stevens said.
CME, a subsidiary of Mitsuba Corp., employs about 200 in Monroeville where it produces auto components including front wiper systems and seat motor systems. The plant supplies customers such as Honda and Nissan.
CME is a major employerin Monroeville, which has a population of more than 1,200 according to 2000 census data.
The $700,000 in incentives includes up to $80,000 from the town of Monroeville for infrastructure improvements and training. The town is also considering $287,658 in tax abatements on the building and equipment. And the package includes $10,000 from Allen County for additional infrastructure upgrades.
Rob Young, president of the Fort Wayne-Allen County Economic Development Alliance said: "This is a nice addition to what is clearly what is one of the largest employers in southeast Allen County."
Google, one of the most aggressive staff recruiters in Silicon Valley, is putting on a programming contest worth up to $10,000 and a possible career at the search company.
Called Google Code Jam 2003, the contest is essentially a timed, Internet-based test of programming skills. After two rounds of competition, 25 people will be invited to Google's headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., to compete for a total of $25,000 in cash prizes. Google plans to evaluate the crop of engineers as job candidates, given that the work environment in the Googleplex is similar to the tournament: "intense competition, no pressure," according to the company's Web page.
"Think of it as a job interview with a large potential cash bonus just for showing up," the contest's page reads.
Code Jam is Google's second programming contest and plays into the company's competitive, yet playful, culture. In early 2002, it let the public into its labs to try out experimental technology in its first programming contest. The $10,000 winner had developed technology designed to let searchers find Web pages within a designated geographical area. On the lighter side, the company hosted the Google Quiz a year ago, challenging Web surfers to find quiz answers in the search database.
Google is on a seemingly insatiable hunt for new employees, providing a stark contrast to the mass layoffs in the Valley during the last several years. To make room for growth, Google leased one of Silicon Valley's largest office parks, the Amphitheatre Technology Center, from its former tenant, Silicon Graphics, in July. It employs more than 1,000 people and has nearly 100 job openings posted on its Web site.
Registration for Code Jam is open to 500 programmers and begins Oct. 1. The tournament ends Nov. 14, after players compete in three tournament rounds. The top 250 scorers from Round 1 will advance to Round 2. The top 25 scorers from Round 2 will advance to the Championship Round.
Code Jam 2003 differs from Google's earlier contest in that the company is working with TopCoder, a technology company specializing in programming tournaments, to create a series of problems for programmers to solve. Participants can use their own programming language--Java, C++, C# or VB.NET--to solve the problems within an allotted time using a TopCoder applet. In contrast, Google's 2002 contest was open-ended. Participants received data and basic code on a disc, and they were asked to build an application or tool with the data and supply the code they used to create it, according to a Google representative.
"These contests are a great way for Google to show our support and celebrate achievements in the engineering, programming and computer science communities," a Google representative said.
Nearly half of Michigan's small-business owners expect to hire new employees within the next six months, according to a new National City Bank survey.
That's great news for job seekers in the Lansing-East Lansing area, where unemployment hit a 10-year high of 5.5 percent in July.
"The sense from business people is that the economy's improved," said John Schreuder, National City's mid-Michigan president.
The late August survey of more than 1,000 small businesses statewide also found that 79 percent of business owners expect the economy to improve within the next six months.
Forty-eight percent are planning expansions.
This is the first time National City has done a state-wide survey, Schreuder said.
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