During the week of Aug. 13-19, 2012, the American Staffing Association reported that “temporary and contract employment ticked up 0.10%, pushing the index up one point to a value of 93. The index is currently up 23.6% since the beginning of the year and is 5.9% higher year-over-year.”
Moreover, the staffing employment in August 2012 is up 6.0% from August 2011, according to the ASA Staffing Index.
Click here to read some additional temporary staffing industry statistics.
Good news for temporary staffing readership:
An article in The Chicago Tribune boasts that the “Number of Temps on the Job the Highest in 5 Years.” Of course, this development correlates directly with high unemployment, but for staffing agencies in every industry, “the fastest growth in U.S. temporary payrolls in more than a year” brings good news that is expected to keep on giving.
Of course, any potential temporary staffing agency owner considering payroll funding or payroll factoring should be aware that “the rate is still below past peaks and below levels in other countries.” Still, the news bodes well, indicating the role that temporary staffing, “contract, or project-based workers play in the labor market.”
Temp rates for our temporary staffing entrepreneurs are expected to reach record levels in due time, according to analysts and industry executives. This widespread optimism is grounded not only in trends indicated by charts and statistics, but by the belief that there has been “a shift in the way companies hire. They want to use talent on an on-demand basis, when they need them for projects.”
In this sense, it is easy to see why your temporary staffing agency is bound for growth. Of course, in order to grow effectively, you will need to acquire more of the life-blood of your organization: Human resources. Payroll funding or temporary staffing factoring can help you achieve the growth you need to fill as many of your clients’ needs as the temp market grows.
Did anyone see the article A Giant Hospital Chain is Blazing a Profit Trail in the NYTimes earlier this week?
The article talks about HCA’s revamped billing procedures and revised patient screenings that have led them to be extremely profitable health care industry giant during a time when so many of America’s hospitals have been struggling to stay out of the red.
According to the article, “Among the secrets to HCA’s success: It figured out how to get more revenue from private insurance companies, patients and Medicare by billing much more aggressively for its services than ever before; it found ways to reduce emergency room overcrowding and expenses; and it experimented with new ways to reduce the costs of its medical staff, a move that sometimes led to conflicts with doctors and nurses over concerns about patient care.”
What are your thoughts on this article?
The nurse staffing factoring specialists at PRN Funding are proud members of the National Nurses in Business Association because it’s an organization that helps educate nurse entrepreneurs achieve their business goals. This week, we received an e-newsletter stating that the NNBA is restructuring because of the following reasons:
Specifically, the NNBA is taking the following steps:
We’re excited to see these revisions and changes unfold!
With June’s national unemployment rate at about 8.2%, it should be very difficult to imagine a shortage of human resources in any workforce. This hypothesis is disproven in the “Marketplace” section of Thursday’s Wall Street Journal, which tells us that many “Small Firms Seek Skilled Workers but Can’t Find Any.”
The Journal polled 811 small business owners and chief executives. 31% reported that “they had unfilled job openings in July because they couldn’t identify applicants with the right skills or experience.” Furthermore, an astounding 41% of 154 small manufacturing firms surveyed reported being unable to find skilled and experienced workers. This figure is markedly different from the 30% of services business surveyed and 29% of retail businesses.
“We could grow a lot faster if we could find the right people,” one business owner lamented. Many businesses are forced to turn away new business for fear of being unable to provide sufficient service and support. Simply hiring one or two additional skilled workers could have a deep and long-lasting effect on growth in a small business.
So why not train employees? Unfortunately, one of the pitfalls of owning a small business can be a shortage of reserves for training new employees.
Staffing agencies can provide a remedy to the problem of skilled labor shortage, but what happens when staffers are unable to train their employees? These problems are merely symptoms of a greater cause: a lack of funding. Training-whether for a staffing firm or a small business-is an investment. How can you expect to invest in your employees’ skills if your cash flow is nearly stagnant?
If you cannot find the funds to train employees, your best option may be to factor your temporary staffing receivables. This is an easy way to access the cash you need to spur the growth you want. Skilled labor may be hard to come by, but a skilled small business factor or a skilled staffing factor may be right before your eyes.
Who would have known that a single company could comprise an economic indicator? Staffing giant, Robert Half International Inc., posted earnings and revenues for a successful second quarter, which ended on June 30, 2012. Here’s what their success means for your staffing firm and for future employment figures nationwide:
It means we can expect growth in all aspects of staffing. According to Harold M. Messmer, Jr., Robert Half International’s chairman and CEO, “Demand for our specialized staffing and consulting services remained strong during the quarter, particularly in our U.S. staffing operations, which grew 17 percent versus the prior year.”
Robert Half International is composed of a variety of staffing divisions, all of which are experiencing growth. According to a report from DailyMarkets.com, “The company’s specialized staffing divisions include Finance & Accounting staffing, Management Resources staffing, administrative office staffing (back office), IT staffing, legal personnel staffing, and creative staffing, for “interactive, design, marketing, advertising and public relations professionals.”
Click here for more information: Robert Half International Reports Second-Quarter Financial Results
Did any of the small business owners who regularly read The Factoring Blog see the article in The Wall Street Journal today, entitled: The Swipe Fee Conundrum?
We thought our small business factoring readers and Americans everywhere should be concerned about a recent court settlement against major credit card companies that may open “the way for millions of businesses to add checkout fees when customers pay with plastic.”
This surcharge comes as the result of 1-3% charges burdened on businesses by credit card companies. This fee may be passed on to customers, who may remain entirely unaware that they are being charged extra for credit card companies’ profit.
Of course, though most business owners would rather be transparent in dealing with swipe fees, “many don’t want to run the risk of alienating credit-card users” by exposing swipe fees to the public.
The fees, which have been deemed by merchants and customers alike as “petty” is undermining the relationships that business owners have with their clientele, as well as the hard-won credibility that make those relationships work.
According to this article in The Wall Street Journal, “The proposed settlement sets aside $6.05 billion,” and “the biggest portion of the money will likely go to large retailers.”
Small business owners may be fortunate to even receive several hundred dollars from the settlement, making this lawsuit a purely corporate affair.
Bad news from Reuters: Fewer U.S. companies planning to hire in the near future.
The title says it all, but the statistics are even more revealing. A mere 23 percent of companies polled by the National Association for Business Economics (NABE) in June have definite plans to hire additional staff within the coming six months. Hiring has reached a dramatic slowdown in the past few months, due to the mounting debt crisis in the Eurozone.
Still, March and April’s numbers are significantly higher than May through July’s. Forty-seven percent of companies that took part in the survey responded with the feeling that the European crisis precipitated their difficulties in sales.
What is most startling is that 40 percent of these firms have more than 1,000 employees. When big hirers stop hiring, what about the small ones?
More and more companies have stopped hiring full-time. Now, more than ever, is the time for temporary staffing companies to sell their services. Temporary staffing can allow companies to test the waters with temporary workers rather than committing to full time relationships.
Keep in mind that while you’re expanding and cultvating your temporary staffing agency, there is no reason why you should fall behind the curve because of delinquent invoices. Try temporary staffing factoring so that you ca better accommodate the demands of your industry.
Here’s some news we thought would be helpful for any of our temporary staffing invoice factoring readers:
Who would have thought that the summertime blues could refer to job growth? Though the U.S. economy is not hemorrhaging jobs like it did a few years ago, the rate of growth has stalled in recent months.
According to this press release, “The Conference Board Employment Trends IndexTM (ETI) dipped to 107.47 in June.” Though this number is 5.6 percent higher than June of last year, and 19.54 percent higher than three years ago, it marks a fall from May’s number, 108.23.
The drop was caused by negative developments in four of eight categories that comprise the index. Three of these components are listed in the article:
1. The “Ratio of Involuntarily Part-time to All Part-time Workers”
2. “Percentage of Firms with Positions Not Able to be Filled Right Now”
3. “Initial Claims for Unemployment Insurance”
4. Percentage of Respondents Who Say They Find Jobs “Hard to Get.”
The other four categories that are weighted towards the Employment Trends Index include:
1. Number of employees hired by the Temporary Help Industry
2. Job Openings
3. Real manufacturing and Trade Sales
4. Industrial Production.
The outcome appeared uncertain, but in a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to be constitutional in accordance with U.S. tax laws.
Chief Justice John Roberts opined that the individual mandate, the clause compelling all Americans to own some sort of health insurance, was unconstitutional if the penalty took the form of a fine. Instead, if
Americans decided not to follow the individual mandate, they would be taxed in accordance with the burden that any potential uninsured illnesses might pose to taxpayers.
Though, prior to signing the bill into law in March 2010, the president had vehemently denied the bill to be a tax, his wording was corrected by the court on Thursday June 28, 2012.
Beyond compelling Americans to purchase policies from healthcare insurance companies, the bill also limits insurance companies’ rights to severability. The PPACA holds that no insurance company can terminate coverage because of a person’s pre-existing condition.
Limitations upon the rights of private sector insurance firms are subsequently countered by the bill’s expansion of Medicaid. The federal government has offered to fund the expansion in every state, to the tune of 100% of the cost.
The act, pejoratively known as Obamacare, has a host of pros and cons that will be sure to affect the well-being of each and every American. It is unforeseeable how our small business, healthcare factoring clientele will be affected, but we will keep you posted as new information becomes available.
