Small business bosses are feeling a little more optimistic than they were a few months ago.

But that optimism is accompanied by a deep conservatism toward expansion, and an expectation that it will take time for the economy to recover, a new Network of City Business Journals survey of 776 small business leaders in January shows.

Small business bosses are more optimistic than they were just after the election. In November, only 37 percent expected their business prospects to get a lot or a little better. In January, 63 percent expected conditions to get a lot or a little better.

“We’ve got some good news,” says Godfrey Phillips, vice president of the City Business Journals Network, which is owned by bizjournals’ parent company, American City Business Journals. Phillips is in charge of the company’s small-business research efforts. “I think that optimism’s up and that’s surprising but it is up.”

Still, just 27 percent expect to hire new employees when the economy recovers, while 39 percent expect to pay down credit lines and 34 percent intend to increase their capital reserves.

“They’re just going to be more cautious,” Phillips says, “sort of get themselves back on track.”

And the optimism is tempered by worry.

Forty seven percent said they were very concerned about the long-term survival of their companies, up from 41 percent in November.

“I think by nature they’re optimistic but there’s always the realism that things aren’t that good,” Phillips says.

They’re deeply concerned about the U.S. economy. Seventy percent say they’re very concerned about the economy. That topped all other concerns, with the cost of health care coming in second at 66 percent.

And they don’t expect a quick turnaround. On average, small business executives expect it will take 2.4 years for the economy to turn around.

But most do expect the economy to recover. Sixty-three percent expect the economy to regain its former strength.

“They still believe that things will come back,” Phillips says. “They still believe that the U.S. economy will be strong.”

To download the survey results, click here .

Source: Charlotte BizJournals.com

As research, I’ve been following a GoogleNews search for “newspapers” and this weekend alone was revealing as I heard a chorus of newspaper people singing in harmony but in a minor key: defensive, depressed, desperate, and sometimes downright dizzy. Here’s a sampling of what everyone’s saying:

Jon Talton in the Seattle Times echoes Jack Shafer in Slate (or is it Salon?) to remind us that out of all our sturm and drang about journos’ jobs it’s not often that empathy emerges about many other jobs and workers suffering now. Said Shafer:

The misery of a laid-off or bought-out journalist isn’t greater than that of a sacked bond trader, a RIF-ed clerk, or a fired autoworker. The only reason we’re so well-informed about journalists’ suffering is they have easy access to a megaphone. The underlying cause of their grief can be traced to the same force that has destroyed other professions and industries: digital technology….

Before we get too weepy about lost journalistic jobs and folded publications, let’s ask how often reporters lamented the decline of other industries, products, and services swamped by Rossetto’s digital typhoon.

Talton recalls cavalierly writing about the fate of steelworkers overtaken by technology and globalization:

Twenty years ago, no doubt with the hubris of youth, I wrote an analysis of the U.S. steel industry’s troubles. The next day, I got a call from one of some 600,000 steelworkers who were about to lose their jobs in that wrenching restructuring. The jobs were largely replaced with those that paid less, offering fewer benefits and no security.

“You people in the press would write differently if it was happening to you,” he said. “Someday you’ll get yours.”

If he’s still around, this reader and countless others sharing the same sentiments can take comfort. We’ve gotten ours….

Like the 1970s steel industry, much of the newspaper world is a victim of self-inflicted wounds. Monopolies and cartels tend to commit suicide, partly because they become complacent, partly because they grow an inward-looking groupthink. Like Big Steel, newspapers in the 1990s failed to aggressively address the rise of low-cost competitors and much of the industry failed to invest for the future.

 

Read Jeff Jarvis’ full article on www.seekingalpha.com

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The head of the arbiter of U.S. economic cycles said on Monday that while the U.S. recession will likely be longer than average, it will not even come close to the Great Depression.

“We are in a very different place than the U.S. economy was in the 1930s,” James Poterba, president of the National Bureau of Economic Research, told the Reuters Investment Outlook Summit in New York.

“It is possible to have the worst postwar recession without getting anywhere close to what it was in the 1930s, and it is important to remember that,” he said.

He said the market’s unemployment rate projections of 8 percent to 9 percent are a “far cry from what we traditionally associate with the U.S. economy in the Great Depression.”

Nevertheless, he said, “I think there is every reason to suspect that this will be a longer than average recession.”

The NBER last week said the recession started in December 2007.

“Given the employment numbers we have seen it is pretty clear that we are in a painful economic period,” Poterba said. “We are not going to avoid that and my guess is that we still see more pain before we see better times ahead.”

On Friday, data showed the U.S. economy suffered its worst monthly job losses since 1974 in November, with the loss of 533,000 jobs, underscoring the depth of the global financial crisis. The U.S. unemployment rate hit 6.7 percent in November.

Poterba said the length and depth of the recession will depend on policy responses, adding he believes policy-makers have learned from past mistakes.

Both the Treasury and the Federal Reserve have taken a number of aggressive steps to combat the crisis.

Read full article here

Source: Reuters.com

Charlotte has proven itself as a financial capital and location for corporate headquarters, but the region must be proactive in building a more diverse economy.

That was the message Monday from a handful of location advisers – people who help companies decide on relocation and expansion sites. The consultants met with area business and civic leaders during a three-hour economic development forum at the City Club in uptown Charlotte.

Such workshops show the Charlotte region’s collaborative spirit, which is important in an uncertain economy, said Tom Stringer, a director at Duff & Phelps in New York. Confronting fears of a global recession, the forum was hosted by the City of Charlotte, the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce, the Charlotte Regional Partnership and Charlotte Center City Partners.

“Everybody is really operating from the same page,” Stringer said. “It’s really unique to see people take stock of a situation as it’s unfolding.”

Despite the recession, some U.S. and foreign companies are expanding and adding jobs, Stringer said. While Charlotte has seen explosive growth in banking and related employment, the region shouldn’t continue chasing those jobs during the current financial crisis, said Tim Nitti, a principal at KLG in New York.

Instead, Nitti said, Charlotte should sell itself as a headquarters location. Nine Fortune 500 companies are based in the region, although Wachovia would drop off the list after its planned sale to Wells Fargo. In addition, he said, some advanced manufacturers would like the region’s available workers, the result of earlier factory closures.

Local business recruiters didn’t reveal any new initiatives or programs for attracting companies Monday. But with cities across the country trying to navigate the downturn and bring more jobs to their communities, Charlotte shouldn’t ease up on its economic development targets, Nitti said.

“Being aggressive and smart is going to be critical,” he said.

Taken from the Charlotte Observer

Posted on: Wednesday, 1 October 2008, 03:00 CDT
By Fitzpatrick, Joyce J

WE ARE ALL AWARE OF THE NURSE FACULTY SHORTAGE, evidenced by the long waiting lists of qualified students for our programs and the fatigue we feel at the end of a long day of teaching. Although it may not be polite or politically correct to talk about money, we must break this unwritten rule. We must do something about the root cause of the nurse faculty shortage. Of course, there are perks to the academic role, but the discrepancies in pay compared to nurses in other positions will continue to be a deterrent to both recruitment and retention of nurse faculty. The data indicate that staff nurse salaries are higher than those of assistant professors, and that the salary for an independently employed nurse practitioner is 150 percent greater than that of a full professor in nursing (1). The NLN/Carnegie National Survey indicated that nurse practitioners with master’s preparation earned approximately 12 percent more than master’s-prepared faculty members in nursing (2).

There is too much wrong with this financial picture. We live in a knowledge-based economy. Thus, it should follow that those persons responsible for imparting knowledge – faculty should be paid the highest salaries. This is definitely not the case in nursing.

Read full Red Orbit article here…

by Carrie Vaughan, for HealthLeaders Media, September 19, 2008

We’ve all heard the reports. The U.S. healthcare system will need more than one million new registered nurses by 2020. Thousands of nursing school applicants are turned away each year because there isn’t enough nursing faculty, clinical sites, and classroom space. The shortage of registered nurses in the United States could reach as high as 500,000 by 2025. More than one-third of baby boomer nurses (age 45 to 60) plan to retire or change their career in the next one to three years.

It’s no wonder CEOs are taking an active role in nursing recruitment and retention efforts. Given these forecasts the competition for nurses is going to get even more intense, and it is going to take more than sign-on bonuses and financial rewards to attract new nurse recruits to your facility. (See Show Them More Than $ in the September issue of HealthLeaders magazine.) Nurses want to work for an employer of choice—a Magnet facility, one of the best places to work, or a healthcare organization that offers them:

Read full HealthMedia Leaders article here…

Despite a shortage of nurses locally and throughout the nation, Erie County Medical Center is reporting a banner year for recruitment.

The hospital said it attracted more recent nursing graduates as well as experienced nurses than the previous 12 years. Year-to-date, ECMC has hired 181 nursed, including 125 registered nurses (RN) and 56 licensed practical nurses (LPN).

In all of 2007, the hospital hired a total of 175 nurses, including 109 RNs and 66 LPNs. In 2006, the figures were 109 RNs and 32 LPNs, for a total of 141.

Read full Business First article here

Need talent? Why not make a video to recruit them

Technology has come along way, have you? It may come as no surprise to you that a lot of companies today still use the good old classified ads to type essentially the same thing as everyone else, but with a video camera and little creativity you will have a flood of candidates who would otherwise pass you up.

Using a recruiting video is really the most effective way to reach the people that you seek these days, so why aren”t you using it? Do you think it is too expensive? Maybe it is a hassle? No creative ideas? One of our services at The Brand Management Group LLC is to produce compelling, creative, and attractive productions for companies looking for talent, but if you are not in the market to use a service like ours you can still put together something that will bring more candidates. An employment brand video or production is the way to go. Today with the competition running typed ads it makes sense to do something different.

Read more

Little more than a year after introducing video resumes, CareerBuilder has discontinued the service. It was quietly taken offline in June.

The company won’t say how many jobseekers posted videos, but it seems the participation rate wasn’t high enough to warrant CareerBuilder’s effort. Job board spokesperson Jennifer Grasz told us, “We’re always testing the market with new tools and services to enhance the user experience. If the response rates are not there, we’ll reevaluate whether the market is ready and focus energies on other areas to aid in the job search and recruitment process.”

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