American Staffing Association (11/29/30) Stephen Dwyer

At the behest of the American Staffing Association, HR Policy Association, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and other business groups, as well as Fortune 500 companies, the Society for Human Resource Management has withdrawn its proposed American National Standards Institute guidelines that would have required publicly traded companies to disclose confidential human resource metrics, including expenses incurred in connection with the use of temporary workers. According to SHRM, the metrics were designed to provide human resource information to investors to assist them in their investment decisions.

In written correspondence opposing the proposed metrics, ASA and others stressed the lack of a genuine need or any sort of expressed desire on the part of the investment community for human resource metrics standards, and noted that the metrics would result in publicly traded companies having to divulge trade secrets and other competitive information by virtue of the disclosure of otherwise confidential human resource information.

Wall Street Journal (11/28/12) Jon Hilsenrath

Just three months after launching an aggressive push to restart the struggling economy, U.S. Federal Reserve officials are nearing a decision to continue those efforts into 2013 as the country faces threats from the “fiscal cliff” at home and fragile economies worldwide. Central bank officials face critical decisions at their mid-December policy meeting. The most pressing is whether to move forward with bond-buying programs in which the Fed is accumulating immense stockpiles of long-term mortgage-backed securities and Treasury bonds. The Fed signaled strongly in September that it was inclined to sustain these programs until the job market strengthens significantly.

Although the unemployment rate has declined since July, many policy makers say the unemployment rate needs to decline further. Forecasting firm Macroeconomic Advisers LLC says the economy grew at a 2.9% pace in the third quarter, but has since slowed to a pace of 1.4%. The U.S. needs “a faster pace of growth than we have now,” Charles Evans, president of the Chicago Fed, said in a speech this week.

Wall Street Journal (11/29/12) Kristina Peterson; Eric Morath

The U.S. economy grew at a “measured” pace in October and November, as businesses dealt with uncertainty over the federal budget outlook and the destruction wrought by Hurricane Sandy, the U.S. Federal Reserve said in its Nov. 28 “beige book” report. Most of the Fed’s 12 districts saw modest gains in hiring and consumer spending, although manufacturing largely weakened. Economic growth in more than half the districts continued at a modest pace.

The jobs market strengthened in more than half the districts, though several areas noted that employers were hiring more part-time workers than full-time ones. The health of the labor market is critical for central bank officials, since the Fed plans to continue buying $40 billion of mortgage-backed securities each month until the jobs market strengthens substantially. Recent comments from policy makers suggest they do not think the jobs market has neared that level yet.

MarketWatch (11/29/12) Jeffry Bartash

The U.S. economy grew at a 2.7% pace in the third quarter, primarily because of higher inventories and exports, the U.S. Department of Commerce said today. The 2.7% figure is an upward revision from the government’s previous calculation of 2.0% and includes fresh data not available in the first report. Inventories rose by $61.3 billion in the third quarter compared with $41.4 billion in the second quarter. Exports were revised up to a 1.1% increase from a 1.6% decline, and imports were revised to a 0.1% increase from a 0.2% decline. Business capital investment declined 2.2% instead of the 1.3% originally reported.