Mastech Holdings News Release (01/29/13)

Mastech Holdings Inc. announced today its financial results for the fourth quarter and full year ended Dec. 31, 2012. Consolidated net income for the fourth quarter 2012 totaled $728,000, compared with $253,000 during the same period in 2011. Consolidated net income for 2012 totaled $2.1 million, compared to $1.1 million one-year earlier.

Demand for Mastech’s information technology staffing services remained solid during the fourth quarter when considering the normal year-end industry trends. Market conditions in the health care staffing business remained largely positive and the company was able to achieve sequential revenue growth for the 10th consecutive quarter. Overall gross margins in the fourth quarter of 2012 were 19.0%, which were in-line with the previous quarter’s performance and slightly below the 19.3% gross margins reported a year earlier.

NPR Talk of the Nation (01/28/13)

Sociologist Erin Hatton, author of a recent opinion piece for the New York Times tracing the evolution of the staffing industry, appeared on NPR’s “Talk of the Nation” to discuss the issues addressed in her article. Hatton said “if employers are looking for…creativity or high productivity, you may not get them from [temporary workers.] But on the flipside, today you might, because there are growing numbers of temporary workers—long-term temporary workers at companies who desperately hope to become permanent workers. And so they give it all they’ve got. So they work overtime. They’re extra creative. They’re extra productive in the hopes being converted to permanent status.”

Hatton added that “when I talk about the problems of the ‘perma-temp’ economy, that’s not to say that all temporary jobs are bad. In fact, for many workers, it works quite well. Also in the information technology world, a number of people can have the flexibility they want, make good money as a temp, and work when [they want.] But for most people, this kind of job is all about insecurity, lower wages, instability, and uncertainty. So let’s keep temporary employment. Let’s take the good but let’s leave off the bad.”

USA Today (01/29/13) Emma Beck

Since, Jan. 1, the minimum wage was increased in 13 states, and automatic wage increases occurred in nine other states. A number of other states are considering proposals to hike the minimum wage for the first time since 2009, when the federal minimum wage was last raised. There are concerns that a jump in labor costs could prompt employers to cut their work forces and employee hours, with small businesses, especially restaurants, hit the hardest. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that in 2011, 1.7 million of the 73.9 million U.S. workers over age 16 paid at hourly rates earned the minimum wage. It remains uncertain when legislation to increase the federal minimum wage to $9.80 over three years and institute annual cost-of-living adjustments will be reintroduced.

PaintSquare (01/29/13)

Officials are looking into a contract worker fatality at a South Carolina paper mill. The worker, Samir Storey, was cleaning a fume tank at the mill. Storey was an employee with construction staffing company Tradesmen International.