Cross Country Healthcare Inc. News Release (02/04/13)

Cross Country Healthcare Inc. has entered into an agreement to sell its clinical trial services business to ICON PLC for $52 million, plus an earn-out of up to $3.75 million related to certain performance-based milestones. ICON, based in Dublin, Ireland, is a global clinical research organization for drug development. Pending completion of certain closing conditions, the transaction is expected to be completed within the next 30 days.

“Selling this business is a logical step as we narrow our focus and concentrate our resources on our core nurse and allied staffing and our physician staffing businesses, which pro forma would represent about 90% of our consolidated revenue,” says Joseph A. Boshart, president and chief executive officer of Cross Country Healthcare.

USA Today (02/03/13) Paul Davidson

The U.S. Department of Labor reports average monthly job growth of 181,000 last year and 175,000 in 2011, which is much higher than the estimated monthly gains of 153,000 for those years and occurred even while the economy grew only 1.5% to 2%. Experts say the recent jobs report indicates that the economy has been quickly creating jobs, although such a level of job growth generally requires economic growth of more than 3%. They note that employers eliminated more workers than necessary during the recession and placed bigger burdens on existing employees during the recovery, and they believe such a strategy is unsustainable over the long term. Tom Gimbel, chief executive of the Chicago-based staffing firm LaSalle Network, reports a 30% increase in placements last year and an 80% jump in placements this year compared with 2012.

Associated Press (02/01/13)

An increase in new orders and more hiring at factories drove manufacturing activity in the U.S. last month, according to the Institute for Supply Management. The ISM’s index of manufacturing activity rose to 53.1 in January from 50.2 in December. The January reading is the highest since April, when the index reached 54.1. Any reading above 50 points to expansion.