Randstad News Release (02/14/13)

Randstad reported a net loss of €97 million in the fourth quarter of last year, down 490% from the same period in 2011, following a goodwill write-off of almost €140m. Over 2012 as a whole, Randstad reported a net profit of €36.7 million, down 79% from 2011. Revenues for the year rose 5% to €17 billion.

North American revenue stood at €992.2 million for the fourth quarter of 2012, down 1% from the same period in 2011. While revenue growth was flat, gross profit in the fourth quarter expanded by 4% compared with the fourth quarter of 2011. Over the entire year of 2012, North American revenue increased by 4% to €3.947 billion.

Revenue of Randstad’s combined U.S. commercial staffing business contracted by 1% in the fourth quarter of 2012 after a 4% gain in the third quarter. U.S. professional sector business grew by 2% per working day in the fourth quarter, compared with a 4% increase per working day in the third quarter.

MarketWatch (02/14/13)

Staffing 360 Solutions Inc. announced today that it has executed an acquisition agreement with IDC Technologies Inc. and its sole shareholder and chief executive officer Prateek Gattani. IDC is a California-based staffing services corporation with approximately $45 million in annual revenues. IDC will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Staffing 360 Solutions.

Bloomberg (02/14/13) Shobhana Chandra

The number of Americans who applied last week for new jobless benefits fell sharply. Applications for initial unemployment benefits sank 27,000 to a seasonally adjusted 341,000 in the week ended Feb. 9, the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. The level of filings was lower than any projection in a Bloomberg survey in which the median forecast was 360,000. Claims are now just slightly above a five-year low. The average of new claims over the past month, meanwhile, edged up by 1,500 to 352,500.

Defense News (02/12/13) Andrew Tilghman

The Pentagon intends to hire thousands of workers in a massive expansion of the joint U.S. Cyber Command, the armed forces’ centralized command of cyberspace operations. Approximately 80% of the jobs will be for service members and 20% for civilians. “People are going to fight for these jobs,” says Alan Paller, director of research at the SANS Institute, a private school that trains cybersecurity experts for the military and private businesses. “This wouldn’t have worked just a few years ago, because no one thought there were great careers in cyber,” Paller says. “That has changed.”