Wall Street Journal (03/28/13) Scott Thurm

Although many restaurant chains have expressed concern about the costs associated with the federal health care law, some now say the costs won’t be as onerous as they first thought. They say many workers won’t qualify for coverage, and many who do qualify will turn down insurance offered by the restaurant chains, choosing instead to pay a $95 fine or obtain coverage through Medicaid or a family member. Wendy’s Co., for example, first thought the health care law would add costs of about $25,000 annually to operate each restaurant, but the chain now says costs will be about $5,000. What restaurant operators choose to do is being closely followed, because they employ numerous part-time and uninsured employees.

Marketwire (03/27/13)

Staffing 360 Solutions Inc. has executed a stock purchase agreement with the Revolution Group Ltd. and its sole shareholders: Mark Aiello, Michael Consolazio, and Heather Haughey. The Revolution Group, with revenues of approximately $5 million, is a staffing services corporation specializing in the deployment of highly trained personnel for the cyber security industry with a focus on cyber terrorism. Pursuant to the terms of the agreement, Staffing 360 Solutions will acquire all the issued and outstanding stock of the Revolution Group as it becomes a wholly owned subsidiary of Staffing 360 Solutions.

Investor’s Business Daily (03/28/13) Vance Cariaga

Shares of many staffing firms have risen to multiyear highs in recent weeks as an upswing in the U.S. labor market spurs the demand for temporary and permanent employees. “The [turnaround] may be reflecting a pickup in demand for staffing, either because business is better or there is increasing optimism,” analysts at Vermilion Technical Research note in a report on the sector. Some staffing firms, such as ManpowerGroup and Kelly Services, are likely to see earnings growth this year after seeing profits fall last year. Others are likely to improve on the earnings increases they saw last year. “The staffing companies, after spending most of the last three years consolidating sideways and underperforming, have bullishly inflected in a very positive, broad-based way,” Vermilion notes.

“One reason [temporary] staffing jobs have grown faster than other jobs since the trough of the recession is that they were hit harder,” says Randy Reece, an analyst at Avondale Partners. “Even now, [temporary staffing firm] employment is still 10% below the previous peak. The tantalizing upside potential is that [temporary jobs] have rebounded this much in a very mediocre labor market.”

Bloomberg (03/28/13) Lorraine Woellert

The number of people applying for new unemployment-insurance benefits rose 16,000 to 357,000 in the week ended March 23, reaching the highest level since mid-February, the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. The median forecast of 48 economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for an increase to 340,000.

MarketWatch (03/28/13) Jeffrey Bartash

The U.S. economy grew at a slightly faster but still anemic rate at the end of last year. The economy grew 0.4% in the 2012 fourth quarter instead of the prior estimate of a 0.1% gain, boosted by higher exports and business investment than originally believed. While that’s the slowest growth since the 2011 first quarter, the latest figures suggest the economy continued to expand at a modest pace in the fourth quarter after stripping out the effects of inventories and an unusually large drop in government spending.