Volt Information Sciences News Release (01/15/15)

Volt Information Sciences Inc. reported a net loss of $19.0 million for fiscal year 2014, compared with $30.9 million in 2013. Operating results from continuing operations improved $12.1 million in 2014, to income of $4.8 million, from a loss of $7.3 million in 2013. In the fiscal 2014 fourth quarter, staffing service revenue was down 18.2% from $492.8 million to $403.1 million. Net income totaled $2.1 million in the fiscal fourth quarter, up 31.3% from net income of $1.6 million in the year-ago quarter.

“Consistent with our primary goal of a more highly focused and profitable Volt, we have now exited our software businesses. We are now concentrating on our core staffing and services businesses that have similar profitability, risks, and returns on capital,” said Ron Kochman, Volt’s president and chief executive officer.

Wall Street Journal (01/15/15) Kathleen Madigan

During the first half of 2015, wages will increase and the U.S. will briefly flirt with deflation, according to a Wall Street Journal survey of 66 economists. They also expect that cheap oil will cause inflation-adjusted gross domestic product to grow 3.0% across all four quarters of the year, up from the 2.6% estimated for last year. Stronger economic growth will tighten the U.S. labor market, and a sizable 15% of respondents expect the unemployment rate to be below 5% by year’s end. Tighter labor markets should mean higher pay for most workers.

Wall Street Journal (01/16/15) Ben Leubsdorf; Eric Morath

The consumer-price index fell a seasonally adjusted 0.4% last month from November, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. The decline was the biggest one-month drop in six years. Excluding energy and food, prices were unchanged in December from November. Economists polled by the Wall Street Journal had forecast a 0.4% drop in overall prices and a 0.1% increase in core prices. Consumer prices increased 0.8% in December from a year earlier, declining from a 1.3% annual gain in November. December saw the smallest annual increase in prices since October 2009, when prices declined 0.2% on the year.

Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia (01/15/15)

The pace of regional manufacturing activity increased modestly in January, according to firms responding to the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia’s Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey. The survey’s broadest measure of manufacturing conditions, the diffusion index of current activity, decreased 18 points, from a revised reading of 24.3 in December to 6.3 in January. The demand for manufactured goods, as measured by the current new orders index, decreased 5 points, from a revised reading of 13.6 last month to 8.5 this month. Meanwhile, firms’ responses suggest weaker labor market conditions in January compared with December. The current employment index fell 10 points, from 8.4 to -2.0. The percentage of firms reporting a shorter workweek (23%) was greater than the percentage reporting a longer workweek (16%).