TrueBlue News Release (05/20/15)

Patrick Beharelle has been named TrueBlue’s president and chief operating officer, effective immediately. Beharelle has served as president and COO of TrueBlue’s outsourcing solutions group since June 30, 2014, overseeing strategy and the operations of Staff Management | SMX, PeopleScout, and HRX.

U.S. Government Accountability Office (05/20/15)

The U.S. Government Accountability Office released a report on “contingent workers,” which was broadly defined to include more than 40% of the 2010 workforce. GAO included agency temps, contract company workers, day laborers, direct-hire temps, independent contractors, on-call workers, self-employed workers, and standard part-time workers. In analyzing demographics, GAO narrowed its definition to “core contingent,” which it estimated at nearly 8% of the workforce. GAO noted, however, that temporary help employment accounts for only 1.5% to 2% of jobs. GAO did no separate analysis of temporary help employment.

According to GAO, so-called core contingent workers are more likely to be younger, Hispanic, have low household incomes, and are less likely to have a high school diploma. They are more likely to experience job instability, and be less satisfied with their benefits and employment arrangements. GAO also concluded that their employment arrangements may afford fewer worker protections and cause greater reliance on public assistance.

Conference Board News Release (05/21/15)

The Conference Board Leading Economic Index for the U.S. increased 0.7% in April to 122.3, following a 0.4% increase in March.

“April’s sharp increase in the LEI seems to have helped stabilize its slowing trend, suggesting the paltry economic growth in the first quarter may be temporary,” says Ataman Ozyildirim, economist at the Conference Board. “However, the growth of the LEI does not support a significant strengthening in the economic outlook at this time. The improvement in building permits helped to drive the index up this month, but gains in other components, in particular the financial indicators, have been somewhat more muted.”

The Conference Board Coincident Economic Index for the U.S. increased 0.2% in April to 112.0, following a 0.1% decline in March. The Conference Board Lagging Economic Index increased 0.1% in April to 116.6, following a 0.5% increase in March.

Bloomberg (05/21/15)

The number of people applying for unemployment benefits in the week ended May 16 rose by 10,000 to 274,000, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. The 51 economists surveyed by Bloomberg had forecast claims of 270,000. The four-week moving average of new claims fell by 5,500 to 266,250, a 15-year low.

Wall Street Journal (05/20/15) Jon Hilsenrath

U.S. Federal Reserve officials said at their April policy meeting that they are unlikely to raise short-term interest rates in June, and they are unlikely to raise the benchmark federal funds rate from near zero until they see more improvement in the labor market and are confident inflation will rise toward their 2% target. As the economy stumbled through winter, officials indicated it was “unlikely that the data available in June would provide sufficient confirmation that the conditions for raising the target range for the federal funds rate had been satisfied, although they generally did not rule out this possibility,” according to the Fed minutes.

The Fed meets again June 16-17, and market interests are looking toward a possible rate increase in September or later. Data has been mixed, with the economy generating jobs and income for workers but not experiencing an uptick in spending or investment.