PR Newswire (10/05/15)

General Employment Enterprises Inc. has acquired Denver-based Access Data Consulting Corp., a provider of information technology staff augmentation and consulting services. The company provides higher-end IT consulting and IT contract staffing services including project management support.

MinnPost (10/05/15) Kristoffer Tigue

Some 136 temporary employees at Target Field, a Major League Baseball stadium in Minneapolis, MN, recently signed a petition calling for higher wages, a more predictable schedule, and better working conditions, and the staffing firms that place the employees have agreed to many of their demands, but not the higher wages. The staffing firms will now give their employees paper checks and direct deposit as payment options, will pay their employees who are asked to wait in line before their shift, and won’t require employees to report to their shifts if there are life events that take priority, says Minnesota Sportservice, the local subsidiary of Delaware North, which is the company that contracts the staffing firms that place employees at Target Field.

Target Field says it will inform the staffing firms they must pay all back pay owed to any temporary employees who waited in line before their official shift start time, which is a requirement under Minnesota law.

Wall Street Journal (10/05/15) Kate Davidson

The U.S. service sector in September grew at a slower pace, according to the Institute for Supply Management. The ISM’s nonmanufacturing purchasing managers index fell from 59.0 in August to 56.9 in September. Despite the decline the level is still high, economists said. New orders decreased from 63.4 in August to 56.7 in September.

The employment index rose from 56.0 to 58.3. “I’ve always said as the employment index goes, that’s how this sector goes, because it’s so labor intensive,” says Anthony Nieves, chairman of the ISM’s nonmanufacturing business survey committee. The employment index “tells me that in the pipeline perhaps the various companies and industries that make up this sector are thinking, ‘Hey we still have stuff coming down the road, so we’re hiring here.'”