Korn Ferry News Release (12/01/15)

Korn Ferry on Tuesday announced that it has completed its acquisition of Hay Group. “We need a new conversation on people. Never before has there been so much pressure on organizations to succeed. Yet by not applying the same rigor to their people strategy as they do in other areas of their business, organizations largely ignore their greatest lever for success,” said Gary D. Burnison, chief executive officer of Korn Ferry. Korn Ferry will serve clients through three business lines—Executive Search, Hay Group (which now includes Korn Ferry’s former Leadership and Talent Consulting segment), and the executive recruiting division Futurestep.

Automotive News (11/30/15) Nick Bunkley

Ford Motor Co. has a new contract with the United Auto Workers union that permits the use of more temporary workers and offers greater flexibility to move production to lower-cost countries if necessary. Ford said it expects no more than a 1.5% increase in costs related to the contract in each of the next four years. Labor costs will increase by less than the projected rate of inflation in each of those years, even though it will give veteran workers their first raises in a decade and enable lower-paid employees to reach top-tier wages within eight years.

“We have a good amount of flexibility to adjust the workforce if needed in the future,” says Joe Hinrichs, president of the Americas at Ford. Meanwhile, the company says it will move production of the Focus and C-Max out of Detroit and to a “lower-cost location.” It will build mostly SUVs and pickups in the U.S., and import lower-margin cars.

Wall Street Journal (12/01/15) Eric Morath

Companies seem to be hesitant to increase spending on machines, computers, and new buildings, among other things, with the U.S. Department of Commerce reporting that the broadest measure of U.S. business investment showed one of the worst performances of the six-year-old economic expansion. Meanwhile, government estimates show that a gauge of capital expenditures fell 3.8% during the first 10 months of the year from the same period in 2014.

Weak investment puts a damper on economic output and the economy’s future potential, as capital expenditures are key to improving employee productivity and eventually increasing profits and wages.