Upfront: Swinging away
By Steve Noe
In the spirit of the start of the major league baseball season, I’m going to swing away and hit on a few different topics this month…
Good news: In March, nonfarm payroll employment rose by 162,000, while the unemployment rate held steady at 9.7 percent, according to a report released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on April 2.
Critics have been quick to point out that 48,000 of those jobs are just temporary due to the hiring of workers solely for conducting the Census 2010, which is true. However, take that number out of the equation and the addition of 114,000 jobs in a single month is still an encouraging sign. I know plenty of unemployed people who would love to land a job.
By the way, manufacturing employment continued to trend upward with a 17,000 increase in March, raising the total number of jobs added in the first three months of 2010 to 45,000. Also encouraging is that employment in construction held steady at 15,000 in March on the heels of losing an average of 72,000 jobs per month in the previous 12 months.
Hopefully, this marks the beginning of the end of the Great Recession.
What will be the impact of the Health Care Reform Law on our industry? Deere & Company announced March 25 that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (H.R. 3590) signed into law March 23 will adversely impact its expenses for fiscal 2010. As a result of the legislation, the company’s expenses are expected to be about $150 million higher on an after-tax basis, primarily in the second quarter. This impact was not included in the 2010 outlook for net income attributable to Deere & Company of approximately $1.3 billion disclosed in the company’s first-quarter earnings report on Feb. 17. Similarly, Caterpillar announced March 24 that it expects to record a $100-million after-tax charge in the first quarter of 2010 related to the new law. However, I’m curious as to how it will impact outdoor power equipment dealers, so please share your thoughts with me at snoe@m2media360.com.
Congratulations! I would like to give kudos to two Oregon-based companies for the recognition that they recently received. Blount International, Inc. (Portland) earned a National Partnership for Environmental Priorities Achievement Award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and Power Equipment Systems (Salem) was named one of the 100 best companies to work for in the state of Oregon for the third consecutive year, including the top 10 among the state’s small companies for the second straight year. For more details, please read the stories on page 12.
Good luck! With spring officially here, I would like to wish you the best of luck with your business this season! Here’s hoping for plenty of April showers…
OPE Editor Steve Noe
snoe@m2media360.com
