AP: EAST HARTFORD, Conn. — Jet engine maker Pratt & Whitney is getting political pressure as it decides whether to eliminate as many as 1,000 jobs in Connecticut.
Rep. Christopher Murphy, D-Conn., and the other six members of the state’s congressional delegation, Gov. M. Jodi Rell and other elected officials asked Pratt & Whitney earlier this week to consider delaying a decision until late 2010 when the company’s contract with the International Association of Machinists expires.
From this morning’s Providence Journal: Take a number and have a seat, please. That’s what the recruiters told several hundred people who flocked to a job fair Tuesday morning offered by CVS Caremark Corp. at the Community College of Rhode Island.
The hopefuls, all 700 of them, were there to vie for 100 new pharmacy technician positions to staff a new call center that will open in December. Calls to the new center, located at the Highlands Park Corporate Park near the Woonsocket-Cumberland border, will be routed from CVS drugstores in southern New England.
Interesting piece in Federal Computer Week (FCW) yesterday, which depicts another creative way that policymakers can spur innovation with investment, and help provide more jobs and those small businesses that employ so many of New England’s hardest working residents…
Portion from the FCW piece: The Energy Department plans to release $37 million in funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to small businesses to stimulate research and development into clean energy technologies.
The funding will be available through the Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs targeted toward U.S. companies with fewer than 500 employees. Topic areas being considered for funding include sensors, controls, wireless networks and smart controllers for smart grid applications.
From the Bristol Press: Representatives of small and mid-sized manufacturing companies painted a grim picture of stagnant or dropping sales leading to layoffs at a meeting Friday with three Republican lawmakers.
Arthur Funk, owner of Fourslide Spring and Stamping on Cross Street, said his sales are down more than a third over this time last year, and the 47-year-old company has lost five of his 25 employees due to the economy.
“We don’t want to lay anyone off,” Funk said, who hosted the meeting with state Rep. Bill Hamzy of Plymouth, House Republican Leader Larry Cafero of Norwalk and state Sen. John McKinney of Southport.
Here’s to hoping some of New England’s local policymakers saw this interesting piece in yesterday’s edition of the New London Day from their business editor, Anthony Cronin: “It’s anyone’s guess when the nation – and then Connecticut – will begin to rev the engine of economic growth. Let’s hope it’s sooner rather than later.
Because we can’t really rev without job creation. I recognize that in the early stages of recovery employers are reluctant to hire, favoring things like overtime to boost productivity and meet increasing demand.
Sooner or later, however, as demand rises for goods and services, there will be a need for more jobs. Based on this latest economic assessment, here in Connecticut we may be waiting for some time before that occurs.”
Hartford Courant: Connecticut lost 2,800 jobs in July, and the state’s unemployment rate decreased slightly to 7.8 percent from 8 percent in June, according to a state Department of Labor report released today.
“Hopefully, job declines in the state are leveling off, as they are nationally,” said Salvatore DiPillo, labor department statistics supervisor.
Some economists had predicted that July’s job losses could total more than 5,000. But while July’s job losses may have been lower than expected, June’s losses were revised significantly upward.
From Today’s Globe: The unemployment rate in Massachusetts rose to 8.8 percent in July with 2,800 jobs lost as compared with June’s 8.6 percent unemployment rate, the state’s Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development said in a report today.
From Today’s Courant: A study prepared for the Clean Energy Fund this spring calculated that Connecticut companies — from major corporations like United Technologies Corp. to entrepreneurial startups — have already created more than 4,500 direct jobs in renewable energy and energy conservation. An additional 7,200 indirect jobs have been created because of green energy spending. Experts can’t predict how many additional green collar jobs will be created in the future. Economists are generally most encouraged by small company growth, considering it the engine of business that powers tomorrow’s new jobs. By this standard, Connecticut might be considered a promising little green giant.
Some pretty grim forecasts coming out of Connecticut this morning, and sadly we aren’t talking about the possibility of Hurricane Bill making its way up the East Coast. According to a new report from the Connecticut Center for Economic Analysis, Connecticut could lose an additional 35,000 jobs over the next year, leaving it with 1.62 million — fewer than in 1990. The Hartford Courant outlined the report in this morning’s paper indicating that “the [it] cites weak housing construction and state budget cuts as reasons for its job forecast, which some other economists in the state called ‘pessimistic’ but ‘plausible.’” The report also said that since Connecticut’s employment peaked in March 2008, 70,200 jobs have already been lost here (leaving a total of 1.64 million at the end of June), and as the Courant indicates, even more layoffs could be coming from some of the state’s larger employers in the months ahead.
All this gloomy news should be yet another reason for policymakers and the business community to work together to find new ways to make Connecticut and Greater New England, more competitive and attractive for new businesses. If there isn’t a new enthusiasm for working together on this, the job situation for many deserving residents is not going to get better any time soon. We need our policymakers to be thinking about how they can create incentives for companies to come and invest in New England, how they can reward innovation, and how they can make our region a more competitive landscape. (Unfortunately, we doubt offering an increased surcharge on corporate profits does that, but we will hope for the best as the budget talks proceed.)
In the months ahead, our organization will be addressing how competitive New England has been with other regions of the country, and how we compare to those regions that are providing incentives for businesses to open their doors, but the reports from this morning should be a strong indicator to all New England residents and policymakers alike, that if we cannot identify ways to bring about a more attractive business environment, we are bound to see even more job loss. The skies may be grey today, but we are hopeful that with cooperation and some renewed enthusiasm between the business community, policymakers, and groups like ours, the forecasts will begin to get better…
Hartford Courant: Even as the national economy shows signs of improvement, economists with the University of Connecticut expect tens of thousands more job losses in the state and no job growth before 2011.
In its latest quarterly report, scheduled for release today, the Connecticut Center for Economic Analysis says Connecticut could lose an additional 35,000 jobs over the next year, leaving it with 1.62 million — fewer than in 1990.
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