Posts Tagged ‘Business’
Thursday, October 15th, 2009
Heartbreaking news today from the Boston Globe: The Massachusetts unemployment rate last month rose to its highest level since the 1970s as employers cut more than 9,000 jobs and work remains scarce.
The jobless rate rose to 9.3 percent in September from 9.1 percent in August, exceeding the percent peak rate of 9.1 percent reached during the deep New England recession of the early 1990s, the Massachusetts Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development said in a press release.
It is the highest rate since 1976, when the state was recovering from a recession spurred by soaring energy prices following the Arab oil embargo and the collapse of traditional manufacturing industries.
Tags: Business, jobless, Massachusetts, recession, unemployment
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Tuesday, October 6th, 2009
Interesting Letter-to-the-Editor today in the Danbury News-Times from an important member of our coalition: Attorney General Blumenthal is at it again. He is meddling in the affairs of private businesses, and is doing his best to deter future businesses from entering the state. On the heels of a 1,000-person layoff by Pratt & Whitney, Blumenthal has begun to attack other employers for making business decisions that involve workforce restructuring or downsizing.
Unfortunately for the residents and workers of Connecticut, our problem is less that some companies are being forced to downsize, and more that our state continues to remain an unfriendly environment for businesses of all sizes. What Blumenthal and many other policymakers do not realize is that instead of mandating that companies maintain staffing when they cannot afford it, the state should be taking steps to reverse the trend of businesses downsizing and leaving the region.
That means creating measures to encourage job growth and investment, as well as providing incentives for new businesses to open their doors here.
Officials like Blumenthal bemoan the loss of jobs, yet continue to foster an environment that is anti-business. The grandstanding needs to end. The real work should be helping to move Connecticut towards economic prosperity. Until then, businesses will continue to run scared.
Stephen Bull
President, Greater Danbury
Chamber of Commerce
DANBURY
Tags: Blumenthal, Bull, Business, Connecticut, employment, Jobs
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Monday, September 28th, 2009
From the New Haven Register: Within minutes of Pratt & Whitney announcing in late July its intentions to shutter its Cheshire Engine Center and close its Connecticut Airfoil Repair Operation in East Hartford numerous state officials decried the action, vowing to fight to preserve the 1,000 jobs on the chopping block.
About six weeks later, on Sept. 3, Gov. M. Jodi Rell announced the state was offering Pratt $100 million in incentives — $20 million a year for five years — to change course and keep the Cheshire plant and East Hartford business unit open.
But the company’s decision last week to reject that offer — several years after Bayer Corp. in 2006 shunned a $60 million state incentive package and moved its U.S. headquarters from West Haven to New Jersey — has some questioning whether the state does enough to retain businesses.
Tom Mayes, vice president of Pratt & Whitney Commercial Engine & Global Services, in announcing the company’s decision Monday, said the state “made a generous and creative proposal in an unprecedented effort to keep jobs in the state.”
The incentives, however, did not address the main issues the company faces, he said — volume loss amid a declining aerospace market and labor costs. The impacted jobs will be moved to Georgia, Singapore and Japan.
Tags: Business, Connecticut, incentives, Investment, Jobs, Rell
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Thursday, September 24th, 2009
From Hartford Business Journal: Connecticut ranks 35th – just behind Massachusetts – among the nation’s best places for business in 2009, losing ground from its ranking a year earlier, according to Forbes.com.
New England states overall showed poorly — with Rhode Island placing dead last — on the latest ranking by the business-information publisher.
…Forbes.com said today its 2009 ranking measures six vital categories for businesses: costs, labor supply, regulatory environment, current economic climate, growth prospects and quality of life. It also factored in 33 different points of data to determine the ranks in the six main areas.
Business costs that include labor, energy and taxes were weighted the most heavily, the business-information publisher said.
Connecticut ranked near the bottom in four of six major categories.
According to Forbes, the state is 45th in business costs; 18th in labor supply; 33rd in regulatory environment; 31st in economic climate; and 37th in growth prospects.
… Rounding out New England, Forbes ranked New Hampshire No. 19 overall for business, just ahead of its 20th spot a year ago; Massachusetts improved to No. 34 from 36th place; Maine rose to No. 41 from 46th; Vermont was No. 47, down from 36th; and Rhode Island was No. 50, down from No. 45 last year.
Tags: Business, Connecticut, Taxes
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Friday, September 11th, 2009
From the Hartford Courant Blog: A new survey sponsored by the Connecticut Business and Industry Association and the accounting firm BlumShapiro suggests that our own elected leaders are doing a good job at making more of a mess of the the state’s already depressed economy.
Whether you agree with it or not, the survey results illustrate a major problem. We need businesses to feel positive about the state. If our elected (Democratic) leaders in the General Assembly are sending the wrong message to businesses, and particularly ones that are considering expansion or moving here, that’s not good. But it’s also a problem if the business leaders think Democrats are somehow anti-business, which is absurd. Democrats know where our tax revenues — and jobs — come from as much as Republicans do.
Unfortunately, the annual survey did not ask business leaders whether any of the governor’s policies had “negatively influenced” the ability to run a profitable business. It also, not surprisingly, found that Connecticut business does not like taxes, and particularly the income tax.
But Carl R. Johnson, managing partner at BlumShapiro, is right when he says that legislators “need to reach out more to figure out how the business community can help.”
“I don’t think that people realize that if business is thriving how we create jobs.”
Tags: BlumShapiro, Business, CBIA, Connecticut, Jobs, Taxes
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Friday, September 11th, 2009
From the Hartford Courant Blog: A new survey sponsored by the Connecticut Business and Industry Association and the accounting firm BlumShapiro suggests that our own elected leaders are doing a good job at making more of a mess of the the state’s already depressed economy.
Whether you agree with it or not, the survey results illustrate a major problem. We need businesses to feel positive about the state. If our elected (Democratic) leaders in the General Assembly are sending the wrong message to businesses, and particularly ones that are considering expansion or moving here, that’s not good. But it’s also a problem if the business leaders think Democrats are somehow anti-business, which is absurd. Democrats know where our tax revenues — and jobs — come from as much as Republicans do.
Unfortunately, the annual survey did not ask business leaders whether any of the governor’s policies had “negatively influenced” the ability to run a profitable business. It also, not surprisingly, found that Connecticut business does not like taxes, and particularly the income tax.
But Carl R. Johnson, managing partner at BlumShapiro, is right when he says that legislators “need to reach out more to figure out how the business community can help.”
“I don’t think that people realize that if business is thriving how we create jobs.”
Tags: BlumShapiro, Business, CBIA, Connecticut, Jobs, Taxes
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Tuesday, September 8th, 2009
From Sunday’s Hartford Courant: With the recent announcement that Pratt & Whitney is evaluating whether to relocate 1,000 jobs, some elected officials proclaimed that we must, at all costs, keep well-paying manufacturing jobs in Connecticut. Given that well-paying jobs have been leaving Connecticut for many years, we can only hope that the magnitude of Pratt’s potential loss will produce meaningful and constructive state action to match those words.
Indeed, we must react with a sense of urgency to this latest wake-up call and aggressively address Connecticut’s woeful economic direction. Gov. M. Jodi Rell deserves credit for her efforts to retain the Pratt jobs, but rather than react to announcements of job relocations, our elected officials must establish a climate that causes businesses to retain current jobs and create new ones.
The piece was authored by Oz Griebel, who is president and CEO of the MetroHartford Alliance.
Tags: Business, Connecticut, Griebel, Jobs, Rell
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Thursday, September 3rd, 2009
From the Fairfield County Business Journal: An enviable performance during the recession notwithstanding, a new study puts Connecticut among the bottom feeders nationally for its economic performance leading up to this year.
…On income-related measures, Connecticut ranked sixth nationally as might be expected, but the state was pulled down by a woeful score on entrepreneurship measures, placing in the bottom five nationally; and scoring in the bottom dozen on net migration by more families leaving the state than coming in.
Tags: Business, Connecticut, Economic Outlook, Jobs
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