Richard Laurenzi of Prospect Machine Products, Inc. (a JNEN member) discusses how federal stimulus dollars have assisted his company through these difficult economic times on Hartford’s WFSB’s Channel 3. Click on the photo to see the story!
Posts Tagged ‘Connecticut’
JNEN Member, Richard Laurenzi, on Hartford’s WFSB-TV
Friday, December 11th, 2009JNEN Member, Richard Laurenzi, on Hartford's WFSB-TV
Friday, December 11th, 2009Richard Laurenzi of Prospect Machine Products, Inc. (a JNEN member) discusses how federal stimulus dollars have assisted his company through these difficult economic times on Hartford’s WFSB’s Channel 3. Click on the photo to see the story!
New Haven Register: Dodd Details Jobs Creation Plan
Tuesday, December 8th, 2009From the New Haven Register: U.S. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn., flew into the state from Washington Monday to outline a job creation plan that focuses on clean energy, the manufacturing base and small businesses.
…“If people can’t find good-paying jobs in the private sector, our problems are going to grow,” Dodd said.
Southington firm gets state help to create, keep jobs
Thursday, December 3rd, 2009From the Meriden Record-Journal. Hats off to the state on this one:
SOUTHINGTON –Apple Valley Woodworks, a local cabinet maker was approved for a $750,000 low-interest loan for new equipment, according to an announcement from Gov. M. Jodi Rell.
The loan will also allow the company to bring its number of employees up from 91 to 100, according to the press release.
CT business failures at an all-time high
Thursday, October 22nd, 2009From Connecticut’s NPR station: The numbers of businesses shutting their doors in Connecticut is at an all-time high. New figures from the Secretary of the State’s office show that nine-and-a-half thousand companies have failed so far this year. WNPR’s Harriet Jones reports.
Businesses that dissolve must file papers with the Secretary of the State’s office, and the latest figures show a record number of shut-downs for the third quarter. The 2,600 businesses that failed represent a nearly seven percent increase in shut downs from the same quarter last year. But there’s also evidence of turnover, with business starts on the increase, up almost two-and-a-half percent on the third quarter of 2008.
Check out the link above for the full story!
6,600 Jobs Lost In Connecticut In September
Wednesday, October 21st, 2009From today’s Hartford Courant: With stocks in a solid bull market, manufacturers seeing more orders, corporate earnings on the upswing and more houses selling, there was hope this fall that Connecticut’s deep job losses were easing.
The state had posted a couple of months of smaller declines, and even an uptick, in May.
But optimism was dashed Tuesday with a report showing the state’s employers shed 6,600 jobs in September, and the unemployment rate leaped to 8.4 percent from 8.1 percent. Steep losses in education, administrative work, retail trade, transportation and utilities paced a month that hearkened back to the huge declines of last winter.
If the new numbers weren’t bad enough, job losses for August, previously reported at 3,700, were revised up to 4,800.
“This is a swift kick in the pants,” said economist Donald L. Klepper-Smith of DataCore Partners Inc. in New Haven, chairman of the governor’s economic advisory council. He was among the forecasters expecting fewer job losses.
Hitting Bottom: When will the jobs return?
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009Interesting read from today’s Hartford Advocate: Have we hit bottom? That’s the question many are asking, especially among the nearly 80,000 people who have lost their jobs in Connecticut in the past year. Another 20,000 are expected to join the ranks of the unemployed before things turn around in June. And bankruptcy filings are on the rise.
“We’re probably close to the bottom now as far as job losses are concerned,” says Joe Brennan, senior vice president of the Connecticut Business and Industry Association. “There’s no accurate way to measure that when you’re in the middle of it, but anecdotally talking to members [of the CBIA] they feel they’re at the bottom.”
… What is being done to bring more jobs into the state? Not much, according to Brennan.
“Candidly, during the legislative session the response was tepid at best,” he said. “We talked, and others talked, going into the session about the fact that economic recovery needed to be the priority, but the budget obviously dominated the legislative session. Very little attention was given to economic growth.”
Connecticut should do more to retain business
Tuesday, October 6th, 2009Interesting 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
DPUC’s Unprecedented Move Questioned By Some
Monday, October 5th, 2009From this morning’s Hartford Courant: State utility regulators on Sept. 24 did something they had never tried before, something that lawyers of long experience said they have rarely, if ever, seen any government agency do. Regulators forbade private companies from laying off some of their own workers.
…
At a time when the nation’s president is more aligned with labor unions than any predecessor in at least a generation, and many workers have pent up anger over layoffs and lagging pay, DPUC’s bold move might suggest a controversial new way to restrain unemployment. But labor lawyers and scholars say deep government intervention in the day-to-day operations of private companies is unlikely to become commonplace.
“The corporate community would go ballistic at the mere proposal of widespread use of a mechanism like this to block layoffs,” Lance Compa, a labor lawyer and senior lecturer at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations, said of the DPUC’s action. “… I don’t think we have the political will to enact a broad policy of blocking private sector layoffs.”
To the extent that other government agencies try to forcibly forestall layoffs by private firms, it is likely to be “intermittent and ad hoc,” he said. The fact that at least one has tried “reflects the extent of the crisis that working people are facing these days.”
DPUC's Unprecedented Move Questioned By Some
Monday, October 5th, 2009From this morning’s Hartford Courant: State utility regulators on Sept. 24 did something they had never tried before, something that lawyers of long experience said they have rarely, if ever, seen any government agency do. Regulators forbade private companies from laying off some of their own workers.
…
At a time when the nation’s president is more aligned with labor unions than any predecessor in at least a generation, and many workers have pent up anger over layoffs and lagging pay, DPUC’s bold move might suggest a controversial new way to restrain unemployment. But labor lawyers and scholars say deep government intervention in the day-to-day operations of private companies is unlikely to become commonplace.
“The corporate community would go ballistic at the mere proposal of widespread use of a mechanism like this to block layoffs,” Lance Compa, a labor lawyer and senior lecturer at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations, said of the DPUC’s action. “… I don’t think we have the political will to enact a broad policy of blocking private sector layoffs.”
To the extent that other government agencies try to forcibly forestall layoffs by private firms, it is likely to be “intermittent and ad hoc,” he said. The fact that at least one has tried “reflects the extent of the crisis that working people are facing these days.”
