Welder Robert England has been out of work since his former employer Dana Canada shut its plant in St. Mary’s last summer.
"Everyone says: `Go West.’ These days anything is worth a try," said the 34-year-old father of two, who welded Ford-150 frames at the plant near London for the past seven years.
Armed with a stack of resumés and high hopes, he and wife Melanie visited the Workwest career caravan in Mississauga yesterday with their 4-year-old son and daughter, 2, in tow, looking for work in Alberta’s oil patch.
Ontario’s manufacturing sector has been getting hammered lately thanks to the ailing auto industry, the weakening economy and a stronger loonie that’s only recently slid back – just not in time for those like England.
A dozen Western Canadian employers at the job fair are chomping at the bit to recruit Ontarians struggling in a tighter job market and eager to sign on as civic planners, labourers, firefighters, transit drivers, electricians, sandblasters, health-care professionals – you name it.
"One of the oil field companies told us the jobs pay $50 an hour. It’s hard work, but that makes it worth moving a family of four out there," said England.
Hundreds of others of various ages and training toured the booths yesterday to see what the West and its storied economic boom have to offer them.
Workwest, the Calgary-based company running career fairs for the past two years in Ontario, said despite the recent doom and gloom on world markets, most of B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba continue to thrive, and have yet to feel the fallout Ontario has same day cash advances.
"We burned out our labour pool a long time ago. Even with oil at $64 a barrel instead of $150, these companies are still doing well and projects need to be built," said Workwest president Ray Edwardson.
Gary Griffin and his father Brad drove in from their Haliburton home and found it was worth the three-hour trip. They were thrilled to hear a recruiter for the City of Calgary Fire Department say they’re looking for 200 new firefighters next year and another 200 the year after.
"It’s difficult to get a job here. They had 800 applicants for the Barrie fire department when I applied," said Gary, 19, who recently graduated from Georgian College’s firefighter program and would love to move to Calgary.
"A young guy like me, I’ve got nothing to lose moving out west," agreed Brandon Chaston, 24, who has struggled to find work in Hamilton after getting a degree in environmental sciences.
Windsor resident Ranjan Subramaniam told exhibitors he’s looking for a job in information technology, noting his area has been hard-hit by job losses.
"I lost a job in January because of the U.S. housing crisis," said the 26-year-old, who worked in the banking industry in IT. "I don’t mind going where the jobs are."
The job fair continues today from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the International Centre at 6900 Airport Rd. For information about employment opportunities go to Workwest.ca.
In his victory speech on Tuesday night, President-elect Barack Obama told supporters there would be a long road ahead in fixing the nation’s problems. The construction industry hopes the first steps involve building and repairing that road.
With the economy contracting, new infrastructure construction was an underlying issue in the election campaigns, which touted it as a way to create jobs.
The topic is key for construction companies already hurt by shrinking state and federal budgets for infrastructure projects.
Obama’s platform included creating what his campaign dubbed the national infrastructure reinvestment bank — a system intended to attract public and private investment for economic development projects with an initial $60 billion infusion of federal money for construction over the next 10 years. Infrastructure could include projects such as housing.
That money could bring much-needed aid for public projects in Missouri. In June, the state’s Department of Transportation said its current transportation funds would cover just 40 percent of funding needs for the next 20 years — leaving a $938 million annual shortfall.
The situation is being made worse by rising materials and labor costs for highway and road projects. Nationally, materials costs for such projects were up 22 percent in September from the previous year, according to the American Road and Transportation Builders Association, or ARTBA, the industry advocacy group which has already begun clamoring for attention.
"We’re going to work with new administration to make sure they know transportation investment is not just a political priority but a national priority," said Jeffrey Solsby, the association’s director of public affairs.
The association also advocates increasing the federal fuel tax that drivers pay to fund road construction. Obama opposes that idea.
While Obama’s idea of stimulating job creation is popular in the construction industry, some are guarded in their optimism payday advance loans.
The $60 billion investment Obama proposed, when divided among states and spread over a decade, would need a significant contribution from state and local investors in order to have much impact, said Len Toenjes, president of Associated General Contractors of St. Louis. The group represents about 450 construction firms and suppliers that stand to gain from a slate of new projects.
"I’d hate to see people oversimplify this and think that a check is going to show up from the beltway and we’re going to have all these new projects going," he said.
One example of the challenges was the defeat of the local proposition that could have built a new MetroLink line into western St. Louis County, Toenjes said.
In addition to public opposition and funding shortfalls, projects also face regulatory barriers and extensive planning needed before an infrastructure project begins.
The Obama plan to use both public and private money also presents its own set of challenges.
Forming public-private funding partnerships is a painstaking process, said Susan Stauder, vice president of infrastructure and public policy for the St. Louis Regional Chamber & Growth Association.
And finding private money may be arduous given the current credit crisis, she added.
It may be better if the new president and congressional leaders launch a stimulus package that focused on public projects, such as roads and highways.
"That would be a really positive thing that most legislators in Congress could agree on," Stauder said. "As long as we’re going to be stimulating the economy, we might as well create jobs and put in infrastructure that can be used for the next 40 to 100 years."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
cboyce@post-dispatch.com | 314-340-8345
PHILADELPHIA — The Federal Communications Commission has opened an investigation into the pricing policies of major cable operators, including Charter Communications Inc.
The agency wants to ensure the companies’ customers are getting treated fairly, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said in an interview.
"I’m certainly concerned with the increasing cable prices that consumers are facing," Martin said. "They are getting less and being charged the same or more."
The FCC wrote Thursday to cable operators including Town and Country-based Charter, Comcast Corp., Time Warner Cable Inc., Cox Communications Inc., Cablevision Systems Corp., Bright House Networks, Suddenlink Communications, Bend Cable Communications, GCI Company, Harron Entertainment and RCN Corp.
Phone-service provider Verizon Communications Inc., which offers pay-TV services with FiOS, also was included in the inquiry.
The agency’s letter questioned the companies’ practice of moving analog channels into digital tiers to free bandwidth for other uses, such as high-definition channels. Analog customers will have to get a digital set-top box from the operator or buy the digital TV tier to watch those channels.
Most cable customers are analog customers, and those who do not wish to upgrade to digital cannot watch the channels that are moved to the digital tier.
The agency also will look into whether cable operators and Verizon are confusing customers by linking the shift of the analog channel to the digital tier to the nation’s transition to digital broadcasts, Martin said no fax pay day loans.
The two moves are unrelated.
Linking the two in customers’ minds could prompt more people to opt for digital video and cable services because the digital TV transition in February is mandated by the federal government. The FCC has asked companies being investigated to submit information about their pricing practices within two weeks.
Martin said it appears consumers weren’t given "appropriate notice" about the channel changes.
He said the FCC has received a "significant" number of consumer complaints about the practice of moving analog channels to digital, which has accelerated this year.
The FCC’s letter was sent out a day after Consumers Union sent a letter to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation asking for an investigation into the practice of moving analog channels to the digital tier.
"Consumers are left paying the same monthly rate for significantly less service, or must rent more expensive set-top boxes for each television set they own," said Consumers Union, a nonprofit advocacy group.
Microsoft Corp. plans to invest $60 million in South Korea over the next three years, President Lee Myung-bak’s office said Monday.
In a statement, the presidential Blue House said Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) CEO Steve Ballmer spoke of the plan during a meeting with Lee at the president’s office.
The money will be invested in areas including training and new business cultivation, the statement said.
Korean-language press materials released by Microsoft mentioned the projects but made no mention of the investment amount.
Separately, Microsoft, South Korea’s Hyundai-Kia Automotive Group and South Korea’s Institute for Information Technology Advancement opened a center to develop information technology products and services focused on automobiles.
The opening of the Automotive IT Innovation Center follows an agreement in May by Microsoft and the world’s fifth-largest automotive group to cooperate in developing next-generation in-car information and entertainment systems, Kia Motors Corp cash till payday. said in a press release.
"Microsoft and Hyundai-Kia Automotive Group share a similar vision for the role that information technology will play in connecting people to information, communications and entertainment while they are in their cars," Ballmer said, according to the release.
Also, Ballmer and Nam Yong, CEO of LG Electronics Inc., signed a memorandum of understanding aimed at strategic collaboration in the area of mobile convergence, LG said.
The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment insurance did not change from last week, remaining at an elevated level that indicates weakness in the nation’s economy.
The U.S. Department of Labor reported Thursday that initial filings for state jobless benefits rested at a seasonally adjusted 479,000 for the week ended Oct. 25.
Economists surveyed by Briefing.com expected the number to fall to 473,000 from the initially reported 478,000. Last year, there were 332,000 Americans filing new unemployment claims.
The Labor Department reported that there were 7,400 unemployment claims related to the effects of Hurricane Ike in Texas, down from the 12,000 such claims last week.
Ian Shepherdson, economist at High Frequency Economics, had hoped the fading of the impact of Ike would allow unemployment claims to fall.
Shepherdson said the fact that claims held steady shows a labor market in decline.
"There can be no question that the labor market is deteriorating; the only issue is the speed of the decline and the eventual peak in unemployment," he wrote in a note creditreports.
He said the national unemployment rate could reach 8.5%. It currently stands at 6.1%.
The four-week average of jobless claims, which smoothes out fluctuations fell to 475,500 from the week before. Last year, the average stood at 329,750.
A level of more than 400,000 was present throughout the last two recessions.
The number of American workers continuing to collect benefits for more than one week decreased by 12,000 to 3,715,000 for the week ended Oct. 18, the most recent data available. A year ago, there were 2,598,000 Americans continuing to collect benefits.
Four weeks prior, unemployment claims spiked to 499,000, the highest level recorded since the 517,000 claims filed in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Earlier this month, Labor Department reported net payroll nationwide declined by 159,000 in September, the ninth straight month the economy lost jobs.
Stocks tumbled Monday, ending a choppy session lower as recession jitters outweighed relief that the government’s programs to shore up the financial system have gotten underway.
Investors also weighed a better-than-expected September new home sales report.
The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) lost 203 points or 2.4% according to early tallies, after having been on both sides of breakeven throughout the session. Verizon rallied 10% after its profit report, but it was one of only 3 Dow components to rise.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 (SPX) index fell 3.2% and the Nasdaq composite (COMP) fell 3%. All three major gauges closed at fresh five-year lows.
Tuesday brings the release of the October consumer confidence report.
Stocks had seesawed on both sides of unchanged throughout the session as investors geared up for critical events due later in the week and early next.
As a result, Wall Street is unlikely to move much over the next few sessions, said Harry Clark, CEO of Clark Capital Management Group.
Ahead of the election, the Federal Reserve is expected to announce an interest rate cut at the conclusion of its two-day meeting Wednesday.
"The rate cut this week will help a bit, but we really need to get past the election right now," Clark said.
The start of some of the government’s rescue programs this week is significant, Clark said, but it’s still going to take several weeks for the impact to be felt and borrowing rates to improve more substantially.
Recession fears decked stocks last week, near the end of a brutal month on Wall Street. The credit crisis, sluggish corporate profit outlook and slump in commodity prices have all exacerbated fears that a recession is imminent, if not already underway.
These underlying issues aren’t going to disappear anytime soon, but there are signs that the stock market is closer to hitting bottom, said Ryan Detrick, senior technical strategist at Schaeffer’s Investment Research.
Detrick said that stocks are the most "oversold" they’ve been since the period surrounding Black Monday in October 1987. That means that on a technical basis, it wouldn’t be hard to spark a big bounce. Additionally, the level of money sitting in mutual funds and the level of investor fear are good contrarian indicators. Plus, November, December and January are typically good months seasonally on Wall Street.
However, there’s nothing typical about this year or this time period on Wall Street, he said, and the usual factors may not carry much weight.
"You have the uncertainty of worldwide recession and the credit markets are still a problem," Detrick said. "For the market to see a significant bounce, we’d need to see signs that our economy and the global economy are turning around."
He said that the recent housing market reports have been positive, but that doesn’t change the broader economic outlook.
Brutal month: With just one week left in October, the Dow is down 24.7%, the S&P 500 is down 27.2% and the Nasdaq is down 27.7%.
The Dow is currently on track to post its worst month ever on a point basis and fifth worst ever on a percentage basis, according to Stock Trader’s Almanac info going back to 1901.
The S&P 500 is currently on track to post its worst month ever on a point basis and third worst ever on a percentage basis, going back to 1930.
The Nasdaq is on track to post its fourth-worst month ever on a point basis and its second-worst month ever on a percentage basis, going back to its inception in 1971.
Global market effect: World markets continued to retreat as the new week began.
European markets ended lower, with the London FTSE closing down 1%, erasing bigger session losses. Asian markets tumbled overnight, with the Japanese Nikkei falling 6 one hour cash loan.6% to a 26-year low on worries that the strong yen will hurt exports. The Hong Kong Hang Seng fell 12.7% to a more than four-year low.
The declines followed a Sunday statement from the G7 warning about the excessive volatility of the yen, which hit a 13-year high versus the dollar Friday. Analysts said the statement could mean the government is set to intervene in the currency markets.
The dollar continued to retreat versus the yen on Monday and gained against the euro. Bets that the Bank of England and European Central Bank will have to cut rates aggressively over the next few months have weighed on the euro and pound lately.
Banks and credit: Nine big banks are set to get $125 billion from the Treasury Department this week as part of the $700 billion bank rescue plan passed last month.
Ten regional banks said Monday that they will get at least $18 billion under the bailout plan.
Also beginning this week: The Fed’s previously announced program to buy up commercial paper, short-term debt that businesses depend on to fund daily operations.
Despite the government’s efforts, lending has remained constrained, with short-term borrowing rates the one exception.
Libor, the overnight bank-to-bank lending rate, edged lower to 1.26% from 1.28% Friday, according to Bloomberg.com. It was a modest retreat after two days of gains. On the upside, that still kept Libor below the Fed’s benchmark lending rate of 1.5%, seen as a good sign. Libor hit a record 6.88% earlier this month at the height of the market panic.
The 3-month Libor rate, what banks charge each other to borrow for three months, inched lower to 3.51% from 3.52% Friday.
The TED spread, the difference between what banks pay to borrow from each other for three months and what the Treasury pays, narrowed to 2.67% from 2.70% Friday. The spread hit a record 4.65% earlier this month. The narrower the spread, the more willing banks are to lend to each other.
Treasury prices were little changed, with the yield on the 10-year note at 3.68%, roughly where it stood late Friday. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions.
The yield on the 3-month Treasury bill, seen as the safest place to put money in the short term, slipped to 0.75% from 0.86% late Friday, showing investors would rather see little return on their money than risk the stock market.
Last month, the 3-month yield reached a 68-year low around 0%, as investor panic hit its peak.
Results: Dow component Verizon Communications reported higher quarterly earnings that met estimates on higher sales that beat forecasts. Verizon (VZ, Fortune 500) shares jumped over 10%.
With 45% of the third-quarter reports out already, profits are currently on track to have fallen 11.3% from a year earlier, according to the latest estimates from Thomson Reuters.
Oil, gas and gold: U.S. light crude oil for December delivery fell 93 cents to settle at $63.22 a barrel, after falling to a 17-month low in morning trading.
Prices have been sliding since crude peaked at a record $147.27 a barrel on July 11, with speculators pulling out of the market on bets that global demand is slowing. Investors have also had to raise money fast amid the stock market slump and have done so by dumping their oil positions.
Gasoline prices fell another 3.1 cents overnight, to a national average of $2.668 a gallon, according to a survey of credit-card activity by motorist group AAA. It was the 40th consecutive day that prices have decreased. During that time, prices have fallen by $1.18 a gallon, or more than 30%.
COMEX gold for December delivery rose $12.60 to settle at $742.90 an ounce.
Mutual fund company AIC Ltd., buffeted by the worldwide financial crisis, has trimmed its workforce by 20 per cent to keep costs down and better position itself in a tough economic environment.
The privately owned company, which has suffered a large number of redemptions since the market meltdown began, laid off 53 out of some 290 employees on Thursday, spokesperson Terri Oswald said.
"The areas that were affected were mostly marketing and information technology," said Oswald, adding that some employees on the investment side and in sales were also let go.
There were no layoffs of fund managers, but three analysts were cut.
"The key reason for the reduction is simply that the market conditions are so difficult right now," she said.
The company doesn’t see any more financial problems down the road and no more pink slips are contemplated, Oswald added.
"We’re trying to keep our cost structure so that we can continue to remain profitable through this storm that every other company is experiencing internet pay day loans."
AIC, which is controlled by billionaire Michael Lee-Chin, has been suffering from net redemptions for several years. Some of its stock portfolios were hit hard because of holdings in the battered financial sector.
Canadian investors redeemed a record $4.5 billion in mutual funds last month, making September the worst month for outflows since the Investment Funds Institute of Canada started collecting data in 1990.
AIC, Canada’s 19th largest fund company, saw net outflows of $86 million in September.
The downturn is expected to spur consolidation but AIC has said it is not up for sale.
The Canadian Press
Enterprise Financial Services Corp. of Clayton is preparing to raise up to $62 million in new capital to position the banking company for growth in a period of economic uncertainty.
Peter Benoist, Enterprise Financial president and CEO, said Thursday that the company will consider seeking the new capital from a combination of sources, including the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program and private equity groups.
Enterprise remains well capitalized, Benoist said, but it wants to be ready to take advantage of opportunities that may arise while weathering the "uncharted waters of the financial industry.
"The financial industry is transforming right before our eyes," Benoist said, "and it’s clear to me that highly focused, well-capitalized commercial banking organizations in attractive markets will be the ultimate winners when the dust settles."
Banks must apply for the TARP funds by Nov. 14, and the process of gaining approval likely will take 30 to 45 days after a bank applies. Enterprise also has been working with investors on raising money by selling convertible trust preferred securities.
Enterprise, the parent of Enterprise Bank & Trust, also reported a 74 percent drop in third-quarter profit after it took a $5 free credit report instantly.9 million goodwill impairment charge.
The charge relates to Millennium Brokerage Group, a wholesale insurance subsidiary Enterprise bought several years ago. The charge reflects margin pressure in insurance as carriers consolidate.
Enterprise said it is looking at strategic options to improve the brokerage. Often companies talk in terms of strategic options when they are considering selling an asset.
The non-cash charge doesn’t reduce the bank’s regulatory capital, cash flow or liquidity, the company said. Enterprise bank’s earnings, which exclude the charge, were about even with last year’s.
Benoist said the bank is seeing loan growth despite the troubled economy. That growth may slow going forward, but the bank also has been able to increase pricing.
Enterprise completed the previously announced sale of its Great American Bank charter and a branch in DeSoto, Kan., to First Financial Bancshares Inc. of Lawrence, Kan. The sale generated an after-tax gain of $1.5 million or 12 cents a share.
jerristroud@post-dispatch.com
314-340-8384
Philip Morris International said Wednesday its third-quarter profit rose 20.6% as sales climbed and a weak dollar boosted results.
The results led the company to reaffirm its full-year profit forecast for 2008.
The world’s biggest non-governmental cigarette maker reported net income for the quarter of $2.1 billion, or $1.01 per share, compared with $1.73 billion, or 82 cents per share, a year ago.
Philip Morris International Inc. (PM) - which sells Marlboros outside the U.S. and has offices in Lausanne, Switzerland and New York - said revenue rose 22% to $17.37 billion. Sales rose 23.6% in Eastern Europe, the Mideast and Africa; 17.3% in Europe; 14.9% in Latin America and Canada; and 11.7% in Asia.
Excluding one-time costs, the company said it earned 93 cents per share in the quarter, beating a consensus Wall Street estimate low fee cash advance. The weak dollar added 8 cents per share to the results and tax items added another 8 cents.
Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters, who typically exclude one-time costs, expected earnings of 90 cents per share on revenue of $6.57 billion.
The company reiterated that it would earn $3.32 to $3.38 in 2008. It earned $2.79 a share in 2007.
During the quarter, the company completed its acquisition of Canadian cigarette maker Rothmans Inc.
Gas prices continued their decline one day after falling below $3 a gallon for the first time in nearly nine months, according to a daily survey of credit card swipes released Sunday.
The average price of unleaded regular fell to $2.95 a gallon, down 3.7 cents, according to the Daily Fuel Gauge Report issued by motorist group AAA. Prices have fallen more than 30 cents a gallon in the last week and 90 cents, or 23%, in the last 32 days.
The current national average is $1.16, or 28%, off the record high price of $4.11 that AAA reported July 17.
The last time the average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline dropped below $3 a gallon was Jan. 25, when it reached $2.99.
Alaska has the most expensive gas, with prices averaging $3.90. The cheapest gas is found in Oklahoma, with prices averaging $2.54.
The decline comes as hurricane season winds down and oil prices drop over concerns that a prolonged economic slump would curb demand for energy savings account payday advance.
Oil prices rose above $74 a barrel in premarket trading Monday after settling Friday at $71.85 a barrel in New York. The rebound comes ahead of an expected production cut by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
The cartel, which controls two-thirds of the world’s oil supplies, is set to hold an emergency meeting that begins Oct. 24 in Vienna.
OPEC ministers have expressed concern over the rapidly declining price of oil. Chakib Khelil, OPEC’s president, said Sunday that members are considering a "substantial" cut and that the oil market is oversupplied by about 2 million barrels a day.
A barrel of crude has lost roughly half its value since hitting an all-time high above $147 a barrel in July.
Powered by WordPress -- XHTML 1.0