So many jobs are being added that the unemployment rate has dropped for five straight months. At 8.3 percent, it’s at a three-year low.

Whether the job market actually feels stronger, though, depends on your perspective.

The headline numbers mask vast disparities _ from the New Yorker thrilled to have found a catering job to the Indianapolis truck driver forced to take a 40 percent pay cut to work again.

Even where hiring has picked up, scars from the Great Recession remain. In Fort Madison, Iowa, Pinnacle Foods Group is expanding a canned-meat plant and adding 65 jobs. Yet that same work used to be done at a company plant in Tacoma, Wash., that once employed 160 but has since closed.

A government report Friday that employers added a surprising 243,000 jobs in January ignited cheers for the job market, which had been slow to recover in the 2 1/2 years since the recession officially ended. Many economists see signs of a self-fulfilling “virtuous cycle,” in which more jobs fuel more consumer spending, which sparks further hiring and spending and more jobs.

The presidential election is sure to be determined, in part, by how Americans interpret the shifts in the job market.

Here’s how things look to employers, job seekers and analysts with varying views of the job market:

_ THE RELIEVED AND THE HOPEFUL

Robb Stiffler landed a job two weeks ago at Crown College, a liberal arts college in St. Bonifacius, Minn. He makes sure rooms are available and set up for school events. Stiffler used to run his own company selling paint sprayers. But the housing bust put him out of business.

Then, in nine months in real estate, he sold one house. At first, he lived off his credit cards. Then it was unemployment benefits.

He was elated to get the Crown job, his first to provide a retirement plan. Unemployment, he says, “was agony.”

Vaughan-Bassett Furniture Co. is opening a plant in Galax, Va., near the North Carolina border. It expects to hire 50 workers by July and perhaps 65 more over the next year or two.

January’s buoyant national job numbers “play right into what we have already sensed and begun to act on,” says Doug Bassett, the chief operating officer.

The company’s revenue has risen 20 percent in the past two months compared with the same period a year earlier. Vaughan-Bassett credits an improving economy, rising interest in U.S.-made products and higher prices on Chinese imports it competes with.

Across the country, Ancestry.com, which helps track family lineage, expects to add 150 employees this year _ if it can find them.

The company, based in Provo, Utah, must compete with technology firms for engineers with expertise in artificial intelligence and in handling mountains of data (30 million family trees in Ancestry’s case).

“It’s only gotten harder” to find qualified applicants as the job market has improved, says Eric Shoup, senior vice president. “The likes of Google, Zynga, Facebook and others are also growing. They are soaking these people up.”

James Paulsen, chief investment strategist at Wells Capital Management, says the stock market’s celebration of Friday’s jobs report was another step in reversing Americans’ economic pessimism.

“For me, the takeaway isn’t so much about the healing of the job market as it is about the beginning of an attitude adjustment for this country,” Paulsen said.

Michael Biggers of Brooklyn, N.Y., was happy to land a job recently at a catering company.

The job hunt took four months. Unemployment benefits helped pay the bills. And his four kids, ages 3 to 12, loved having him home. Biggers, 32, just wishes he didn’t have to apply for jobs online.

“I feel like I would have found something faster if I met with a person face to face,” Biggers says. “I’m just confident about me.”

Perhaps no one has more reason to applaud the improving job numbers than President Barack Obama. His re-election hopes rest heavily on whether most voters will agree that the economy has improved on his watch.

“The recovery is speeding up,” Obama said after the January employment report was released.

_ THE CAUTIOUS AND THE SKEPTICAL

In a few weeks, entrepreneur Joe Wong will open a restaurant overseeing the Sacramento River in Redding, Calif. The eatery, View 202, will employ 100.

But Wong, president of J&A Food Service, isn’t convinced the economy is improving. He knows he’ll have to keep menu prices down to attract the budget-conscious. Unemployment still exceeds 11 percent in Redding.

“We’ll probably have 1,000 apply” for jobs, Wong says. The January jobs report is “going to get everybody excited. But we’ve heard it before. It just comes back down.”

Farther south, the economy is only starting to improve in California’s Riverside and San Bernardino counties, an area that was clobbered when housing prices plunged.

“We still have large numbers of foreclosures on the books, and property values and sales taxes are also lagging behind projections,” says Tom Freeman, a Riverside County commissioner.

At least, Freeman says, businesses that sell goods overseas have been a bright spot.

In downtown Indianapolis, Windsor Jewelry hired a part-time worker for the holidays, then made him full-time as demand held up. Owner Greg Bires says he might hire another person this year. Business is a little steadier now.

Still, rising gold prices have pinched the company.

“That’s been the biggest problem _ just not knowing what tomorrow was going to bring,” Bires says. “So we’ve been kind of afraid to make any major changes.”

Among the highest-profile skeptics of an improving job market is Mitt Romney, the Republican front-runner in the presidential race.

On Friday, Romney blamed Obama’s policies for slowing the recovery, hurting families and making it harder for businesses to rebound.

“And for that,” Romney said at a campaign stop in Nevada, “the president deserves the blame that he’ll receive in this campaign.”

_ THE DISCOURAGED

Job seekers still face tough odds. There are still more than four unemployed Americans, on average, for every job opening. In a healthy economy, by contrast, that ratio would be roughly 2-to-1.

Sara Pereda, an executive assistant in New York City’s entertainment industry, has applied for several job openings and received no responses, even though she’s sure she was qualified. The same for many of her friends. Pereda, 30, has been seeking a job with more opportunity for advancement.

“You can send out 10 resumes and get one _ and that’s a maybe,” Pereda says.

In Buffalo, N.Y., Rosanne DiPizio, vice president of her family’s DiPizio Construction, says there isn’t enough work for her company to justify hiring right now. It relies mostly on government road-construction contracts. And governments have been cutting back.

DiPizio also runs a concrete plant that would normally employ 100. It’s down to 85.

“We will employ more if we have more work,” she says. “It’s that simple.”

Jeff Searcy says fewer people are showing up at a support group he runs for job hunters at a church in Charlotte, N.C. Searcy isn’t sure why. The area is suffering from 9.9 percent unemployment, far above the national average.

“We know it’s not because everyone has found a job,” Searcy says.

His theory?

“After you’ve been to 10 lectures on networking, how much more can you learn?”

Aaron Cruz of Indianapolis says that while hiring has picked up, there’s a catch: Landing a job can mean accepting part-time work or a pay cut. Cruz lost his job as a truck driver in December 2008. He didn’t find full-time work again until last June.

His old job paid $23 an hour; his new one, $14.

“The money I’m making now at this new job … I made in my mid-20s,” he says. “I’m 42 now.”

He doesn’t put much stock in better employment numbers. People forced to take part-time jobs once they exhaust their unemployment aid, Cruz notes, aren’t counted as unemployed. Yet they still struggle.

“Every time I hear them, I doubt the numbers,” he says.

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Plans for new Iranian naval games in the Persian Gulf off the country’s southern coast have been in the works for weeks. State media announced new maneuvers in southern Iran involving ground forces, but it was not immediately clear whether they were part of the planned naval training missions scheduled for this month or a separate operation.

The latest military maneuvers got under way following stern warnings by Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, about any possible U.S. or Israeli attacks against Tehran’s nuclear facilities. It also comes after Western forces boosted their naval presence in the Gulf led by the American aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln.

Iran officials and lawmakers have repeatedly said that their country would close the Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Persian Gulf in retaliation for sanctions that affect Iran’s oil exports. They have as yet made no attempts to disrupt shipping through the waterway, the route for one-fifth of the world’s crude oil, and the U.S. and allies have said they would respond swiftly to any attempts at a blockade.

Last month, Iran’s navy wrapped up 10 days of exercises in the Gulf, but the Revolutionary Guard _ which is directly under control of the supreme leader _ represents a significantly stronger military force and controls key programs such as missile development. Iranian state media announced the new maneuvers, but gave no further details.

Khamenei, in a speech nationally broadcast on Friday, staked out a hard line after suggestions by Israel that military strikes are an increasing possibility if sanctions fail to rein in the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program.

He pledged to aid any nation or group that challenges Israel and said any military strikes would damage U.S. interests in the Middle East “10 times” more than they would hurt Iran. The comments also may signal that Tehran’s proxy forces _ led by Lebanon’s Islamic militant group Hezbollah _ could be given the green light to revive attacks on Israel as the showdown between the archfoes intensifies.

The West and its allies fear Iran could use its uranium enrichment labs _ which make nuclear fuel _ to eventually produce weapons-grade material. Iran insists it only seeks reactors for energy and medical research.

Israel has so far publicly backed the efforts by the U.S. and European Union for tougher sanctions that target Iran’s crucial oil exports. But Israeli leaders have urged even harsher measures and warn that military action remains a clear option despite Western appeals to allow time for the economic pressures and isolation to bear down on Iran payday loans with no fax.

Iran’s oil minister repeated claims that an EU oil embargo will not cripple Iran’s economy, claiming Saturday that the country already has identified new customers to replace the loss in European sales that accounted for about 18 percent of Iran’s exports.

Rostam Qassemi also reinforced Iran’s warning to Saudi Arabia and other fellow OPEC members against boosting production to offset any potential drop in Tehran’s crude exports, saying the cartel should not be used as a political weapon against a member state.

Although Israel has raised the strongest hints that it is likely to start a military campaign, Khamenei reserved some of his strongest comments for Israel’s key U.S. ally.

“A war itself will damage the U.S. 10 times” more in the region, said Khamenei.

Khamenei claimed Iran, however, could only emerge stronger. “Iran will not withdraw. Then what happens?” asked Khamenei. “In conclusion, the West’s hegemony and threats will be discredited” in the Middle East. “The hegemony of Iran will be promoted. In fact, this will be in our service.”

On Thursday, Israel’s defense minister, Ehud Barak, suggested the world is increasingly ready to consider a military strike if sanctions fail. The head of the country’s strategic affairs ministry, Vice Premier Moshe Yaalon, also suggested Iran’s main military installations are still vulnerable to airstrikes _ even as Iran starts up a new uranium enrichment facility deep in a mountainside bunker south of Tehran.

Yaalon’s comments appear to reinforce earlier suggestions by other Israel officials that the window for a possible attack is closing and Israel would need to strike by summer to inflict significant setbacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity under standing guidelines.

At Ramstein Air Base in Germany, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said sanctions remain the best approach to pressure Iran. But he told U.S. airmen Friday that Washington keeps “all options on the table and would be prepared to respond if we have to.”

Khamenei answered by repeating Iran’s declarations that it will never roll back its nuclear program, which he had earlier said was now part of the country’s “identity” and a cornerstone of its technological endeavors. On Friday, Iran said it successfully sent a small satellite into orbit in the third such launch in recent years, state media reported.

“From now on, in any place, if any nation or any group confronts the Zionist regime, we will endorse and we will help. We have no fear expressing this,” said Khamenei, using the phrase widely used by Iran’s leader to describe Israel.

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Shares fell nearly 3 percent in trading before the opening bell.

The Midland, Mich. company, the nation’s largest chemical maker, reported a loss of $20 million, or 2 cents per share, compared with a year-ago profit of $426 million, or 37 cents per share. Excluding a charge of 27 cents per share, Dow would have earned 25 cents per share in the quarter.

Revenue rose 2 percent to $14.1 billion.

Results were below Wall Street’s expectations. Analysts polled by FactSet expected a profit, excluding items, of 31 cents per share on revenue of $14 Business Card Holders.18 billion.

Volume fell 3 percent in the quarter. Demand slipped as customers in North America, Europe and other regions worked through existing inventory instead of replenishing their stockpiles. Dow says it saw global economic “deterioration” in the period, with “considerable weakness” in Western Europe. Europe accounts for a quarter of the company’s sales.

Prices rose 5 percent, offsetting higher feedstock and energy costs.

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More visitors, who spent more on each visit, helped push revenue up 5.6 percent. So did higher prices. The company also credited the remake of its premium cheeseburger, Dave’s Hot `N Juicy, during the fall.

But Wendy’s has also been undertaking a much broader remodeling effort. In the past couple of years, it’s tried to work over its entire menu, introducing new salads, fries and desserts to attract customers who thought the menu had grown stale. It’s expanding into breakfast again after a failed attempt a few years ago. It’s growing internationally and just opened a restaurant in Japan, a change from its previous focus on domestic operations. It’s also remodeling restaurants.

Income from continuing operations fell to $4.3 million in the last three months of the year, down from $6.1 million a year ago. The company didn’t report what net income was on the basis that’s usually reported in regulatory filings. Wendy’s said it would report full results on March 1, but didn’t give the reason for that decision.

On a per-share basis, adjusted earnings were 4 cents, in line with the expectations of analysts polled by FactSet. That number excluded one-time charges like costs for selling Arby’s over the summer and writing down the value of some of its assets. However, Wendy’s did report that its per-share earnings would have been 1 cent if the one-time charges were included.

Revenue climbed to $615 million from $582.6 million a year earlier. The latest figure narrowly beat the $613 million predicted by analysts.

Revenue at restaurants open at least a year climbed 4.4 percent in North America, the highest number in nearly 8 years. That’s a key measure of a company’s health because it strips out the effect of newly opened or closed stores.

Its shares fell 11 cents, or 2.1 percent, to $5.10 in morning trading.

Emil Brolick, who became CEO in September, said the company is “making progress on re-establishing Wendy’s as the quality leader and innovator” in fast food. He’s spoken before about how he’s keenly aware of growing competition from fast-casual burger chains like Five Guys and Smashburger, and his goal is to attract customers who want a higher-end fast food.

Wendy’s managed to increase its profit margin to 15 percent from 14 percent, thanks to the revenue increases. However, like other restaurants, it’s still facing higher costs for some of its ingredients, including beef.

The chain is also still feeling the effects of its combination with Arby’s. The marriage was short-lived, beginning in the depths of the financial crisis in fall 2008 and ending this summer when Wendy’s sold Arby’s to a private-equity firm, saying it wanted to focus on the Wendy’s brand. Since then, it’s installed Brolick, a Yum Brands veteran, as CEO, and moved its headquarters back to Dublin, Ohio, from Arby’s home base in Atlanta. Wendy’s said Monday it spent nearly $46 million over 2011 to break up with Arby’s, including severance costs for some employees and retention bonuses for others.

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The company also reported a $6.68 billion loss for the December quarter, fueled largely by a $4 billion cancellation charge paid after the failure of its planned purchase of T-Mobile.

But the loss also included a non-cash charge of about $2.9 billion to reflect the falling value of its directory business, which includes the Yellow Pages phone book and its Internet incarnation.

AT&T expects earnings per share to grow by a mid-single-digit percentage in 2012, a bit lower than analysts had expected.

In a morning conference call with analysts, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson labeled the directory business as underperforming.

“That’s one area that we’re going to obviously take a very hard look at, and while I don’t want to give any indication on M&A activity, it’s one of these areas that we’re going to have to decide, do we keep it, do we restructure it, as we move forward,” he said. M&A means mergers and acquisitions, the buying and selling of companies.

AT&T declined to give any further details on the directory business presence in St guaranteed high risk personal loans. Louis, or the company’s intentions. It also declined to say how many people the business employed locally. 

However, that business employs 575 union members in St. Louis, plus management personnel, said Jim Kolve, executive vice president of Communications Workers of America Local 6300. The local workers handle sales, accounting, customer service and part of production, working on both the print director and the Internet.

AT&T’s directory business is the most profitable in the industry, said analyst Juli Niemann of Smith Moore & Co.

“This was a cash cow feeding tons into the company,” she said.

The phone company might use money from the sale to fund upgrades of its phone system and build its video business.

“They have big debt and an underfunded pension,” Niemann said. “They need the cash.”

The directory business is part of AT&T’s Advertising Solutions unit, which reported quarterly revenue of $781 million versus $926 million a year earlier.

Associated Press contributed to this report

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Now in power and closer than ever to a referendum on whether to break from the U.K. after more than 300 years, the SNP government in Edinburgh led by Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond is counting on tax revenue from the oil industry as a key pillar of the economy along with financial services.

]]> http://businesscounsels.com/scotlands-independence-bill-may-exceed-oil-money-claimed-by-nationalists-bloomberg/feed/ http://businesscounsels.com/walgreens-aiming-to-be-a-green-grocer/ http://businesscounsels.com/walgreens-aiming-to-be-a-green-grocer/#comments Sun, 22 Jan 2012 12:48:02 +0000 Jim http://businesscounsels.com/walgreens-aiming-to-be-a-green-grocer/ Raw fish and cough medicine may not seem like they should occupy the same store, but a select few Walgreens now carry both.

In 2009 Walgreen Co., based in a Chicago suburb, announced it would elevate food offerings at some of its most prominent stores, in downtown Chicago, on Wall Street and elsewhere. Those stores – designed to trumpet that the century-plus-old pharmacy chain was entering new, more rarified terrain – now have sushi bars, $400 bottles of wine, cigar humidors and made-to-order smoothies.

But the company also promised it would fill more shelf space, including here in St. Louis, with cheaper, less esoteric offerings, especially in areas where low-income residents have little access to nutritious or fresh food. Walgreens plans to turn at least 500 of its 7,800 U.S. stores, most in low-income neighborhoods, into what the company is calling “food oases.”

“We found that in lower-income areas, in food deserts, that grocery stores have moved out,” said Bryan Pugh, the company’s vice president of merchandising. “It’s a very strategic initiative. Food brings the shopper in more often.”

So far the company has expanded offerings, including fresh produce, at a modest 35 stores in Chicago, Detroit, San Francisco, Oakland and Indianapolis. But it plans to expand to other cities over the next five years. The company aims to boost food offerings in some of its 110 St. Louis-area stores by 2013, Pugh said, noting that it has already rolled out new in-house food brands that are on store shelves already.

“We’re overhauling all our brands,” Pugh said.

Walgreens is not the only retailer who says it will bring fresh produce to under-served areas in St. Louis and beyond.  Save-A-Lot stores have said they will open 500 stores in these neighborhoods in the five years, and Wal-Mart has made a similar commitment, saying it will open as many as 300 by 2016.  But Walgreens already has a major presence in low-income urban areas, with stores already in place, making its efforts easier to execute, analysts note.

Walgreens’ move, analysts say, could help the company keep customers Walgreens is losing after the company’s split from pharmacy benefits manager Express Scripts. Walgreens stands to lose billions in sales as customers fill their prescriptions elsewhere.

“It’s really interesting timing, because Walgreens can re-establish themselves with people who can no longer fill their prescription there,” said supermarket analyst, Phil Lempert. “It’s: What can we sell them to keep them coming to our store, until they make the transition to Medicare?”

While Walgreens acknowledges that the move is strategic, it also says it has good intentions of providing fresh produce to nutrition-poor areas where fast food is usually the only source of calories. Nutritionists and critics, however, question how successful that effort could be.

“A lot of this is overblown,” said David Livingston, an analyst and supermarket industry researcher. “They already had some food items. They’re adding a few more. They’re adding a few more perishables. Are they really making a difference? I don’t think so.”

Walgreens says it will expand the space it devotes to food by 35 to 40 percent in some of its stores. But, Livingston notes, that translates to roughly 400 square feet. “That’s 20 by 20,” Livingston said. “That’s the size of my bathroom.”

Livingston and other analysts point out that grocery stores pulled out of these neighborhoods for a reason. “If there’s money to be made selling fresh produce, grocery stores would have figured it out,” he said. “I wonder what they’re thinking.”

Marjorie Sawicki, and assistant professor of nutrition and dietetics at Saint Louis University, said she believes Walgreens produce may make a small dent in nutrition-poor diets.

“Where we have food deserts, if there are fruits and vegetables, it might help, because there’s a Walgreens on every block,” Sawicki said. “If they displace items that are filled with sodium and fat, then it could have a benefit. It depends on how they emphasize the food.”

Bringing healthy food to under-served neighborhoods will require a more holistic approach, Sawicki says. “I think it’s a Band-Aid,” she said. “What we need to be looking at is creating community investment so people can access healthy food at a fair price and support the person who grew it. But that’s going to take time.”

Sawicki pointed to other efforts to bring produce to under-served areas, such as The North City Food Co-Op, as better models.  Other new additions to the market landscape in St. Louis food deserts include YOURS Market, which opened in the Baden neighborhood in late 2010.

Still, Walgreens sees an opportunity.

The company did extensive research to determine which stores should sell more food. “Different stores have different trends,” Pugh said. “If I’m on a corner, near a Dominick’s, a Target and a Walmart , I’ll probably do better with beauty (products) there. I’ll look at my data by category and see if I’ve got traffic and I’m selling food. You can’t put fresh food in a store that’s not busy.”

The company’s plan, Pugh said, is not to expand the stores, but to devote more existing space to food. “We’re already in those areas,” he said. “We are the health care oasis there.”

Lempert says he believes that’s a smart strategy.

 “I think it’s fascinating that for years drug chains had the lowest price for milk, that was their loss leader – what they did to get people in,” Lempert said. “Now they’ve leap-frogged milk, and said we can do this bigger and better.”

“We buy food 2.2 times a week, so if they can get more traffic in these stores, they sell more product,” Lempert added. “Supermarket sales are either flat or declining, and if you look at drug-store food sales, they’re through the roof.”

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