According to this report from Reuters, U.S. manufacturing activity slowed to a three year low.  New orders are up slightly.  In speaking to one of our manufacturing clients, they cite the lack of supply of qualified and reliable production workers as an obstacle to producing and shipping all of their orders on time.  We wonder whether extreme low unemployment negatively impacts manufacturing production over time.  For the full reuters article, click here. Torrey & Gray helps companies find qualified employees such as CFOs, Controllers and other accounting and finance staff in times of low unemployment.  Contact us today to discuss…

According to a study by the Central Bank of Ireland, which measured clicks on job board indeed found strong inverse correlation to the scarcity of job seekers and upward pressure on wages.  Fewer clicks meant worker scarcity and therefore increased wage demand for many job categories.  If you are relying on ad clicks for your recruiting strategy, you are not finding the best candidates.  For access to top talent for accounting and finance professionals such as Controllers and CFOs, contact Torrey & Gray.  Torrey & Gray is a best practice Chicago area recruiting and staffing firm for Accounting and Finance…

Coinciding with the recent 10 year anniversary of the Bitcoin whitepaper, Global Remittances (small individual payments to another person, such as a family member in another country) hover around 7%, according to this recent World Bank report. In our opinion, cryptocurrency remittances (with costs usually less than 1%) will present the greatest disruption to the payments industry yet. Fees are already in a long term downtrend. Instant and near free payments are around the corner. Of course, there is a great deal of personal responsibility in making peer to peer payments, but in time as the ease of user experience…

As reported in today’s Wall Street Journal, even though the common measurement of “time to hire” is among the most closely monitored by companies, that time has been steadily increasing for nearly 10 years. Another metric often tracked is “cost of hire.” Often, less consideration is given to measuring recruiting strategy overall success in terms of quality of hire, longevity of hire, or other long term measurements. In our opinion, an objective observation of technical skills is a must, but a greater factor in measuring long term hiring success lies in an evaluation of a fit for “subjective criteria,” such…

According to today’s BLS Employment Cost Index report, benefit costs for employers increased at 3.1% and compensation costs increased by 3%, The report breaks down government and private industry groups. in 2017, compensation increaed faster than benefit costs. For the full report, click here : https://www.bls.gov/news.release/eci.nr0.htm

According to Staffing Industry Analysts, the number of jobs advertised online has declined some, down 3% from October, but still up over 16% from this time last year. Job postings have also declined in come cases from employer exhaustion over being unable to fill openings. There is still a high sentiment that they would hire more people – it they could fine qualified staff. For the SIA article Click Here.

Car Rental company Hertz is fined $16 Million for accounting errors that resulted in material misstatements on their fiancials. This is essentially a $695,000 per month surcharge. That’s a lot of car rentals… Torrey & Gray can help your organization find people that can avoid these situations. For the full article, click here. https://www.accountingtoday.com/news/sec-penalizes-hertz-16m-for-accounting-violationsh

The FED recently polled 51 senior bank officers, whose assets represent 2/3 of all reserve deposits in the US.   When asked, they said they would prefer to have the option to keep only half of their current reserve requirements – which in August stood at about $1.2 Trillion.  Some suggested they would be willing to go as low as 25% of current reserve requirements. What amount of economic activity could be generated if $600 billion were freed up to make capital investments or other allocations into the markets?  Would it really benefit the economy or primarily the banks themselves? For…