Like T.S. Eliot, Joseph Suleiman has always found April to be the cruelest month.
As owner of Tri State Limousine in Hawthorne, Suleiman associates early April with tax season and thus that time of year when individuals and businesses rein in their expenses and forgo such luxuries as limo rides.
Lately, however, every month has been April for Suleiman, who”™s seen his business cut in half. He hasn”™t fired anyone ”“ preferring to divide up work equally among his drivers. But he can”™t hire anyone new either. And he does get those calls. So do his competitors, who, he says, are in the same boat ”“ to mix a metaphor.
“A lot of big companies cut down,” Suleiman said. “They”™re looking for cheaper ways to transport their people. I”™m hoping things will improve.”
Well, cheer up, Joe: Things are improving. Or not. The economy is in recovery. Or is it the tail end of a seemingly unending recession?
Generating biotech jobs
Whether or not local businesses are hiring or holding depends on how they answer that question and that in turn depends on a number of factors ranging from the type of business to whether the owner perceives the glass to be half-empty or half-full.
“There are signs clearly that the economy is improving but very slowly,” said Thom Kleiner, the new Hudson Valley representative for the New York state commissioner of labor.
According to the state Labor Department, private-sector employment in the Hudson Valley declined 3.1 percent for the 12-month period ending in February, with virtually every sector taking a hit except health and educational services, which posted gains of 2,500 jobs. The biggest losses in private-sector employment were in natural resources, mining and construction (7,100 jobs), trade, transportation and utilities (5,600) and manufacturing (4,200). In Westchester, the February unemployment rate stood at 7.8 percent, slightly up from January (7.7) and the same time last year (7.3).
A big bright spot: Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. in Tarrytown added 100 jobs since January to its staff of 1,000 and is looking to add 300 to 400 more. The jobs reflect the strong collaboration between Regeneron ”“ makers of Arcalystâ„¢, a drug for a rare, inherited inflammatory disease ”“ and the French company Sanofi-Aventis. Some of the positions will support the eight drugs Regeneron has in late-stage clinical trials.
While 100 jobs will go to manufacturing in Rensselear County and a handful to Regeneron”™s small Bridgewater, N.J., office, the bulk will be in Westchester, adding millions of dollars to the county coffers.
No work, no hires
Regeneron is part of a resurgent picture.
“In the last 60 days, business has picked up,” said Richard Greenwald, president of the Concorde Staffing Group in White Plains, which serves companies in Westchester. “It”™s up 20-25 percent from where it was this time last year. But it”™s down 50 percent from where it was in 2007-”™08.”
And that sense of doing-better-but-not-what-we-once-were has made people skittish.
“I don”™t know if everyone”™s convinced that we”™re out of the economic downturn,” he adds. “People are cautiously optimistic.”
Or not.
“The vast majority of the companies we see have experienced a decline in business of 30 percent,” said Mark Stevens, CEO of MSCO in Rye Brook, a national marketing firm. “They don”™t want to hire at all. They want to grow without hiring, using technology and smarter strategies.
“We are to many of them the solution,” he said, which is why his company has added three staffers and is looking to hire more.
Peter Rohlf Sr. of Rohlf”™s Stained & Leaded Glass Studio Inc. in Mount Vernon would love to add new workers and take advantage of the tax incentives offered to businesses under the state”™s Empire Zone program and the federal government”™s new HIRE Act.
“But when the work isn”™t there, you can”™t do it,” he said. “We”™re down 25-30 percent.”
For the first time in 52 years, Rohlf laid off employees, shrinking the staff of the nationally acclaimed stained-glass designers and restorers from 35 to 22. Ironically, the scenario might”™ve been different had the state accepted the studio”™s bid to put in two new stained-glass lay lights in the capitol building. Instead the state hired a general contractor from Massachusetts, who awarded the contract to a German outfit. For Rohlf, it was a bitter blow.
“That would”™ve kept us at full employment and maybe enabled us to hire more workers,” he says of the $1 million-plus project. “That hurt us big-time.”
Changing work force
Even when business is booming, owners are gun-shy.
“We”™re reluctant to hire people, because we just don”™t know what”™s around the corner,” said Carolyn Mandelker, president of Harrison Edwards Inc., a general public relations and marketing firm with clients in health care, real estate and the arts and offices in Bedford Hills, Manhattan and Memphis.
“We”™re very busy, which means we”™re working longer hours,” she said of her staff of 10 ”“ six full-time and four part-time workers.
Might the Hudson Valley and America as a whole evolve into a society of select stressed workers with others shut out of the job market?
“I think that”™s more short-term,” said Allison Madison, president of Reinhard Madison Approach Staffing Inc. in White Plains. “But the nature of the work force is changing.”
Madison thinks there will be a lot more people seeking contract work rather than full-time employment, especially once the new health care plan kicks in. State labor”™s Kleiner points to the growing interest in shared jobs.
The changes will be driven, Madison said, by “a younger generation more interested in quality of life rather than salary.”
“I think the recession has changed the business model overall.”
