Republic Steel's Lackawanna bar mill is set to benefit from the ratification of a new labor contract and an investment in the company's Ohio plant. The labor contract, which affects 262 workers in Lackawanna, includes lump-sum cash payments, wage increases and a continuation of fully paid health care coverage. An investment in a new furnace at the company's Ohio plant means more work will be shifted here.
Christopher C. Booth will succeed David Klein as CEO of Lifetime Healthcare Companies, the parent of Excellus BlueCross BlueShield in Rochester and Univera Healthcare in Buffalo. Booth has been president of the Excellus health plan division since March 2011. He was named executive vice president and chief operating officer of the entire company in January 2010. He joined the company in 2004 as chief administrative officer and general counsel, and was promoted to executive vice president for commercial markets and health care affairs in January 2009.
Synacor Inc. made a good showing during its first quarter as a publicly traded company. The Buffalo-based Internet content provider earned $7.7 million, or 34 cents per share, during the fourth quarter, compared with a loss of $369,000, or 2 cents per share, a year ago. $6.1 million of its profits came from an income tax benefit stemming from a reduction in the company’s deferred tax assets.
The $7.5 million increase is attributed to a 2.1 percent increase in same-store sales. Frank Curci, Tops president and CEO, said the quarter's numbers show that acquiring 79 bankrupt Penn Traffic Stores last year was a sound strategy.
Justice John A. Michalek dismissed the case as without merit. A separate court hearing ordered Quagliano to reimburse Hunt for unpaid advertising and attorney fees. At one time, Quagliano was one of Hunt's most visible realtors.
Steven J. Baum PC has made layoffs at the foreclosure law firm official by filing a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification with the state labor department. A total of 90 employees are scheduled for layoff Feb. 20, 67 of them in Amherst, according to the WARN notice. There is still no word on what will happen to some 600 employees at Pillar Processing, a company that exists solely to process paperwork from the Baum firm.
Big story in Business Today: Buffalo is still not a good place to find a job.
- Region once more loses jobs - David Robinson/The Buffalo News The Buffalo Niagara region lost jobs for the third straight month during September in the latest sign that the economic recovery continues to sputter. While the overall job count was down, most of the loss resulted from a steep drop in seasonal summer jobs through local government -- a sector that had been pumped up last year through summer youth job programs funded under the federal stimulus program. Private-sector hiring, meanwhile, increased, with jobs through private firms rising by 0.8 percent over the last year. But most of that growth came from increases in the low-paying and often seasonal retail and leisure-hospitality sectors. As a result, John Slenker, the state Labor Department's regional economist in Buffalo, said Thursday that the latest job numbers show that the local employment market is stabilizing, but not recovering from the recession in a vigorous fashion. "The recession has not ended in the labor market yet," Slenker said. "This is not a strong recovery."
And here's a business that's growing, right close to home. [It's also one of the hardest stories for a reporter to write. Hope you spelled everyone's name right, Dave.] - With new press, News expands repertoire for printing - David Robinson/The Buffalo News
How to get a job. First, you have to have your own hat:
On Sunday, The Buffalo News Business Today carried more of that not-awful news that qualifies as a fiscal upturn:
- Companies go slow on acquisitions - David Robinson/The Buffalo News Brian J. Lipke, Gibraltar Industries’ CEO, is itching to get back into the acquisition game. So is Timothy T. Tevens, the top executive at Columbus McKinnon Corp. David Rogers, the chief financial officer at Sovran Self Storage, says he’s ready to stick his toe in the acquisition pool, too. David Nasca, the Evans Bancorp CEO who wants to increase his bank’s asset base by at least 50 percent over the next three to five years, sees acquisitions as a way to expand Evans Bank’s market and give it the size it needs. Each of those executives say their companies have plenty of funds to make deals, between the horde of cash they’ve accumulated while they hunkered down during the recession and banking arrangements that give them the ability to borrow even more. But for all the talk, and all the interest in acquisitions, none of the executives is ready to dive in and start making deals. Related: -Southwest Airlines to buy AirTran for $1.4B - AP/Buffalo News - IBM likely to continue snapping up Mass. tech firms - The Boston Globe - Unilever Aims for Big Hair Day With Alberto Buy - Reuters/ABC
- 'Tis the season to look for temporary holiday work - George Pyle/The Buffalo News Early October is when people seeking temporary jobs during the holiday season -- and the retailers, shipping companies and others who hire them -- start making their lists and checking them twice. Experts who monitor the situation nationally expect holiday hiring in the next month or so to be up over the same period last year, which was up sharply over the recession-burdened 2008 shopping season. Though forecasts from both the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas and the consulting firm the Hay Group note that retailers might start their hiring slowly, picking up some workers in mid-October but waiting until late November or even into December before making final decisions on how many added hands they will need to handle holiday traffic. Related: - Hopes rise for growth in holiday hiring - The Sacramento Bee - Retailers expected to hire up to 650,000 seasonal workers this year - The Plain Dealer, Cleveland - Holiday Job Outlook Stays Flat - The Wall Street Journal
- Bankruptcies fall in region, in contrast to national trend - Jonathan D. Epstein/The Buffalo News Personal and business bankruptcies declined in Western New York for another month in August from a year earlier, a possible sign of improving economic conditions for both consumers and companies. There were 465 bankruptcy cases filed in the Buffalo division and 284 in the Rochester division in August, according to statistics from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of New York, which covers both cities. That’s down 15.5 percent and 1.4 percent, respectively, from a year earlier. Similarly, for the year to date, total filings in Buffalo and Rochester are down 6.5 percent and 6.8 percent, respectively, with 3,958 new cases in Buffalo and 2,195 in Rochester. “It’s something I’ve noticed for some time,” said Bankruptcy Court Chief Judge Carl L. Bucki. “While the rest of the nation is showing rapid increases in bankruptcy filings, our filings are at worst stable if not slightly down, and we’ve observed that for some time.” Related: - Bankruptcy Filings Fell Last Month - Wall Street Journal - U.S. Consumer Bankruptcies to Reach 1.6 Million, Institute Says - Bloomberg BusinessWeek
Mathophobes beware. Business Today is all about numbers:
- Local jobless rate dips to 7.6% as job losses continue - David Robinson/The Buffalo News The unemployment rate in the Buffalo Niagara region dipped to 7.6 percent in August as students started to head back to school, masking continued weakness in a job market that has lost 900 jobs over the last year. The second straight month of job losses, following a brief uptick during May and June, indicates that the sputtering economy continues to limit hiring by local companies, keeping the unemployment at its second-highest level since the mid-1980s. Overall, the region lost 900 jobs over the last year -- a 0.2 percent decline that matched the drop statewide, according to statistics released today by the state Labor Department. The Buffalo Niagara region has lost jobs for 18 of the last 20 months, dating back to December 2008. Related: - Hundreds from area plan to attend D. C. rally on jobs and the economy - Matt Glynn/The Buffalo News At least 1,500 people from area labor unions, churches and social-justice groups plan to attend an Oct. 2 rally in Washington, D.C., focusing on jobs and the economy. The “One Nation Working Together” rally is expected to draw tens of thousands of people to the Lincoln Memorial, just weeks before Election Day. The coalition’s agenda includes calling for one million new jobs, extended unemployment support, paid sick days and family leave for all workers, said Frank Mesiah, president of the NAACP’s Buffalo chapter.
- NYSEG raising rates 11% over three years - David Robinson/The Buffalo News New York State Electric & Gas will increase its delivery charges by 11 percent over the next three years for its electricity customers under a settlement approved today by the state Public Service Commission. The new rate plan, which will take effect on Sept. 25 and run through the end of 2013, will increase delivery charges by less than half of the amount NYSEG originally requested when it applied for its first rate increase since 1993. NYSEG's electric customers, which include about 175,000 customers in suburban and rural portions of Western New York, will see their delivery charges rise by 2.5 percent later this month, followed by a 4.2 percent increase next year and a 4.3 percent jump in 2012.
- Lancaster Walmart store to open - Samantha Maziarz Christmann/The Buffalo News Nearly 11 years after it was proposed, the Lancaster Walmart Supercenter on Transit Road will open Wednesday. The 115,000-square-foot store contains less than half of the 300,000 square feet that the big box retailer originally planned. That is just one of many changes resulting from the battle waged by a group of Lancaster residents determined to stop the world’s largest retailer from building on a former woodland. ... The Lancaster store is the 12th Walmart in Western New York. The company has stores in Cheektowaga, Amherst and Lockport plus supercenters in Hamburg, Clarence, Niagara Falls, Springville, Batavia, Geneseo, Albion and Fredonia. Stores are planned in Lockport and Amherst next year, while locations in North Tonawanda and Orchard Park, as well as Seneca Street on the Buffalo-West Seneca border, also are in the works.
- Delphi pension dispute due for federal probe - Jerry Zremski/The Buffalo News Government investigators will look into whether political considerations prompted the Obama administration to give one-time union employees of Delphi Corp. pension benefits that were denied to the company’s non-union employees, Rep. Chris Lee announced Monday. Neil M. Barofsky, the inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, told the Clarence Republican in a letter last week that he will begin the investigation in conjunction with the Government Accountability Office. Lee had requested the investigation in an earlier letter to Barofsky. Barofsky said he would investigate whether anyone from the administration’s Automotive Task Force, or anyone else from the administration, pressured General Motors’ new management to give special favor to union pensions at Delphi, a one-time GM subsidiary.
- IDA approves tax breaks for phase of renovations at Hyatt Regency - David Robinson/The Buffalo News The ongoing face-lift for the Hyatt Regency Buffalo is getting $203,000 in tax breaks through the Erie County Industrial Development Agency. The IDA board of directors Monday approved a sales tax break for the $2.3 million project to install a new heating and air-conditioning system in the 396-room hotel. The project, part of a three-phase upgrade that will cost a total of $15 million, also will add a new salon and spa and a Starbucks kiosk to the hotel, along with renovations to its existing swimming pool. ... The IDA also granted $65,000 in sales and mortgage tax breaks to an entity controlled by Buffalo developer Christopher Jacobs that plans a $1.36 million project to renovate a vacant and decaying building at 678 Main St. Jacobs, who purchased the building for $310,000 early last year, plans to renovate the building into a mixed-use facility with offices and apartments. Most of the first floor will be occupied by the Daily Post, a company that produces high-end editorial and motion graphics for broadcast and media news sources. The entire second floor will be occupied by 3rd Learning Systems, a company with about 20 employees that does educational software design work.
