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S U N D A Y , J U N E 7 , 2009
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Also engineers, teachers and drivers to make deliveries. Companies are having a hard time hiring for some positions despite growing unemployment, said Melanie Holmes, a vice president with staf fing company Manpower Inc., which sur veyed employers on hard-to-fill jobs. That’s due to a combination of factors. Some industries face surging demand. In health care, aging baby boomers are over whelming the field, while there’s a shor tage of qualifi ed nurses to teach nursing students, Holmes said. In other fields, such as engineering, new “green” energy initiatives are expanding the scope of the industr y. At the same time, engineering companies are having a hard time replacing retirees. And in some instances, Americans just aren’t as willing to perform cer tain tasks, Holmes said. She’s seen anecdotal evidence that more and more immigrants are leaving the U.S. as the economy falters, and native-born Americans aren’t as eager to fill the jobs new immigrants often perform. The list of positions employers said they had the most difficulty finding someone for included: ■ Engineers ■ Nurses ■ Skilled/manual trades ■ Teachers ■ Sales representatives ■ Technicians ■ Short-haul drivers ■ IT staff ■ Laborers ■ Machinist/Machine operators Manpower randomly sur veyed human resources depar tments from about 2,000 companies throughout the U.S. in late Januar y.
Time to test the waters? Investors timid about diving back into the stock market
Dining out
Eating at a restaurant does cost more than eating at home, but there are ways to save some dollars, especially at nationwide chains. Consumer Reports magazine has the following tips on trimming your bill: ■ Menu promotions. Buy one entree, get one free; smaller por tions; cheap upgrades. Look for special discounts listed on the menu and consider eating at the bar to save on specials. McCormick & Schmick’s, the seafood restaurant, has a “10 under $10” specials section on its lunch menu. It also offers tuna rolls for less than $4 on its bar menu. ■ Sign up. If you add your name to the mailing list on the restaurant chain’s Web site, you’ll be e-mailed coupons and special giveaways. ■ Bring your I.D. Many chains cut prices for kids and seniors and offer complimentary food on birthdays. ■ Eating during off-peak hours or on weekdays can get you special deals — check the chain’s Web site.
By Patrick Rupinski Staff Writer
TUSCALOOSA ast year, Braden Bell chose a federally insured certificate of deposit when he opened an individual retirement account. The interest earnings were small, but they were guaranteed. Bell said he knew he would not lose any money. The Tuscaloosan decided to add to his IRA earlier this year, but after seeing how low the CD interest rates had fallen, he opted to move his IRA into stocks. “It looked like the stock market had just about bottomed out, so in the middle of March I bought a bunch of stocks,” he said. Since then, Bell, a 22-year-old senior majoring in operations management at the University of Alabama, has seen his recent stock purchases increase in value. The economic downturn that has wreaked havoc on giant pension funds and individuals’ 401(k)s over the past year proved to be a
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golden opportunity to Bell, who got into the market when prices were low. But many may not be as eager as Bell to jump back into the stock market after seeing fortunes on paper evaporate. Some might shy away from Wall Street investments forever. Research “suggests people overreact to unpleasant experiences in the market,” said William E. Jackson III, a University of Alabama professor of management who holds the Smith Foundation Endowed Chair of Business Integrity. That overreaction means many might wait too long before getting back into the market, potentially missing opportunities, he said. But it also means people might pay closer attention to their investment portfolios and how they allocate their savings, he said. The severity of the recession already has affected Americans’ behavior with people saving more and spending less, he said. But much of that savings has gone into safer investments like CDs and Treasury notes. “It will be a while before people fill their
portfolios with equities [stocks],” he said. “You have to remember that a lot of people never saw anything like this [economic downturn] in their lifetime,” he said. Some senior citizens might remember the Great Depression, but for most Americans this recession is the most severe economic crisis they have seen. Jackson said continued improved performance of the stock market would gradually lure investors back, but even as that happens the reminder of this recession will linger. “Those closer to retirement took a hit [on their retirement nest eggs] and that will cause them to be more conservative in their investments,” he said. Younger workers who are just starting to invest and save will be more resilient in getting back into the market, but the economic experience will make them more aware of what could happen, causing them to do more research and become more savvy investors, he said. SEE INVESTORS | 4D
“While people may be cautious because of what happened, there is a danger in being too cautious. Warren Buffett once said ‘Be fearful when others are greedy and be greedy when others are fearful.’ That’s sound advice.” Robert McLeod, UA finance professor
Consumer essentials Americans may be cutting back on computers, books, washing machines and jewelry, but they’re still going to the dentist. Sageworks, which collects data on private companies, said the average dentist office saw 6.9 percent sales growth in the 12 months through April. Oral hygiene isn’t the only area with sales gains in the recession. Sageworks said the following sectors were some of the service- and product-providers seeing revenue gains: ■ Auto repair shops, with sales up 2.4 percent in the past year. ■ Building equipment contractors, such as electricians and plumbers, had sales gains of 4.6 percent as homeowners focused on remodeling. ■ Grocer y store sales receipts grew by 6.7 percent. ■ Trade and technical schools revenues were up 9.3 percent. ■ Personal-care shops, such as hair salons, barber shops and skincare providers saw sales grow by 4.5 percent ■ Sales revenues for accountants rose 10.2 percent. ■ Storage companies sales were up 9.6 percent.
‘Smart grid’ — buzz of the electric power industry By H. Josef Hebert The Associated Press
WASHINGTON | Thomas Alva Edison, meet the Internet. More than a century after Edison invented a reliable light bulb, the nation’s electricity distribution system, an aging spider web of power lines, is poised to move into the digital age. The “smart grid” has become the buzz of the electric power industry, at the White House and among members of Congress. President Barack Obama says it’s essential to boost development wind and solar power, get people to use less energy and tackle climate change. What smart grid visionaries see coming are home thermostats and individual appliances that adjust automatically based on the cost of power, and water heaters that can draw power from a neighbor’s rooftop solar panel. They see a time when, on a scorching hot day, a plug-in hybrid electric car charges one minute and a few moments later sends electricity back into
the grid to help avert a brownout. Also coming are utilities that get instant feedback on a transformer outage or shift easily among energy sources from wind turbines to coal-burning power plants and back to the turbines when the wind begins to blow again. And, from miles away, power companies will peer into homes and businesses, then automatically lower thermostats or adjust power use, depending on demand and prearranged agreements. “It’s the marriage of information technology and automation technology with the existing electricity network. This is the energy Internet,” said Bob Gilligan, vice president for transmission at GE Energy, one of many companies aggressively pursuing smart grid development. “There are going to be applications 10 years from now that you and I have no idea that we’re going to want or need or think are essential to our lives.” FILE | THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Hundreds of technology companies, Gary Kawano installs a new meter outside a home in Boulder, Colo., fledgling venture capitalists, longtime as part of the smart electrical grid system that was put into place in SEE SMART | 4D the city last year.