Made in America: Nearly one in four U.S. employers anticipate higher staff levels in Q3 2016

Editor’s note: Each Sunday, Talk Business & Politics provides “Made In America,” a round-up of state and global manufacturing news.

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NEARLY ONE IN FOUR U.S. EMPLOYERS ANTICIPATE HIGHER STAFF LEVELS IN Q3 2016
U.S. employers indicate stable hiring plans for the third quarter of 2016, according to the latest Manpower Employment Outlook Survey.

Of the more than 11,000 U.S. employers surveyed, 23% anticipate increasing staff levels in the third quarter of this year. This is a one percent increase from the second quarter of 2016, and a one percent decrease from the third quarter a year ago. Five percent of employers expect workforce reductions, and 71% expect no change in hiring plans. The final one percent of employers is undecided about their hiring intentions, resulting in a seasonally adjusted Net Employment Outlook of +15%.

Quarter over quarter, U.S. employers in the Midwest, Northeast and South anticipate a slight decrease in hiring, while employers in the West expect hiring to remain relatively stable. Compared to one year ago at this time, the outlook is relatively stable in the Northeast and the West, and declines slightly in the Midwest and South.

Employers have a positive outlook in 12 of the 13 industry sectors included in the survey, with Leisure & Hospitality (+23%), Wholesale & Retail Trade (+20%), Transportation & Utilities (+19%) and Professional & Business Services (+18%) employers reporting the strongest hiring intentions.

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE COMPLETES RESTORATION WORK ON WORLD’S LARGEST INDUSTRIAL WEIGHT CALIBRATOR
The National Institute of Standards and Technology, part of the U.S. Department of Commerce, has completed restoration work on its 4.45 meganewton deadweight machine, which performs force calibrations for U.S. aerospace manufacturers, U.S. military laboratories, and other top-end industrial customers.

Refurbishing the 50-year old system – the largest in the world – took almost a year and a half and included a complete overhaul of about half of the stainless steel disks that comprise the three-story weight stack.

NIST’s million pounds-force deadweight machine is designed to produce forces of up to 4.45 million newtons (equivalent to one million pounds of force) to calibrate force-measuring devices used by customers to measure large forces – for example, the thrust of a rocket or jet engine or the deflection of an airplane wing.

The weight stack consists of a calibrated lifting frame and 19 nearly identical stainless steel discs about three meters in diameter when assembled, with an average mass of about 22,696 kg (just over 50,000 pounds) each. To learn more and see a video of the restoration work, click here.

U.S. INTERIOR DEPARTMENT’S ECONOMIC REPORT SHOWS DECLINE IN FOSSIL FUEL, MINING INVESTMENTS
The U.S. Department of the Interior released its economic report for fiscal year 2015, highlighting the Obama administration’s investments in recreation, conservation, water and renewable energy that led to $106 billion in economic output, and supported 862,000 jobs, department officials said.

Interior’s activities related to fossil fuel extraction and mining also contributed $179 billion to the national economy, down from $241 billion from the prior year due to market forces and commodity price reductions.

The report found that national parks, national wildlife refuges, national monuments and other public lands managed by Interior hosted an estimated 443 million recreational visits in 2015 – up from 423 million in 2014 – and that these visits alone supported $45 billion in economic output and about 396,000 jobs nationwide.