Thursday, September 24, 2015

Don't be confused, PEOs are not just a Staffing Agency.

businessnewsdaily.com

Is a PEO just a staffing agency?

PEOs are often confused with temporary staffing agencies. While the two share some slight similarities, the model is different.

PEOs assign their own, existing employees to take over your human resources administrative tasks. The PEO is responsible for most of the behind-the-scenes human resources tasks, such as negotiating health insurance, benefits packages and retirement plans. PEOs deal with reporting wages to the IRS. Essentially, the PEO is handling all the business and administrative tasks related to employment.

These tasks can result in positive outcomes such as:

Fewer administrative tasks. Companies don't have to spend time focusing on tasks like payroll and benefits administration, freeing up hours for you to focus on running and improving the business.

Fewer mistakes. For small businesses in particular, the rules and laws surrounding payroll, benefits and tax reporting are often outside their realm of expertise. PEOs specialize in human resources tasks, so they're less likely to make a costly or harmful mistake.

Legal protections. Most PEOs provide civil defense and employment liability insurance in case a former employee sues the company for discrimination or wrongful termination.

Cost savings, better benefits. Because PEOs are often large companies, they can negotiate better benefits packages and lower insurance costs than most small businesses. However, keep in mind that you are paying the PEO a fee for this benefit. To make sure you're coming out ahead, it's important for you to weigh the service fees against the added benefits.

Staffing agencies, on the other hand, typically provide companies with short-term or special-project employment. They provide the labor, but they do not handle behind-the-scenes administrative tasks like benefits negotiation and tax reporting. If you use a staffing agency to hire human resources employees, those administrative responsibilities will lie with your company.

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Friday, September 4, 2015

Slower Job Growth May Give Fed Pause on Raising Rates

The American economy added 173,000 jobs in August, a weaker showing than expected that makes it more likely the Federal Reserve will delay its long-awaited increase in interest rates when policy makers meet in two weeks.

But there was just enough positive data in the report on Friday from the Labor Department to keep a September move in play, even as Wall Street increasingly looks at the possibility of a Fed move in October, or at the central bank’s last meeting of the year, in December.

The report was hotly anticipated, mainly because it represents the last major piece of data that the central bank will have on hand before its meeting on Sept. 16 and 17.

Although hiring in August was well below the 220,000-job gain that economists had expected, the unemployment rate fell to 5.1 percent from 5.3 percent, the lowest since early 2008.

At that level, joblessness is nearing the level that economists and the Fed consider close to full employment, and inflation foes worry that an unemployment rate significantly less than that might result in an overheated economy in the long term.

That might seem strange to tens of millions of workers still looking for raises and full-time positions, but there are nascent signs that wages are finally beginning to tick higher. In contrast to the disappointing headline number, average hourly earnings rose by a better-than-expected 0.3 percentage point rate in August.

Payroll gains for June and July were revised upward by 44,000.

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