While it seems that the winds in Washington D.C. (depending on your interpretation of events) have not been blowing in the staffing industry’s favor, the Federal Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment (HIRE) Act is one piece of legislation staffing companies can take advantage of.

Origin of a lot of recent legislation affecting the staffing industry

The HIRE Act was signed into law by President Obama on March 18, 2010 and features two incentives to encourage businesses to hire and retain new employees:

• Incentive #1: As of February 3, 2010, if an employer hires someone who has been unemployed the previous 60 days (worked less than a total of 40 hrs during the 60-day period) and the new hire isn’t replacing someone else, then the employer does not have to pay the employer portion of social security on that person’s wages.
• Incentive #2: The employer will receive a $1,000 income tax credit for every newly hired employee (again, not replacements) as of February 3, 2010 who is employed continuously thereafter for 52 weeks.

In order to help you add significantly to your bottom line by taking advantage of these incentives (as employers, currently we’re paying 6.2% of the first $106,800 each of our employees earn), make sure you can do the following in your staffing software:

• Track the employees who qualify for the HIRE Act.
• Be easily able to identify the HIRE Act employees from a search hit list.
• Possibly even be able to attach a scanned copy of the Form W-11 HIRE Act Employee Affidavit.

From a purely process standpoint, you’ll want to consider:

• During the interview process, make sure you identify any candidate who could fall under the HIRE Act and have them sign the Form W-11 HIRE Act Employee Affidavit, which the IRS is scheduled to release this week.
• Recruiters should be taking into consideration those candidates who qualify for the HIRE Act during the placement decision-making process.

Contact us to check out our staffing software and how we’re helping staffing companies capitalize on the latest legislative and staffing industry trends.
 
Everett Reiss
Director of Marketing and Communications
Applied Systems Technology
845-534-7100 X1102
ev@astusa.com
Connect with me on:

• Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/everettreiss
• Twitter: http://twitter.com/everettreiss

Here are the news sources that I’m currently pulling from:

• United States Department of Labor
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
• NY Times
• The Wall Street Journal
• CareerBuilder’s The Hiring Site
• The Washington Post
• The L.A. Times
• American Staffing Association

If you use Google Reader or someother RSS subscription service, here is the Staffing Industry Employment/Unemployment News RSS feed.  Or you can just bookmark Mad Staffing Blog’s Staffing Industry Employment/Unemployment News page.

Email me ev@astusa.com to let me know if there are some other employment/unemployment news sources that you think I should try to tap into.  Also, email me some other staffing industry news feeds you’d like me to make and I’d be happy to accomodate!