Temporary staffing agencies are usually a good leading economic indicator, somewhat like modern canaries in the proverbial mine shaft. When companies will not even staff with temporary workers, the short-term economic prospects look dim. Labor Ready Inc. (NYSE: LRW) is an industrial staffing temp agency specializing in general labor, light industrial labor and more skilled trades for construction, landscaping and transportation companies. The company last week released 3Q 2007 earnings that are not encouraging. Granted, some of its business such as landscaping personnel is seasonal, but the results indicate a weakening overall demand for semi-skilled labor in all sectors.

Despite a softening demand, revenue was up 4.4% to $390.7 million, but net income was down almost twice that, 8.5%, to $22.7 million. Revenue for 4Q 2007 is forecast to continue to decline by as much as $45 million. Labor Ready still operates 919 branches, having already closed 47 branches in 2007. Senior management blames decreased demand for temporary laborers on an increase in the minimum wage and continued weakness in both residential and commercial construction. As neither of these factors are within Labor Ready's control, the company can only downsize and control costs until demand for its services strengthens.

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Will Google out-staff Yahoo! by the end of the year? Wall Street analysts from UBS have crunched the numbers and say that Google is hiring more than Yahoo!:

• Google had 1,800 open positions, up 125% year-over-year.
• Yahoo! had 800 open positions, down 14.4% YoY.
• Current headcounts for Google and Yahoo! are 6,790 and 10,098, respectively.
• Last year's hiring numbers for Google and Yahoo! were 800 and 935 respectively.

I'm not sure I agree. Without more data points, it isn't reasonable to forecast out based on growth rate in open positions since Yahoo! is exhibiting negative growth. 

Assuming a 100% fill rate (confidence interval will be fairly high in that Google placed 2nd in Fortune's MBA wish list), then the implied growth rate for Google will be 26% vs Yahoo!'s 8%.