Mark Vitner Hiring Quotations

The problem with the November employment numbers is hiring for the holiday season. It's hard to get a gauge of what it's going to be. They do a seasonal adjustment to the number to account for that, but the seasonal adjustment causes wider swings. And this year Thanksgiving came later in the month, so hiring might have started after the November data was collected.

We hope it will be the case that tax cuts will bridge the gap until hiring picks up, but that seems like a pretty precarious plan. But it's the only plan we've got.

Corporate America is on the mend. The only downside of stronger productivity growth is that it means hiring is lagging. As far as downsides go, this is roughly the equivalent of eating your broccoli. It may be tough to stomach at first, but it makes you stronger and healthier in the long run.

The most recent acceleration in productivity growth looks like it was cyclically driven, ... Even with output soaring, many businesses were reluctant to boost hiring because the Fed was hiking interest rates and energy costs were surging. Even if businesses wanted to hire more workers, many could not because the labor markets were so tight.

Hiring in business and professional services will once again lead the way.

The trucking industry is very competitive, so driving up the costs of hiring drivers has not really translated that much to price pressure for finished goods.

The jobless recovery is well behind us. The economy right now is not really in a recovery mode, it's in a boom mode. Companies are going to be hiring out of fear if they don't, they lose an opportunity to make more money.