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A meeting made up of executives in an industry that depends partially on a low unemployment rate might be reason to bring out the gallows humor and woe-is-us chatter.
But at a recent gathering of folks from the Professional Employer Organization (PEO) industry at the Tampa Airport Marriott, there was a surprising amount of optimism and confidence in the air.
“I'm not saying we are out of anything [recession-related] yet,” Milan Yager, president and CEO of the National Association of Professional Employer Organizations, told Coffee Talk. “But the feeling here is much better than I thought.”
In fact, a few PEOs in Florida and in the Southeast have added sales people. John Jones, the chief operating officer for the Tampa office of Accord Human Resources, says his firm is one of those companies. Jones says the recession has forced Accord and other PEOs to look for clients past PEO staples like construction firms and related companies.
Yager led a two-day conference of seminars and breakout sessions put together by NAPEO that focused on unemployment insurance and the unpredictability of the health care bill.
The conference began one day after state legislators in Tallahassee unanimously passed a bill to delay an unemployment compensation tax increase for businesses. Gov. Charlie Crist has already signed the bill.
Yager says the bill was a life preserver for PEOs across Florida. “If we hadn't done that,” says Yager, “it would have taken us longer to reach the bottom of the recession.”
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