Business Insider ^ | 06/03/2012 | AP
NEW YORK (AP) — Business has picked up. Yet American companies are too nervous to step up hiring.
The economy seems so gripped by uncertainties that many employers have decided to manage with the staff they have. They aren't convinced their customer demand will keep growing. Or they worry that Europe's festering debt crisis could infect the global economy. Or they aren't sure what Congress will do, if anything, about taxes and spending in coming months.
All that helps explain why U.S. employers added just 69,000 jobs in May, the fewest in a year and the third straight month of weak job growth.
"If you're anxious, you sit on your hands," said Chad Moutray, chief economist at the National Association of Manufacturers.
The U.S. government is also nearing its debt ceiling. It was just last summer that bickering Congress rattled markets by nearly allowing the government to default on its debt.
State and local spending levels are uncertain or shrinking as governments try to shrink their own debts. The result is smaller budgets for schools, transportation projects and services.
Companies also complain that changes in environmental regulations and business subsidies are too hard to predict and plan for.
Here's a look at why some individual employers remain hesitant to hire:
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For many companies that build highways, hiring plans are on hold while Congress debates long-term plans to pay for construction projects.
"I've got paving crews that are ready, willing to go to work next week, but I don't have contracts that I can have them go to work on," said Ed Dalrymple, vice president of Chemung Contracting Corp., based in Elmira, NY.
The company, which operates gravel quarries and asphalt plants and does highway and airport runway paving, relies heavily on government work in New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
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