Asbury Park Press, Monday January 10, 2005

By William Conroy, Business Writer

The signs are numerous that small companies in Monmouth and Ocean Counties that were cautious about adding new hires last year are more optimistic in early 2005.

"We're getting positions (to fill) from companies that we haven't heard from in a long time," said Barbara Davis, owner of Barbara Davis Employment Services, Red Bank.

Instead of hiring temporary workers, companies are filling more temp-to-hire jobs, she said.

That's an arrangement where someone is hired on a trial basis, usually for 90 days, and at the end of that time the company and the employee decide if they want to make it permanent, said Frank Wyckoff, owner of Snelling Personnel Services, part of the Wyckoff Group. The group has offices in Eatontown, Lakewood, Freehold Township and East Brunswick.

Snelling placed Katrinka Harris in a temp-to-hire position Nov. 15 as a customer service representative with Van Sant Total Supply in Lakewood.

It looks like she is a good fit, according to Gordon Strout, president of the company. "She's rock solid," he said.

The 34-year-old single mother of two children said she is glad to have the opportunity.

"I was laid off from a manufacturing firm in Monmouth County Oct. 1," said Harris, who lives in Middletown.

Harris works in the division of the 30-person company that sells its signature item, a product Van Sant calls Cultured Stone, a building material used in facades and fireplaces in residential and commercial buildings.

The company's sales of the stone were up 35 percent in 2004, compared with the previous year, he said. That has led to a need to add people, Strout said.

In addition to Harris, Van Sant Total Supply has added two employees in the warehouse in the last two months, he said.

After adding no one last year, Stephen E. Govel, president and owner of Service Works Inc. in Howell, plans to add five workers to his 30-person roster soon, he said.

Service Works Inc. is an integrator of security equipment, which means it buys equipment from vendors, which it then sells to its customers and installs. The company's clients include Morgan Stanley and New Jersey Resources, and it won the contract to install security at the 200,000-square-foot building that Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield is construction off Wyckoff Road in Wall.

Why add staff now?

"It seems like (security) budgets that were on hold last year are increasing," Govel said. "People have security needs."

To get and handle the expected increased sales, Service Works needs to add a total of five people in project management, sales and technical positions, he said.

Many small business entrepreneurs face a tough call trying to decide whether to add staff to handle increased sales or to continue to operate as a one-man band, said Paul Rinaldi, assistant director of the Monmouth/Ocean Small Business Development Center, a nonprofit group that has offices at Brookdale Community College in Middletown and Ocean County College in Dover Township.

"When it gets to, 'I'm not getting any sleep,'" the would-be entrepreneur becomes more willing to help, even if they need to borrow more to do it, Rinaldi said. Nationally, the share of small businesses saying the next three months are a good time to grow jumped to 29 percent, highest in more than five years, says a survey of 574 firms by the National Federation of Independent Business trade groups.

The survey is one of the first tracking small-business sentiment since the November elections. The results show business owners are cheered by President Bush's re-election and his business-friendly agenda, economists say.

The nation's 5.8 million small employers create most new jobs. NFIB says 19 percent of firms surveyed plan to hire, up from as few as 11 percent in June. Hiring plans now rival those in 2000, when the economy was strongest.

Many companies were reluctant to spend until the election ended doubts about federal tax and other policies. For the same reason, business owners also were reluctant to expand until now, said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial in Chicago.

The Taylor, Wiseman & Taylor office in Lakewood needs to add between three and five employees, said Phil brilliant, regional manager for the engineering and environmental services company. The Lakewood office currently has 36 employees, he said.

"We need to handle the work we have and we're hoping to get more," Brilliant said.

The flurry of hiring has spread to the employment agencies too.

Three new people start today at Snelling's office in Eatontown, said Wyckoff, who said the hires bring his total number of employees to about 30.

Barbara Davis said she plans to add a fifth to her four-person staff soon.