Employment, Wages, and Prices Labor markets remain taut. Paul temporary employment agencies are offering free training and starting to offer an array of benefits. Companies are still looking for workers. A telecommunications company based in Superior, Wis., will add more than 300 jobs by early March. Paul recently announced plans to add 2,000 workers at its headquarters over the next five years.
Wages continue to creep higher.
An informal survey of Upper Midwest businesses conducted in January reports that wages are generally about 2 percent to 4 percent higher than last year. While overall prices are not accelerating, input prices and transportation costs are increasing. Surveys of manufacturers show that input prices are higher compared to a year earlier. The Creighton University survey reports that an index of input prices for January in Minnesota and South Dakota is almost twice as high as a year ago. Through January, the Upper Midwest business survey reports that an average of 41 percent of respondents over the past five months have reported higher input prices compared to 22 percent for the first eight months of 1999.