Healthcare consulting firm acquires home care, hospice exec search provider

Simione Healthcare Consultants acquired Healthcare Concepts Inc., a Memphis-based executive recruitment firm for the home care and hospice industry, as it develops a team for executive search.

The transaction closed July 10; terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Healthcare Concepts will be incorporated...

Canada’s GDP to increase to 2.6% in 2017, then slow

Canada’s economy is expected to grow by 2.6% in 2017 before slowing to 1.9% in 2018, according to an updated economic growth forecast released by The Conference Board of Canada.

Household spending is one of the main drivers of this year’s strong economic performance. Consumer spending is set to grow...

People: Korn Ferry, Advanced Resources, AtWork, PrideStaff and more

Executive search firm Korn Ferry International Inc. (NYSE: KFY) elected Angel Martinez to serve on its board of directors. He was president and CEO of Deckers Outdoor Corp. from 2005 until his retirement in 2016 and currently is chairman of the company, a role he has held since 2008; he also serves on...

Human cloud firm Grab raising $2 billion from SoftBank, Didi (Reuters)

Reuters reports Grab, which ranks as Uber’s biggest rival in Southeast Asia, is raising as much as $2 billion in funding from Japan’s SoftBank Group and China's human cloud firm Didi Chuxing. The deal, which could close in the next few weeks, would value Singapore-based Grab at more than...

Ensuring compliance for ‘ban the box’ and background checks (JD Supra Business Advisor)

Within the last five years, employers have been under increased scrutiny, especially when they require criminal background checks during the hiring process, Daniel Masakayan of law firm Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP writes in JD Supra Business Advisor. The article summarizes recent legal...

Uber forms new company with ride-hailing firm Yandex to serve six countries

Human cloud, ride-sharing firm Uber and Russian company Yandex agreed to form a new company that will combine the firms’ rides operations, as well as UberEATS, in six countries. The countries include Russia, Azerbaijan, Belarus and Kazakhstan, as well as Armenia and Georgia, where Uber currently does...

Canadian job vacancies up 17% year over year

Canadian employers reported 388,000 job vacancies in the first quarter, Statistics Canada reported today. The number of job vacancies rose by 58,000, up 17.5%, from the first quarter of 2016; it was the second consecutive year-over-year increase in the number of vacancies and the job vacancy rate.

The...

Beige Book: Shortage of qualified workers limits hiring

Labor markets tightened further for both low- and high-skilled positions — particularly in the construction and IT sectors, according to the Federal Reserve’s Beige Book report released Wednesday. The Beige Book, a collection of observations from the 12 federal regional banks, provides a snapshot...

Has independent work hit a maturation point? (Staffing Industry Review)

Independent work has evolved from “something you do when you can’t get a real job” to a viable, coveted way for many to work, MBO Partners CEO Gene Zaino writes in an article in Staffing Industry Review’s Online Showcase that taps into his firm’s 2017 State of Independence in America report...

Jobless claims average rises, but initial claims fall 3,000

The US four-week moving average of initial claims for unemployment insurance rose to 245,750 last week, up 2,250 from the previous week’s average, according to seasonally adjusted numbers released today by the US Department of Labor. The previous week’s average was revised upward by 500.

The four-week...