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The company has 12 open positions and plans to add up to 60 jobs this year, on top of its work force of 120, FitzGibbon said. It is analyzing the needs of specific departments to avoid overloading any single employees and determine where hiring is most needed. "The last thing we want to do is have a software developer completely burned out," he said. FitzGibbon's inclination to step up hiring reflects a broader trend. The economy has added an average of 200,000 net jobs per month from November through January. That job growth has helped lower the unemployment rate for five straight months to 8.3 percent. Economists predict that more than 200,000 net jobs were added in February, too. A return to more robust hiring ultimately leads to higher wages and more consumer spending, which fuels economic growth. One concern is that labor costs are rising and might be building inflation pressures. Such costs rose at a revised 2.8 percent annual rate in the October-December quarter. That's less than the 3.9 percent increase in the July-September quarter. But it's more than twice the initial estimate of labor costs for the fourth quarter. Rising labor costs could force businesses to raise prices. Still, some economists say higher prices wouldn't likely be sustained as long as nearly 13 million Americans remain unemployed and others aren't being paid enough to keep up with inflation. "Companies are likely to cover the higher labor costs by trimming their profits rather than raising the prices of their products," said Richard DeKaser, a senior economist at the Parthenon Group.
[Associated
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