U.S. discount, grocery and restaurant chains are hiring a larger percentage of job applicants than seven months ago, signaling confidence the economy may be improving, software maker Kronos Inc. said.

Kronos analyzed the 8.9 million job applications received by 68 retailers in the first seven months of the year. In July, 2.99 of every 100 applications resulted in a hire, compared with 2.75 in January, a three-year low, the Chelmsford, Massachusetts-based company said today in a statement.

“We are seeing a turnaround that reflects an increase in confidence by individual managers,” Robert Yerex, Kronos’s chief economist, said Sept. 4 by telephone from Beaverton, Oregon. “It may take quite a bit longer to come back than it did to drop off.” This is the first time Kronos has publicly issued a monthly retail labor index.

The pace of hiring of cashiers, merchandise stockers and other frontline workers in July was less than half that of October 2006, Kronos said. U.S. unemployment rose to a 26-year high of 9.7 percent in August, according to the Labor Department. Retailers fired 10,000 people last month while all U.S. employers trimmed payrolls by 216,000 after slashing 276,000 jobs in July.

Closely held Kronos makes software that businesses use to process hiring, payroll and scheduling and manage employees. It had 2008 revenue of about $715 million, said Steve Earl, 43, the director of product marketing.

Discount chains, department stores, grocery stores, restaurants and home-improvement stores use the company’s products, said Earl, who is also based in Beaverton. He wouldn’t identify individual customers.

Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. left his suite at Manhattan’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel last Sept. 15 after a sleepless night, feeling he’d done all he could to minimize the damage from that morning’s collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., aides said.

At meetings concluded the previous evening at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Paulson and executives of the world’s largest financial institutions worked to head off two threats they anticipated in the wake of the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history. The bankers spent hours trying to unwind Lehman-related credit-default swaps, bets made on whether companies will repay their debts. And with the help of a rule change by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, they were confident bank-to- bank loans would keep flowing.

“The general feeling was things were working,” said Phillip L. Swagel, Paulson’s assistant secretary for economic policy, who remained in Washington that weekend.

Nobody accounted for Bruce R. Bent. The 72-year-old graduate of St. John’s University in Queens, New York, created the first money market fund in 1971, the Reserve Primary Fund. He touted it as an investment so safe it would lull clients to sleep — so safe that, even with $785 million in loans to tottering Lehman, Bent and his wife had jetted to Rome that Sunday evening to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary.

The Newport Group has been selected by Commonwealth Financial Network® to deliver industry-leading retirement plan strategies. Commonwealth, a national independent broker/dealer, has launched its new advisory retirement platform, Retirement Consulting Services, and has selected Newport as a recordkeeper of choice.

With the support of the firm’s Retirement Consulting Services group, Commonwealth’s financial advisors can offer their corporate clients highly competitive retirement plans that provide full transparency and disclosure—all within the context of a fee-based investment advisory relationship. “It’s an open-architecture solution that can play a key role in a financial professional’s strategy for building their practice in full compliance with regulation,” said Amy Glynn, Director of Retirement Consulting Services at Commonwealth.

“Commonwealth’s fee-for-service model and focused Retirement Consulting Services group aligns well with Newport’s fully transparent fee model and independent and unbiased investment capabilities,” added Newport’s Chief Marketing Officer Tom Pittman.

In addition to servicing existing Commonwealth advisors, the firm believes this platform will increase Commonwealth’s overall ability to attract new advisors. “Adding Newport to our open-architecture, full-disclosure offering enables advisors to compete in a challenging marketplace with fresh and exciting value propositions. Newport’s high-end service and creative plan design expertise add a new level of depth to our platform,” Glynn noted.

“Ultimately, this type of relationship comes down to culture. Newport as an institution, and its employees, have the same values as we do at Commonwealth, with a focus on high-end, indispensable service provided to advisors.”

About The Newport Group

Founded in 1984, The Newport Group is a leading retirement services and asset management firm—specializing in the creative design, funding, and administration of qualified and non-qualified retirement plans, as well as co-fiduciary investment advisory services. Through its strategic alliances and joint ventures with other firms in the financial services arena, Newport is uniquely positioned to satisfy the distinct financial needs of employers and employees, and has done so for hundreds of the country’s largest and best-known companies.

Newport is headquartered in Heathrow (Orlando) FL, with service centers in Charlotte NC, Greensboro NC, La Crosse WI, Richmond VA, and St. Petersburg FL. Newport also has offices in Atlanta, Boston, Cincinnati, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, New York NY, Orange County CA, and San Francisco. For more information, visit www.newportgroup.com.

About Commonwealth Financial Network

Founded in 1979, Commonwealth Financial Network, Member FINRA/SIPC, a registered investment adviser, is the nation’s second-largest, privately owned independent broker/dealer, with offices in Waltham, Massachusetts, and San Diego, California. The firm supports more than 1,200 independent registered representatives nationwide and makes available a comprehensive array of financial products and services.

Contacts

The Newport Group
Geraldine O’Brien, VP, Communications, 407-333-2905
gobrien@newportgroup.com
www.newportgroup.com

In January 2008, when Andrew Cockburn and his wife Leslie started making a documentary about the subprime mortgage crisis, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was above 13,000, the U.S. unemployment rate was under 5 percent and Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns were still big names on Wall Street.

During the next 11 months, the Dow plunged 43 percent, Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns collapsed and the U.S. economy fell into its worst slump since the Great Depression.

“It was a big story when we started, but it got even bigger as we were making the film,” Andrew Cockburn said. “We certainly didn’t know that all these huge banks would fail and that the market would crash.”

The Cockburns examine the roots and ramifications of the subprime debacle in “American Casino,” which shows how the resulting financial crisis has affected Main Street as well as Wall Street. The film is playing in New York and will open in other U.S. cities throughout September and October.

Andrew Cockburn, 62, whose father Claud covered the 1929 stock-market crash for the Times of London, has made numerous documentaries with his wife. They also wrote and produced “The Peacemaker,” a 1997 Hollywood thriller starring George Clooney and Nicole Kidman.

Cockburn, who lives in Washington, spoke to me on the phone last week while visiting New York to promote the film.