In the last six years, we have basically tripled our workforce. We do some seasonal hiring, so we are looking to add 40 to 50 employees for Christmas. But some of those will be seasonal employees. Now, we have just under 400 employees.
We do a tremendous amount of business in gold and silver coins. That business is strong, because gold and silver prices are obviously high.
We are looking for ways that President Obama can make hiring easier, more efficient and cost effective for us in the next year or so. As a small business owner, any time you hire somebody new, you are going to lose money on that person for the first six months to a year. Hiring somebody new is like making a new investment. Anything that would make it easier to make that investment would be good.
Government officials have said that they want to increase worker training, which I am 100% in favor of, but I want to be sure that training is for jobs we have. Let the companies do the training, but then give us some kind of tax breaks for that period of time.
Or a tax holiday on Social Security -- something that would lessen the risk for us to invest in some new people. Every single time you hire somebody, that is a big cost to a small company. And realistically, for our company, about 60 to 65% of our new hires will be with us a year later.
The only thing that is standing in the way of growing our businesses is demand. The only thing standing in the way of demand is consumer confidence, and consumer confidence is built on the underlying belief in the value of their houses.
Certainly, it is in the interest of politicians to complain about regulations. For a guy who actually wakes up in the morning and has to pay 400 people their salaries, neither the tax code, nor the regulation is hurting our business.
After watching the debacle of the debt ceiling increase, I am not sure the government can agree which side of the street they should park on. They can't even decide on what day to have a speech. The political vitriol has gotten so sardonic and so histrionic that my faith right now in them getting anything passed is not exactly that high. -- C.C.
Be polite and professional when giving an employee the boot. And if the person getting fired starts to lose it, duck.
