Last year certainly ended with some excitement with the 3M acquisition of Aearo, Showa acquiring Best Glove, Bacou-Dalloz changing its name to Sperian, and Hagemeyer NA apparently being sold to Sonepar SA. While it remains to be seen what impact those developments will have on the market, one thing is pretty certain: changing dynamics in the age of the workforce will create challenges for hiring companies to find qualified candidates for their openings.

Well, the annual NCAA men’s basketball tournament is history and once again American productivity took a significant hit. Some employers say that work time lost to Web surfing, e-mail and phone calls is a small price to pay for stronger morale, less turnover and higher productivity.

As reported in our previous article (May FDO), we are noticing a trend to higher salaries, reflecting a stronger job market and a shift towards an employee-driven market.