Employers

Major employers across the country, eager to curb fast-rising healthcare costs, are opening their own state-of-the-art health centers where doctors and nurses provide medical care to workers often just steps from their desks. The cost-cutting strategy has been embraced by dozens of companies — typically large employers that are self-insured and pay their own medical claims, including Walt Disney Co., Qualcomm Inc. and American Express Co. Many of the health centers are full-service medical offices equipped with exam rooms, X-ray machines and pharmacies.

Hundreds of thousands of part-timers are facing smaller paychecks as employers cut worker hours to avoid paying for their benefits under the federal healthcare law. This move by a growing number of retailers, restaurants and even local governments and universities has sparked fresh debate over the requirements of the Affordable Care Act and how much employers should be expected to do for workers, given the rising cost of healthcare....

The nation's economy is coming back and many employers are cautiously staffing up, but they're not often hiring people who have been out of work for a long time, according to a headhunter firm. “The longer one is out of work, the more difficult it becomes to achieve job search success. And, unfortunately, this is a situation that has not reversed, despite steady improvement in the overall job market,” said John A. Challenger, chief executive of Challenger, Gray & Christmas. The Chicago firm finds workers for employers.

Malibu resident Ashley St. Johns-Jacobs, 40, typically rises before 5 a.m. to get to her job at the Los Angeles city attorney's office by 8 a.m. After a full day prosecuting misdemeanors, she often brings work home. What she doesn't bring home is a paycheck. With no position open, she has been working as an unpaid intern for nearly a year in hopes of eventually getting hired when a job opens up. "We live on a tight budget," said St. Johns-Jacobs, whose husband works as a microphone boom operator for Hollywood studios.

Nearly 18 months after passage of the national healthcare overhaul, American employers say they are providing health benefits for growing numbers of people as they extend coverage to their workers' adult children, a new survey finds. The federal healthcare law allows young adults up to age 26 to stay on their parents' health plans. As a result, employers say they have seen an average 2% increase in insurance enrollments, with some saying the figure has jumped by 5% or more, according to the survey by benefits consulting firm Mercer.

Health insurance premiums for employer-sponsored coverage rose a moderate 4% this year, a national survey shows, but experts warn that rates may climb higher next year. Annual insurance premiums for families increased 4%, on average, to $15,745, according to the annual survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research & Educational Trust. That was down from a 9% hike in 2011. Still, even modest increases in healthcare costs are difficult to absorb for many businesses and workers struggling to cope with a sluggish economy.

California is one step closer to becoming one of the first states to ban companies from asking job seekers and workers for their user names and passwords on Facebook and other social networking websites. The state Assembly on Thursday passed a bill sponsored by Assemblywoman Nora Campos (D-San Jose) that would make anything workers designate as private on social networks off limits to employers. The bill, which passed the Assembly without a dissenting vote, now goes to the California Senate.

Despite an improving economy, employers are waiting longer to fill job openings in their companies even when they receive many applications to a vacancy. Employers now take an average of 23 business days to hire someone for a position, more than a week longer than the 15 days it took in 2009, according to a study conducted by University of Chicago and University of Maryland economists cited by the New York Times. The news is not exactly new. Corporate profits are soaring, but with millions still out of work and an unemployment rate at 7.9%, companies feel little incentive to give raises or hire new workers.

The predictions about healthcare keep coming. The latest suggests that nearly a third of employers are likely to stop offering health insurance to employees in 2014 when major federal healthcare-reform provisions kick in. This comes from a new report by McKinsey Quarterly. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that only 7% of employees would be forced into subsidized-exchange policies, the report said, but the survey of more than 1,300 employers suggests otherwise. That research found that 30% said they would “definitely or probably” drop the insurance policies.