Canada job searches soar while many business leaders are cautious about Trump victory

Philly area business leaders in different sectors react to Trump's victory.

RETAIL:

The National Retail Federation congratulated Trump on his victory:

"With the holiday season upon us, retailers are glad that this unprecedented election is over, along with the divisive rhetoric and the impact it had on consumers concerned about their future," Matthew Shay, the federation's CEO said in a statement.

"The next few months will offer many opportunities for us to educate lawmakers on our priorities, such as tax reform and investment in our nation's infrastructure, as well as pro-growth policies that create jobs and reward capital investment," Shay said. "If this election taught us anything, it is the importance of focusing on policies and programs that not only benefit today's economy, but the economy of the future and our next generation of workers."

Unless courts intervene, election results will not affect an upcoming change in overtime regulations vigorously opposed by retailers. The change will require that employers pay overtime to anyone earning less than $913 a week - more than some retail managers now earn.

Locally, Five Below chief executive Joel Anderson did not endorse either candidate, but he did say the pre-election tension had affected early holiday sales.

"The start of the season is going to be impacted by the election," Anderson said. "I don't think, in the end, for us, it's not going to matter who wins. It's the unknown.

"But clearly," he said in an interview the week before the election, "people right now are sitting at their TVs; they are watching the news. It's consuming their time when they'd ordinarily be out shopping."

JOBS:

"For many Americans, the election result was such a shock that many are imagining a way out," said Jed Kolko, chief economist for job site Indeed.

In the days before the election, and up until about 9 p.m. on Tuesday, less than one percent of Americans looking for jobs on Indeed.com searched for a position in Canada.

"In the hours just after Trump's victory was called, Americans were searching for jobs in Canada at ten times the rate of previous nights," he wrote in an email.

"Of course, it's far too soon to guess how many of these searchers will make a move after the shock wears off. But the jump in searches shows how many Americans were surprised by Trump's victory and are thinking about their options elsewhere."

SMALL BUSINESS Patricia Blakely, executive director of the Merchants Fund, which provides grants to small businesses said of Trump: "He does not have a comprehensive economic policy. Small business is too small to capture his attention. Small business cannot generate the headline-grabbing that his ego requires. It takes hard work and a deep understanding of the hyperlocal influence that is needed for job creation.

MARKETS: Wall Street banks and brokerage firms may benefit from a Trump presidency, as "there's a belief there will be a softening of the Department of Labor's fiduciary rule. If that happens, it will benefit companies such as Wells Fargo, UBS and the Merrill Lnches of the world," said Ed Kohlhepp Sr., a financial planner based in Doylestown, Pa.

Trump's tax proposals, if implemented, would lower capital gains taxes to a maximum rate of 20 percent, and lower the corporate tax rate to 15 percent, he added.

"I'm pleased that Trump's speech last night was conciliatory, because that meant less turbulence in the markets today. Still, there's a lot of uncertainty and we expect volatility in the markets going forward."

He's been reducing equity exposure and raising bond exposure in short-term bonds.

Patrick Kaser, portfolio manager and head of fundamental equity at Brandywine Global, didn't expect the stock market to recover so quickly.

"That was surprising, and I also thought investors would flee more into defensive sectors like utilities and REITs," or real estate investment trusts, he added. "That's not happening at all. After Brexit, the stock market took a few days to settle down, but it's only taken today for the market to rebound. The market hates uncertainty. Even if now we have a different certainty, at least it's resolved. We've removed uncertainty, and while we don't know specific policies, we know the environment in which they're going to be made."

Both defense and infrastructure sectors "would benefit under either candidates, but they benefits more with one party in charge of the White House and Congress. Both sides wants infrastructure, but now the GOP gets credit no matter what."

RESIDENTIAL REAL ESTATE: "It has been proven over the years that the real estate market is cyclical and the President has very little, if any, control over it," said John Duffy, president of Duffy Real Estate on the Main Line. "[Jimmy] Carter was blamed for the tremendous increase in interest rates, and [George W.]Bush for our latest housing crisis, but one person or one policy cannot control an international economic crisis."

"The end of the election lifts uncertainty and day to day life returns to normal," said Philadelphia developer Carl Dranoff. "Rhetoric will be turned down and real business will proceed. From an investment standpoint, one of the encouraging things on the Trump platform was massive ramp up in infrastructure investment. This will help stimulate the economy and will be favorable to many categories of real estate, probably resulting in more investment from the private sector."

AIRLINES: If Trump follows through on promises to force Mexicans to pay to build a wall, or policies affecting trade that lead to reduced traffic flows, it could hurt tourism and air travel growth. In 2015, almost 8.5 million Mexican tourists came to the U.S., nearly one-fourth of all foreign arrivals, said the Centre for Aviation,an aviation analysis group.

Nicholas Calio, CEO of Airlines for America, a trade group, welcomed Trump's $1 trillion plan to improve transportation infrastructure, including highways, bridges, tunnels, and airports, as a priority in his first 100 days in office. "The current air-traffic control system, while safe, is an inefficient relic of the 1940s," said Calio. The industry group wants to move air-traffic control out of the Federal Aviation Administration and run by a private corportation. "Our ability to create more jobs and help fuel economic growth is possible only if we're operating within a national airspace infrastructure that is designed for the future," Calio asid.

DEFENSE: "Generally a Trump presidency and Republican control of Congress should be good for us as a business," said Phil Jaurigue, CEO of local defense contractor Sabre Systems, based in Warrington.

"Over the last several years, there was unbearable scrutiny in terms of compliance and a lot of burdensome regulations," he added. "This may allow the private sector to compete for services rather than bring them in-house under civil service positions. I'm hoping there are more opportunities for contractors in defense spending in general."

In addition, the Affordable Care Act "caused Sabre and many other companies to cut manpower and benefits to comply with the ACA and still remain competitive," Jaurigue added.

SHALE GAS: "Like voters across the Commonwealth, we closely followed any number of key races," said Marcellus Shale Coalition spokesman Erica Clayton Wright. "At the end of the day, though, the safe development of job-creating natural gas has never been and shouldn't be a partisan issue.

"Across the spectrum, there's broad support for natural gas development, which is creating significant cost savings for families and consumers, improving our environment especially air quality, and revitalizing our manufacturing base all while strengthening our nation's security.

"We're excited to work with new and returning elected officials at the local, state and federal level on commonsense policies that encourage greater production and use of our abundant natural gas resources."

COAL: The following statement may be attributed to regarding last nights' election results:

"The Pennsylvania Coal Alliance congratulates President-Elect Donald J. Trump and looks forward to working with him and his Administration to ensure that coal continues to offer Americans a source of reliable, low-cost energy," said Rachel Gleason, executive director of the Pennsylvania Coal Alliance.

"PCA firmly supports President-Elect Trump's committment to eliminate unnecessary regulations that have restricted the growth and competitiveness of the American coal industry. The commitment to coal communities across Pennsylvania that President-Elect Trump spoke to in his campaign will serve to strengthen America's economy, energy independence, and security."

ENVIRONMENTALISTS: Larry J. Schweiger, president and chief executive of Citizens for PennFuture, bemoaned Trump's election and its effect on the climate-change agenda, which he said got scant attention from the candidates or the news media during the election campaign.

"It is a very dark place for the environment and I will not try to put varnish on it," he said. "President-elect Trump has promised to abolish EPA, to appoint climate deniers to key posts to retreat on environmental regulations, renege on the Paris Accord, and dismantle the efforts to advance clean power and bring back coal. Trump will have the House, Senate and Supreme Court on his side, so with a unified Republican government, his words will not come back empty.

"The environment lost the biggest battle imaginable and the worst part of that is these urgent issues were rarely if ever mentioned," he said.

COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE: Trump's expected agenda of tax cuts and government spending has many economists predicting a spike in interest rates, which could make it more expensive to finance development projects in the city, said Michael Siverman, managing director with Integra Realty Resources in Philadelphia.

"It's not going to change anything with existing projects now under construction," he said. But "if inflation increases, you're going to continue to see an increase in interest rates, which would certainly impact investors' decision-making on projects."

Paul Levy, chief executive of the Center City District business association, meanwhile, said he was heartened by Trump's mention of infrastructure spending during his victory speech.

The president-elect's background as a real estate developer may lend him a platform to channel more government money into railroad, bridge and highway projects than had been possible under Obama.

"Major infrastructure has not traditionally been a recent Republican emphasis," Levy said. "If that's more than rhetoric."

Developer Carl Dranoff also said he was looking forward to details on Trump's infrastructure plans.

"This should help our urban areas where infrastructure has declined and needs reinvestment," he said. "That should all result in many categories of real estate benefiting and probably resulting in investment from the private sector."

Still, he said, the greatest benefit may just come from the end of a volatile election season.

"People who make investments are looking for stability," he said.

UNIONS:

"The labor movement confronts its greatest challenge ever," said Henry Nicholas, president of the National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees, which includes District 1199C in Philadelphia.

When the U.S. Supreme Court, by a four-to-four vote after the death of Supreme Court Judge Antonin Scalia, turned aside the case of a California school teacher who objected to the state teachers' union collecting union dues from her paycheck, Nicholas said the union movement had gotten a lifesaving reprieve.

But that reprieve will come to an end, he said, when Trump gets to appoint Supreme Court judges, describing Trump's potential nominees "as to the right of Clarence Thomas."

Nicholas, whose union is a division of AFSCME, said that right-to-work movements will acclerate, and more states will try to force an end to collective bargaining for public sector unions.

Nicholas hopes that Trump will try to build a coalition by leaving U.S. Labor Secretary Thomas Perez in place, since Perez is Hispanic and well-liked by unions.

Building trades: "Right off the top, you have to worry about interest rates," said John Dougherty, who leads the Philadelphia Building Trades Council. Dougherty, who described Trump as "not a typical Republican," said Trump's economic policies are an unknown, but if they lead to increased interest rates, it could hamper construction and construction employment.

"It's almost a given that federal project labor agreements will be stopped," Dougherty said, referring to agreements which establish a framework for union construction projects.

But, he said, it's not likely that construction unions in the Philadelphia area will experience much of change, because there's a pro-union mayor and a pro-union governor.

"I don't think [the Trump administration] is going to paying attention to the building trades for years to come," Dougherty said. "I think most of the attention will be paid to teachers and other public employees."

CONSTRUCTION: The non-union, open-shop construction trade group, the Associated Builders and Contractors, thinks the new administration will craft policies encouraging open competition

"With his background in real estate and development, Trump is very familiar with the obstacles to economic growth ABC members face, including our broken regulatory system, the increasingly difficult challenge of finding affordable health care coverage for employees, a growing shortage of appropriately skilled labor and the highest effective tax rate of any industry," said Michael Bellaman, who leads the group.

"We urge his administration to implement policies that guarantee a fair and level playing field for all contractors, regardless of labor affiliation, such as prohibiting the government from mandating discriminatory project labor agreements."