Steve Barnes at the Times Union has an unusual restaurant review: it's a profile of the private cafeteria at GlobalFoundries, the vaunted semiconductor foundry at Luther Forest Technology Campus. The cafeteria serves up 1,400 meals a day with menu items like prime rib, applewood-smoked pulled pork sandwiches, and pizzas made from scratch:
In its first year of operation, The Foundry has served enough breakfast sandwiches to create a stack 59 stories tall and has gone through two tons of ground beef. Among the less successful offerings: cupcakes. "The guys refuse to eat a cupcake in front of one another," says Amanda Piccolo, Mazzone's director of business dining. There have been occasional other complaints -- one construction worked harrumphed to Piccolo that he had been unable to get eggs Benedict for breakfast for two whole weeks -- but The Foundry's customers seem to appreciate their cafeteria.
Growth in manufacturing
Manufacturing in New York is expected to grow in February, reports Kathleen Madigan at Wall Street Journal's Real Time Economics blog:
The Empire State’s business conditions index increased to 15.43 this month from 11.92 in January. Economists surveyed by Dow JonesNewswireshad expected a reading of 15.0 in February. Most of thesubindexesgave back gains posted in January. The orders index slipped to 11.80 in February from 12.39 last month, and shipments dropped to 11.31 from a high reading of 25.39 in January.
Kodak and Xerox
Venture capital firm Cody Gate Ventures will get $580,000 in sales tax exemptions from Monroe County's industrial development agency, reports Matt Daneman at the Democrat and Chronicle. Cody Gate is operating out of Kodak's Eastman Business Park and has promised to create more than 160 jobs in the next three years.
Meanwhile Kodak itself is facing stiff competition from Xerox in the high-volume production inkjet printing business. Daneman reports (again!) that:
Commercial inkjet printing is supposed to turn profitable for Kodak sometime in 2012, President Philip J. Faraci said earlier this month.
But on the horizon is competitor Xerox, with its new Production Inkjet System:
The ink, made at Xerox's Oregon campus, is based on resins and doesn't use water, eliminating the problem of ink soaking through cheaper papers. With the Production Inkjet System, the company is targeting printers who are looking to mix high volumes with the ability to personalize each piece — "producing massive numbers of custom print jobs," in the words of Eric Armour, president of the Graphic Communications Business Group. "Inkjet is definitely a huge opportunity," said Andy Slawetsky, president of Rochester print industry market research and product testing firm Industry Analysts Inc. "There are a lot of players in there — Xerox is a little late compared to them. But it's absolutely an area where they can grow."
Looking for work
Jobseekers at a fair in Buffalo had 33 employers to choose from on Tuesday, reports Vincent Sherry at the Buffalo News. The job fair was one sign of "a spring thaw in the hiring freeze:"
Companies at Tuesday's Career Fest job fair in Cheektowaga were decidedly in a hiring mode. And Home Depot is preparing to hire 250 part-time seasonal workers in the area. Thirty-three companies recruited applicants at the job fair in the Millennium Hotel, where more than 630 had registered by 12:30 p.m. Openings were predominantly in the areas of debt collection, sales and customer service. The health industry had a fair presence, too. "We are hiring for the remainder of the year," said Jessica Wisniewski, senior employment specialist at GEICO. "We have a building now that needs to be filled."
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