What We're Hearing

In my weekend column I mentioned that no publicly traded companies are issuing press releases stating that they are actually hiring workers. Well, Jim Sykes of Assurant Specialty Property of Florence, S.C., has called me on the carpet. (ASP, among other things, provides hazard and flood insurance tracking.) Jim says back in December ASP, a subsidiary of the publicly traded Assurant (which sells specialized insurance products), issued a release saying its Florence center planned to hire up to 100 additional employees. The office is the third largest of ASP's five hazard insurance service centers. He said at year-end Florence had 677 workers, a gain of 84 from year-end 2007. He said the Florence location is still hiring but also noted that the employment numbers "include temps, since we do a lot of temp to perm hiring"…