RALEIGH -- Workers' confidence in their employers is high, despite a down economy. In a recent national survey of hundreds of workers conducted by Capstrat and Public Policy Polling recently, 53 percent of respondents said they had "a lot of confidence" in their current employers.
When asked to rate current benefits, 79 percent of respondents said their company benefits are "very to somewhat good." Eighty-one percent reported "very good to good" morale at their company.
In addition to a strong benefits package, employees reported receiving fair salary increases, despite the rough economy and rumors of layoffs. Pay increases in the last nine months were judged "very to somewhat fair" by 49 percent of respondents.
Dean Debnam, president of Public Policy Polling, said he was surprised at the high level of confidence.
"That means the employers are doing some things right. They had to make some tough decisions in this economy, but communicated those decisions well to their employees," he said.
"Smart businesses work hard to retain talent even in a tough economy," said Ken Eudy, CEO of Capstrat CEO. "It's important for businesses to monitor the mood of their work forces and take appropriate steps to keep employees happy."
SiXis raises $3M from investors
DURHAM -- SiXis Inc., a company pioneering advanced Silicon Circuit Board technology in Durham, announced Tuesday it has raised $3 million of financing from its investors.
The start-up's existing investors, RTI International and venture capital firm Intersouth Partners, both participated in the round of financing. The investment will be used to support ongoing product development.
The company recently launched the SX2000 Reconfigurable Computing Platform, a scalable, high-performance platform designed to streamline and accelerate data-intensive applications.
RTI expands repair simulators
DURHAM -- RTI International is expanding its family of maintenance training simulators to improve soldiers' efficiency in doing repairs.
This effort was recently awarded to RTI by the U.S. Army Program Executive Office for Simulation, Training and Instrumentation in Orlando, Fla.
RTI will develop, produce and deliver full-scale, high-fidelity training simulators to train the soldiers who diagnose and repair problems with the latest variant of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle.
$100B bank failure estimate
WASHINGTON -- Regulators expect the cost of bank failures to grow to about $100 billion over the next four years -- up from an earlier estimate of $70 billion. Faced with that sobering news, they voted Tuesday to require banks to prepay $45 billion in premiums to replenish an insurance fund that will start running dry on Wednesday.
The proposal by the board of the FDIC to require early payments of premiums for 2010-2012 could take effect after a 30-day public comment period.
-- From staff, wire reports
