Tax hikes and Government Spending cuts set to start next year, why arent more firms postponing hiring decisions . What were hearing from businesses is that it is really hard to actually pull back hiring right now, because theyve already fired so many workers, gotten so lean that its really difficult. Reporter but not all the surprises in the report were good. At 7. 7 , the Unemployment Rate hit its lowest level since december 2008. But that was mostly due to people giving up their search for work. And theres another disappointing trend, weak wage growth. What we are not seeing is strong income generation. The slowing in wage gains the weak Bargaining Power of labor comes across in this report and reporter so although the labor market is not getting worse, its not getting a lot better, either. And there are plenty of risks that could cause businesses to cancel projects, and hiring plans. Clearly one of the biggest risks is that we dont see a deal on the fiscal cliff, or that they drag it out over a number of months. And that that really erodes confidence. Reporter against that backdrop, the Federal Reserve is trying to do all it can to help the economy. The central bank is widely expected to announce an extension of its Bond Buying Program when it meets next week. Erika miller, n. B. R. , new york. Tom with the fiscal cliff about three weeks away, washington hasnt made much progress to avoid it. That was the assessment from one of those directly involved House Speaker john boehner. The Top Republican today accused president obama of, slow walking, the economy to the edge of the cliff. He repeated his call for the president to send congress a plan that can pass both houses of congress. Tax rates are the major sticking point. The president wants to raise them for americas highest earners, House Republicans strongly oppose instead of reforming the tax code and cutting spending, the president wants to raise tax rates. But even if the president got the tax rate hike that he wanted, understand that we would continue to see trillion dollar deficits for as far as the eye can see. Washingtons got a spending problem, not a revenue problem. Tom congress and the president have 24 days to reach a deal, before the fiscal cliffs tax hikes and spending cuts take effect. Susie mark zandi says bad things will happen to the economy pretty fast if lawmakers dont settle the fiscal cliff issue. Hes chief economist of moodys analytics. So mark falling off the fiscal cliff means bad things. How bad . It could be quite bad, susie. I dont think its if we get into january and we havent settled this but if house makers havent nailed this down by early february, i think stock investors, Bond Investors will start to get very very nervous, start selling, risky businesses pull back and by the end of february when we start approaching the ceiling for the debt limit, i think well be back in recession. It will be a fairly severe recession. So policy makers have a few weeks but not much more than that. They have to get this together. Susie some people are saying that todays jobs report is very encouraging and that you can look at this as a way that maybe the economy can handle some stuff belt tightening because things are looking a little bit better. How do you think the various parties, republican and democrats will handle this jobs report in their fiscal cliff negotiations . Well, you know, youre right. Some folks look at this and say the economys strong enough. It should be able to digest big tax increases spending cuts. Others look at it and say look we still have a very high Unemployment Rate, a long way to go to get back to full employment. The economy cant tolerate big tax increases and spending cuts. Most political debates the reality is in between. We do need to address our fiscal problem so we do need to go through some spending cuts and we also need some tax revenue increases. But we have to phase it in over time, otherwise the economy will choke on that. We cant have too much restraint too quickly. So we have to phase this in, smooth it in to make it palpable for the economy. Susie until that happens, there is a lot of anxiety in the labor market. The big fear for many individuals and for investors is that companies are going to start laying off workers. We saw this week that cities have announced 11,000 job cuts, is this the beginning of a trend, mark. No, susie, i dont think so. If washington can reasonably address the fiscal issues and im still confident that they will ultimately get it together. There will be a fair amount of but at the end of the day theyll get it together. If theyre able to do that when we get into next spring, i do think were going into much better shape. Businesses will get it back and certainly investor will be happy about that. By this Time Next Year i think we should see a much better job market because the housing whichs already starting to turn should be in full swing. So no, i dont think businesses are going to pull back. The only reason they would is if washington completely because this. At this point i dont think thats going to happen. Susie how do you think the Federal Reserve is going to read in todays jobs report. Theyre meeting on tuesday as you know. Do you think its going to trigger any new response from the fed . Well, as you know the feds on high alert. Theyve got their foot to the accelerator. Theyre using open ended buying bonds and theyre going to up the ante i think at the next meeting in the coming week. Operation twist ends and theyre going to start rolling that into this quantitative even process. So a lot of bond purchases. I think theyre going to continue to do that until unemployment is moving definitively lower and is much lower than it is today. And most importantly, theyre going to wait and see how these things go in washington. Theyre very nervous that policy makers arent going to get this right. So as long as washingtons bitter i think theyre going to be in high alert. Susie thanks a lot mark, great talking about you. Weve been speaking with mark zandi, analytic. Tom still ahead, slow job growth doesnt discourage tonights market monitor. Mark luchini of Janney Montgomery scott tells us why. That upbeat job growth in november didnt lead to consumer cheer as december began. The reutersuniversity of Michigan ConsumerSentiment Survey fell in early december to its lowest level since august. The dow rose 81 points, the nasdaq was down 11 on further losses in apple shares, the s p up four points. A mixed week for the indices, the dow industrials, which does not include apple, gained 1 for the week. With apple, the nasdaq fell 1. 1 . And the s p 500 eeked out a 0. 01 gain since last friday. Susie one hundred of the Small Businesses behind the job growth were seeing, were honored last night in washington, with Inc Magazines hire power awards. The businesses span the country, and cross an array of sectors. Sylvia hall met with three of the winners to talk about their businesses, and the one thing they have in common success. Reporter they work in different states, and in completely different fields. But together, these c. E. O. S have added more than 1,500 jobs to the nations economy over the past three years. This is mike derheim, who heads a minnesota tech firm; sharon virts mozer, whose virginia based company runs administration for the federal government, and Karl Schledwitz of memphis, whos turned jerky and hot dogs into opportunity. Seems to be i kind of a mature business. How do you find growth there. The actual space is growing. There are snacks, beef jerky really started growing with the atkins diet craze. Its probably quadrupled in the last two years. Weve been able to grow by buying under utilized manufacturing facilities and centralizing the back office and putting robust sales operation together filling up the plants. And that creates employment and creates more profitability. Its no different than an Office Building or a shopping center. If its half empty it doesnt do very well cash flow wise but you take that same exact building and fill it up and it cash flows. You work with the federal government. Again, not exactly what one would consider a growth market. How have you been able to find growth. We found that the demand is going up to space and how the economys going and the fact that people want to be here in the u. S. Weve also found growth through process and our process takes what i call collaborative work forces methodology in a Training Program that allows them to accomplish great things. Tell me just a little bit about this process. We hire typically high school graduates. And we bring them in and we assess their skills and their training and what they have to offer. We put them through a Training Program to train them towards a task or particular set of tasks. 100 nerves in 100 days. Where did you get to the point where you were on this nerd drive. How did you get here and how is the drive going. We started in november with 100 nerds and 100 day modeled after a pbs member drive. And the deal is that if you were known to us and you get an interview we send you a hundred bucks. If we end up hiring the person we send you another 400 bucks and were trying to get to a hundred nerds in as many days. I think right now weve had about 900 applications submitted and weve hired 189 people. People 189 people. Whats the challenge for you specifically in hiring the people. The last i check the Unemployment Ratexd for i. T. People im looking for is Something Like half of the national average. So above all there just arent enough people who are out there looking for jobs. I just wanted to open it up and ask if hiring is a challenge [indiscernible] as a result credit issues come up. So finding folks that have the right attitude with good credit particularly since we have a market or set of work force that often times they are suffering in a poor economy and they do need those jobs but they have credit issues. Thats our biggest challenge but for the most part, we have no problems in recruiting this particular market with unemployment as high as its been. I wish we had that problem. Were exactly the opposite. Were struggling all the time to figure out new ways toqreplyina. Just a different worker i guess but its different. I wanted to go around and ask this about your Growth Prospects for the next year. We hope to have more acquisitions this year and continue to add to the plants that were operating in. So i dont, without an acquisition, it would be 1015 growth. Were looking to grow by at least 500 if not 600 jobs by the end of 2013. We are planning 25 a year Revenue Growth for 2013. So were definitely planning continuing to grow aggressively and organically. Thank you all so much and congratulations on your awards. Thank you. Susie calling it a robust investment in the region, the white house today said president obama would ask congress for 60. 4 billion in aid for states impacted by Hurricane Sandy. Still that was less than the 82 billion the states wanted for rebuilding. Millions of homeowners and businesses that were in the path of Hurricane Sandy are waiting for checks as the long rebuilding effort begins. Ruben ramirez spent a day with an Insurance Claim adjuster touring one of the hardest hit areas. Reporter its the calm after the storm. Empty streets. Houses ripped from foundations. Boats sandwiched between homes. Remnants of the famous jersey shore boardwalk. What makes this storm different is the large amounts of sand that it brought with it. Thats how it was different than katrina. The sand is bad. Reporter karl new is one of about 30 claims adjusters american modern insurance dispatched to new jersey, new york, and connecticut. For the Barrier Island off the coast of new jersey, it was north of the eye of the storm but think of it like a windmill spinning counterclockwise. Seaside was hit with a 37 foot wall wave so that a pretty big wall that was coming in so that a lot of power. Thats crashing in here and all that force. Its brining sand. Its bringing all that water in. Reporter it wasnt until nearly a month later that Insurance Adjusters were allowed on the island to asses the damage. The l shape everything is going down from the weight of the sand that was pushing it and the water that was pushing it out. It pushed his neighbors shed completely into the side of his house. He had 5 1 2 feet of water inside his house so everything on the first floor needs to be completely gutted. Reporter john marchettis house sits just two doors closer to the beach. I do have Homeowners Insurance and flood. Homeowners doesnt cover very much. Everything from the sky is homeowners and everything from the bottom is flood. Obviously everything here is flood. Reporter marchettis insurer, n. J. M. Will take a loss of more than 300 million from sandy, four times what it paid out from irene last year. Industry estimates put the total amount of damage from Superstorm Sandy at 50 billion. Insurance companies are expected to pick up between 10 20 billion of that. That puts Superstorm Sandy at the top of the list ahead of hurricanes ike, ivan, and irene. Monday we will look at why rebuilding from sandy is so expensive thanks to where she came ashore. Ruben ramirez, seaside heights, new jersey. Back here on wall street, tom, some interesting revolutions from netflix today saying it got a wells notice and being investigated by the securities and exchange commission. Behind it is a very interesting debate going on. The reason for the investigation is that the ceo Reid Hastings had posted some information on his Facebook Page about developments at the company and the fec said you didnt disclose this property, should have been a press release or filing with the sec and raises new questions about social media and fair disclosure. Tom this is all about how technology is changing and regulations have a hard time susie keeping up with it. We see it with High Frequency trading for instance and how companies disseminate information using social media getting it out argue me to more people faster than what a Traditional Press release or sec filing. So well have to see how this one plays out. That stock did not move much today on the notice although we did have plenty other movement. Lets get going with our market focus here. As we saw the influence of apple that it can have on the broad market really continue today. The jobs data helped the s p 500 start in the green but the early gains disappeared as apple shares sank. The index was able to climb positive in the afternoon to finish up a 0. 03 . Trading volume slowed. 605 million on the big board. 1. 6 billion on the nasdaq. The materials and financials gained 0. 08 . The Energy Sector was up 0. 07 . Technology was the big drag, thanks once again to apple. Over the past week apple has gone from almost 600 per share to 533, down about 9 . With the selloff apple is about 8 above its most recent low from midnovember. There are several theories behind apples stock drop profit taking, disappointment over no special dividend, and more fundamental concerns about its business growth. Two other big techs under some pressure today. Microsoft fell 1 . Its just pennies above its low for the year. Cisco systems fell 0. 07 . The firm repeated today its previous Earnings Growth forecast. Big banks were on the upswing with the further improvement in the job market, and ahead of next weeks Federal Reserve meeting as expectations build for more economic help. J. P. Morgan jumped 2. 6 , its highest price since early november. Bank of america added another 1. 8 to an 18 month high. A big Global Energy deal is one step closer tonight. Late today canada okayed the buyout of nexen energy by Chinese Energy giant cnooc. This is a 15. 3 billion deal, representing another foreign expansion of a Chinese Energy company. Canadas ministry of industry said cnooc agreed to free market principles. The buyout offer for nexen came in july. In todays regular session, nexen was heavily traded as they fell 6. 6 . But after the canadian okay, they jumped more than 14. 5 in extended hours trading, to almost 27 per share. U. S. And british regulators still have to approve the deal. Two years ago google offered six billion to buy daily deal website groupon before it went public. Groupons market value is half that tonight and bloomberg reports theres takeover speculation. The stock jumped 23 today. Volume more than doubled. Some of the buying also could be from traders who sold short the stock to profit as it was falling. Four of the top five most actively traded Exchange Traded products were higher. The lone holdout was the nasdaq 100 tracking fund, which includes apple. The fund was down 0. 06 . And thats tonights market focus. Tall tom dow growth is one reason tonights market monitor thinks the economy will pick up speed next year and so will stocks. Mark luschini back with us at Janney Montgomery scott. The job market we saw today improving in the last month but still slow, do you think its going to pick up the pace of that improvement next year and why. Well we do, tom. The fact of the matter is weve been seeing steady spectacular job growth for the better part of 2012. Job g