Refer to the HR Reports in the Inquirer. Through past investments in recruiting and training Chester has obtained a productivity index of 109.4%. This means that Chester's labor costs would be increased by 9.4% if it did not have these productivity improvements. This is a competitive advantage that Chester can sustain or even widen further if its competitors have no HR initiatives. Now, refer to the Income Statement in Chester's Annual Report. How much did Chester's productivity improvements save it in direct labor costs (in thousands) last year?

Which of the following statements is not correct? the stock of publicly owned companies must generally be registered with and reported to a regulatory agency such as the sec. when stock in a closely held corporation is offered to the public for the first time, the transaction is called "going public, or an ipo," and the market for such stock is called the new issue or ipo market. "going public" establishes a firm's true intrinsic value and ensures that a liquid market will always exist for the firm's shares. if you wanted to know what rate of return stocks have provided in the past, you could examine data on the dow jones industrial index, the s& p 500 index, or the nasdaq index.