PhillyDeals: Malvern exec offers a tip on increased hiring

President Obama, Gov. Corbett, and the rest of our elected leaders talk a lot about putting Americans back to work.

As chief executive of Fujirebio Diagnostics Inc., which makes heart monitors at its Malvern  plant, Paul Touhey actually does something about jobs: He hires people.

"We have grown this business from $30 million in revenue in 2004" to more than $100 million, and it's nicely profitable, he told me. "We had 55 employees in 1998 and now have 250, with 175 here at our headquarters in Malvern, where we manufacture blood tests for cancer."

Touhey wishes the politicians would take less money from his company - and give away less to other profitable corporations - so he can hire more people.

He contacted me after Wednesday's column, where I noted Corbett approved a $2.5 million grant for Teva Pharmaceuticals' new monster warehouse in Northeast Philadelphia after the Israel-based company posted profits of $1.2 billion for the last four quarters.

"Why did the governor feel compelled to sweeten the pot" for such a profitable company? Touhey asked.

I told him I asked Corbett that same question after he promised stock-and-bond broker Janney Montgomery Scott $11.5 million for moving its headquarters across Market Street a couple of weeks ago.

"That's what makes this country great: We're not afraid to compete," Corbett told me.

If Pennsylvania didn't compete by giving away more taxpayer cash than New Jersey or Delaware, "we'd grow fat and lazy," said Corbett, who claims a top priority: "Grow jobs, jobs, jobs."

By giving companies money, Corbett added, "we are making Pennsylvania a business-friendly state."

Touhey, a onetime Johnson & Johnson manager who joined Fujirebio's predecessor back in 1985, wasn't convinced.

Fujirebio pays 35 percent of its profits as income taxes. "We have never received corporate welfare," Touhey said. "We have never even applied for any."

It's bad enough, Touhey said, that Pennsylvania is giving away money to other businesses.

Touhey must cope with a provision in Obama's health-care law (he calls it "Obamacare") that singles out the medical-device industry for a special tax: "Next year, we, along with every other medical-device company, need to plan for paying the federal government an additional 2.3 percent [of sales]," Touhey said.

"To pay for this, we will not lay anyone off. That's not how we operate. We will have to cut R&D and other expenses," and slow hiring, Touhey said.

If government really saw private-sector jobs as its priority, it would take less money from job creators - and give less away to companies that don't look too needy, Touhey reasoned.

Texas-based Focus Brands Inc. says it plans to open 30 new Schlotzsky's sandwich restaurants, each with a Cinnabon bakery and Carvel ice cream franchise attached, in Philadelphia, Trenton, and their suburbs, in mass-transit stations and other locations, starting after Jan. 1.

Schlotzsky's, based in Austin, plans to hire more than 1,000 employees, or about 40 per site, president Kelly Roddy told me in an e-mail note.

Prayosha Philly L.L.C., which operates local doughnut shops and motels, along with several of Focus' Moe's Southwest Grill restaurants, will operate the new Schlotzsky's. Prayosha is run by Chirag Patel   .

The Fight for Philly coalition, which claims support from the union-backed Jobs with Justice and Philadelphia Unemployment Project labor-advocacy groups, along with church and women's organizations, plans a Thursday afternoon rush-hour march that organizers say will collect hundreds of people at the Occupy Philly tent camp at Dilworth Plaza. They plan to walk past the financial and law firms on Market Street West toward the Schuylkill bridge. It begins at 4 p.m.