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With 60% of firms not yet at the planning stage, and the other 40% unaware of the problem, St. Louis has a problem. But so does every city, every town.
This is from the St. Louis BUSINESS JOURNAL (Dec. 1).
On the allocation of resources needed to complete a y2k repair project, see
California White Paper.
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. . . Tom Maddox, president and chief executive officer of TL Maddox Cos., an industrial manufacturers' representative, estimated 60 percent of businesses in the St. Louis area have not begun planning for the date change and 40 percent of the firms locally haven't even thought about the issue. He said those companies yet to deal with the problem are primarily small- to middle-sized firms, with sales between $10 million and $50 million annually.
"There are still some companies who believe someone -- the government, Bill Gates -- someone will step in to handle this. The longer they put this off, the higher the costs will go," Maddox said.
Most of the increase in costs comes from manpower. Computer programmers who used to earn $35,000 a year now can command $100,000 or more, if they are familiar with the codes that need to be rewritten to ensure systems work in 2000, Maddox said.
He said those programmers will be snatched up and less available for hire as the millennium approaches.
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