Other users of our products include farmers, truckers, railroads, oil exploration, production and refining companies, mining companies, federal, state and Fastener Supplier near Des Moines IA. My opinion is that Fastenal works very well, as best as it can in this environment. So the last two are the culprits. Exchange rate fluctuations only affected Fastenal's growth by 1.1%, so it didn't represent a significant drop due to the weakness of the Canadian dollar. However, Fastenal's U.S.
customers account for 89% of sales, and many of those customers are affected by the strength of the U.S. dollar. Therefore, I think Fastenal is likely to be much more indirectly affected by the strength of the U.S. dollar than directly as a result of its operations in Canada.
Fastenal closed April with a total workforce of 24,155 people, 0.1% less than in March and 1.8% more than compared to the same period of the previous year. The full-time sales workforce of 21,271 people decreased by 0.3% compared to March, but it increased by 1.1 per cent year-on-year. Fastenal mentioned that, while they are constantly adding new national accounts (large customers), 44 of their 100 largest customers are reducing their spending on Fastenal products, many of them because they are seeing a significant decrease in revenues in their respective businesses and, therefore, it is necessary to reduce the spending belt. Fortunately for Fastenal, selling fasteners is a difficult business because it's difficult (expensive and time-consuming) for customers to change their relationships with suppliers.
