BLS DAILY REPORT, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 19, 2000
RELEASED TODAY: Median weekly earnings of the nation's 98.2 million
full-time wage and salary workers were $575 in the first quarter of 2000.
This was 6.9 percent higher than a year earlier, compared with a gain of 3.2
percent in the CPI-U over the same period. Data on usual earnings are
collected as part of the Current Population Survey, a nationwide sample
survey of households in which respondents are asked, among other things, how
much each wage and salary worker usually earns. ...
U.S. employers laid off 103,898 workers in 1,045 mass layoff actions in
February, BLS reports. The number of layoff events was less than that
reported one year earlier, but more workers were affected. In February
1999, the Labor Department reported 1,067 events with 89,800 workers laid
off. ... (Daily Labor Report, page D-5).
A plunge in multifamily starts knocked housing starts down 11.2 percent in
March, the largest monthly decrease in more than 6 years, the Commerce
Department says. ... The decrease was the biggest since January 1994, when
weather was blamed for a 17 percent drop. ... (Daily Labor Report, page
D-1)_____Housing starts plunged, but the decline was attributed entirely to
a slowdown in construction of apartments and other multifamily housing,
while single-family housing starts were unchanged. ... (New York Times,
page C5)_____The decline doesn't mean that the housing market is cooling.
Economists were quick to note that the entire drop off in starts and much of
the decline in permits was in the multifamily sector, which includes
apartments and units in buildings with five or more dwellings. Multifamily
starts fell 40.9 percent, the first decline since October of last year. ...
(Wall Street Journal, page A2)_____In what may be only the faintest
indication that higher interest rates are starting to bite, housing starts
-- one of the most interest-rate sensitive sectors of the economy -- fell
11.2 percent in March. While it was the largest overall decline in 6 years,
most of the slowdown came in the construction of multifamily dwellings, a
notoriously volatile part of the index. As a result, the report is unlikely
to dissuade Federal Reserve policymakers from raising interest rates another
quarter point when they next meet May 16. One reason: Single family
starts, which the Fed watches closely, were still strong at 1.3 million
units -- a 0.2 percent increase over last month. Outside of housing, there
are few concrete signs the economy is slowing. Consumer spending, which is
fueling growth, likely grew at an annual rate of 6 percent or better last
quarter, after growing at a 5.9 percent rate at the end of 1999. Those
numbers play into the Fed's fears that roaring demand will make an already
tight labor market even tighter and spark inflation. ... (USA Today, page
3B).
The number of hours Americans work in a typical work week, according to a
survey by the Center for Survey Research and Analysis at the University of
Connecticut: 35 percent worked 40 hours, 12 percent worked 41-45 hours, 16
percent worked 46-50 hours, 18 percent worked 51 hours or more, 10 percent
worked 30-39 hours, and 10 percent worked 1-29 hours (USA Today, page 1A).
DUE OUT TOMORROW: Lost-Worktime Injuries and Illnesses: Characteristics
and Resulting Time Away from Work, 1998
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