BLS DAILY REPORT, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1996 The three major federal economic data agencies face continued constraints and, in the case of the Census Bureau, deep spending cuts from what was requested for the new fiscal year. Officials at the three agencies -- Census, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics -- say they are running out of room to cut economic data programs without affecting data quality. There are also major worries, these officials said, when one of the agencies must cut programs or postpone the collection of data that are used by all of the agencies ....Census and BEA were treated quite differently in the omnibus spending bill. The new budget for Census is much lower than requested, while BEA was funded at virtually the same level as last year. BLS came out with a modest increase, most of which will go toward completion of the revision of the CPI. Also, BLS officials say there could be spending cuts this year related to a rescission that applies across the entire Labor Department ....BLS received a 5.5 percent increase in funding, which amounts to an $18.7 million rise to a total of $361.7 million for fiscal 1997, according to Katharine Newman, BLS financial manager. Newman said that $16 million of the increase is earmarked for the next phase of the CPI revision ....Also this year, BLS will continue with its part of the government-wide effort to complete and implement the North American Industrial Classification system. Newman said that agency officials are still working out how they will fund BLS's part of the NAIC and continue spending on other programs with the roughly $2.7 million in new money appropriated for this year that is not needed for the CPI revision (by Pam Ginsbach, Daily Labor Report, pages 2,A-5). The Labor Department says women tend to suffer more from corporate downsizing than men. It takes them longer to find new work, and the jobs they get are often part time with less pay, the Women's Bureau says. The agency found in a study that about 76 percent of women who lost full-time jobs in 1993 and 1994 had been re-employed by February 1996, compared with nearly 82 percent of men (Oct. 8, Wall Street Journal, "Work Week," page A1). Workplace fires last year claimed 200 lives, caused 5,000 injuries, and cost businesses $2.3 billion, says the Labor Department (Oct. 8, Wall Street Journal, "Work Week," page A1)_____Employers must protect workers from fires and explosions, which kill some 200 workers and injure another 5,000 each year, Labor Secretary Reich says in recognition of National Fire Prevention Week ....(Daily Labor Report, page A-10). Spot labor shortages and fewer merger-related layoffs helped make September the second lowest month for workforce reductions so far this year, according to a survey released by Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. Announced job cuts totaled 29,632 in September. While this was a 46 percent increase compared with August, it amounted to fewer planned layoffs than any other month in 1996 and was 10.7 percent less than in September 1995. Workforce reductions announced in August were the lowest since April 1995. Despite the relatively few job cuts announced in August and September, the number of workforce reductions for the year to date is 362,297, a 20 percent increase from the first nine months of 1995 ....(Oct. 8 editions: Daily Labor Report, pages 2,A-8;Washington Post, page D2). A U.S. and a British economist won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science for research about transactions in the real world, where not all players have the same information about costs and benefits of a deal. The winners were American William S. Vickrey, a professor emeritus at Columbia University, and Briton James A. Mirrlees of Cambridge University ....(Wall Street Journal, page A2,A22; Washington Post, page B11; New York Times, page D1). DUE OUT TOMORROW: Employer Costs for Employee Compensation -- March 1996
