BLS DAILY LABOR REPORT, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1997
RELEASED TODAY:
EMPLOYMENT SITUATION -- Employment rose in January, and the
unemployment rate was essentially unchanged at 5.4 percent. The
number of nonfarm payroll jobs rose by 271,000 in January, after
seasonal adjustment. Total employment rose by about 430,000 over the
month, after allowance is made for the effect of revised population
controls introduced into the survey in January ....
JEC STATEMENT -- Nonfarm payroll employment increased by 271,000 over
the month. A number of roughly offsetting special factors influenced
the payroll employment estimate ....
BLS reports the number of mass layoffs, pointing out that those
occurring in U.S. firms rose to a total of 947 events in the third
quarter of 1996, which is 5 percent higher than in the comparable
period of 1995 ....This relatively new data series -- which has grown
in fits and starts due to changing budget situations -- is part of
BLS's federal-state cooperative program ....An economist at the agency
said that BLS will soon publish October data, followed in short order
by figures for November and December. Once the agency has caught up
with the 1996 releases, it will plan for a regular schedule of monthly
releases, he said ....(Daily Labor Report, page D-3).
__The Federal Government's three main statistical agencies are
proposing major data improvement efforts that require new funding in
their budgets for fiscal 1998, officials announced Feb. 6.
Improvement initiatives at the Bureau of Economic Analysis and the
Census Bureau are focused on measures of output and prices that are
part of the national accounts, including the gross domestic product
....Proposals for new funding at BLS deal mainly with the CPI
....There is also proposed new money for implementing the newly
finalized North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS). In
an unusual move that preceded the official budget release by about a
week, BLS Commissioner Katharine Abraham announced Jan. 31 that the
agency will propose an additional $2.1 million in fiscal 1998 to
expand its Consumer Expenditure Survey and compile an alternative
inflation measure that would come closer to a true cost-of-living
index ....BLS said in documents released Feb. 6 that it is requesting
the additional $2.1 million "to speed up the process of updating the
CPI market basket, to improve methods of adjusting for quality change
in goods and services, and to produce supplementary measures of
changes in consumer prices that are regarded as providing closer
approximation to cost-of-living measures than the currently published
CPI" ....The CPI debate will continue next week when the Senate
Finance Committee is scheduled to hear testimony from Abraham, as well
as from a number of private economists and spokesmen for labor and
retiree groups on Feb. 11 (Daily Labor Report, page C-4).
__The Labor Department budget for 1998 shows an increase of $2.8
billion to $35.7 billion, with extra money sought largely for items
such as job training under the new welfare reform law, the need to
modernize the CPI, and a series of programmatic changes to make
several regulatory programs more "user friendly" for the industries
they regulate. Almost all of the 8.5 percent increase -- $2.4 billion
-- is earmarked for mandatory spending requirements ....(Washington
Post, page A21).
Many Europeans stand amazed at the American performance in creating
jobs -- at a rate of 2 million-plus a year -- with good growth and low
inflation thrown in, writes Stephen S. Rosenfeld on the op. ed. page
of the Washington Post.
The number of jobless German workers soared by nearly half a million
last month, to 4.66 million, an unexpectedly steep rise in what had
already been Germany's highest unemployment since World War II,
according to government data released today ....(The New York Times,
page D3; Wall Street Journal, page A14; Washington Times, page A15).
A survey by a Chicago outplacement firm shows poorer than expected
holiday sales among retailers helped make workforce reductions in
January the second largest in the past half year ....According to
Challenger, Gray and Christmas Inc., job cuts in the retail sector
accounted for more than one out of every five layoffs in January
....(Daily Labor Report, page A-2).
Unseasonably mild weather and post-Christmas clearance sales boost
retail sales in January, with the nation's leading chain stores
generally reporting solid, broad-bases gains during the month
....(Daily Labor Report, page A-3; New York Times, page D4; Wall
Street Journal, page B4)_____Retailers got a January sales lift from
milder weather and a tax-free shopping week in New York State
....(Washington Post, page G1; USA Today, page 1B).
The Employment and Training Administration of the Department of Labor
reports that new claims filed with the states agencies fell 12,000 to
a seasonally adjusted total of 325,000 during the week ended Feb. 1
....(Daily Labor Report, page D-1; USA Today, page 1B)_____The number
of people laid-off was the biggest drop in three weeks ....(New York
Times, page D17; Wall Street Journal, page A2).
