BLS DAILY REPORT, WEDNESDAY, MAY 28, 1997 RELEASED TODAY: State unemployment rates were generally unchanged in April, as 40 states reported changes of 0.3 percentage point or less in either direction from March. The national jobless rate declined to 4.9 percent from 5.2 percent in March. Nonfarm payroll employment increased in 31 states over the month .... BLS Commissioner Abraham tells BNA that the agency is prepared to start testing a new sampling method for the monthly payroll employment survey in July. BLS is also considering changes in its measure of earnings, she says. Abraham says that, unlike when the bureau changed its household employment survey in 1994, this major change in the payroll survey should not create comparability problems with data from the current survey design. "It shouldn't really be the same sort of issue because the payroll data are benchmarked," Abraham says. BLS will formally announce the details of its plan to switch the payroll survey from the current large sample survey to what economists call a "probability sample" on June 6 ....(Daily Labor Report, page AA-1). Consumer confidence soared nearly 9 percentage points in May to its highest level in 28 years, the Conference Board reports.The representative sample survey of 5,000 households found that consumers are confident about future economic growth. Nearly 19 percent expect business conditions to improve over the next 6 months, up from 16 percent in April. Nearly 18 percent predict more jobs will open up, compared with 14.5 percent in April ....(Daily Labor Report, page A11; Washington Post, page D7: New York Times, page D2; Wall Street Journal, page A2). The National Association of Business Economists forecast that economic growth for the remainder of this year will slow to a modest 2 percent rate while inflation remains under 3 percent ....(Daily Labor Report, page A11). "The Surprising Longevity of Lifetime Employment" was an article in Sunday's New York Times (page F11) ....In 1996, nearly half of all American workers aged 45 to 54 had worked for their employer for 10 years or more, according to BLS. One-fifth of those in that age group had been with the same employer for 20 or more years. And among those 55 to 64 years old, nearly one-third had worked 20 or more years for the same employer ....The oft-quoted maxim is that the average worker can expect to change employers six or seven times before retiring. But most of that upheaval occurs in the early years of a career, according to Jonathan Veum, an economist at BLS. The agency reported that, in 1992, workers held an average of 7.5 jobs between the ages of 18 and 30. That average includes all paid work of any duration, like summer jobs during college. Job-hopping, Mr. Veum said, is most intense for people in their 20's, when many workers are single, childless, and willing to play musical jobs, so they can land one that is a perfect fit. "You slow down as you get older, and you don't have quite as much mobility between jobs," Mr. Veum said. "As you age, most of your mobility occurs within one company" .... In an op-ed column (Washington Post), Robert J. Samuelson asks "Is Inflation Really Dead?" He says that the reason he suspects there's more inflation is a change in the way companies price their products. In a word: discounts. They mushroomed in the 1980s and 1990s, but most are missed by government price statistics ....The inability of the CPI and other price indexes to capture many of the discounts is one reason why they generally overstate inflation ....But in a strong economy, companies may quietly trim discounts -- that is, increase prices. Then the price statistics will miss rising inflation. In the past few years, Samuelson thinks, precisely this has happened ....
