BLS DAILY REPORT, MONDAY, JULY 28, 1997: Retirement plans for full-time employees in medium and large establishments are moving away from defined benefits and toward defined contributions, BLS reports. In 1995, 80 percent of the full-time employees of establishments with 100 or more employees participated in one or more retirement income plans, a slight increase from the 78 percent reported in 1993. The survey is available on the Internet at ftp://stats.bls.gov/pub/special requests/ocwc/ebs/ebnr0003.txt (Daily Labor Report, page D-3). Wall Street's mercurial climb will be tested this week by an onslaught of critical economic data and earnings reports. Due Tuesday, the second-quarter employment cost index and the consumer confidence index for July. Due Wednesday, second-quarter gross domestic product growth. Due Friday, the July employment report, and the National Association of Purchasing Management report (USA Today, page B1).__The Wall Street Journal's feature "Tracking the Economy" (page A4) says that the Technical Data Consensus Forecast for the employment cost index, second quarter, to be released Tuesday is 0.7 percent, in contrast to the 0.6 percent figure of the previous quarter. About 6,500 people died of workplace injuries and another 60,000 died of work-related disease in 1992, costing an estimated $171 billion, say researchers at San Jose State University and Stanford University. The study, in today's Archives of Internal Medicine, uses data compiled by government agencies to estimate the costs of occupational injuries to estimate the costs of occupational injuries and illnesses in the U.S. Deaths from occupational illnesses include 6 to 10 percent of cancers, 5 to 10 percent of health and cerebrovascular disease, and 10 percent of lung disease. Most deaths from injuries (40 percent) were caused by transportation accidents, followed by violence (20 percent) and falls (10 percent) (USA Today, page D1)., New orders for manufactured durable goods rose 2.3 percent in June, boosted by a surge in aircraft orders, data released by the Commece Department show (Daily Labor Report, page D-1). __The New York Times (July 26, page 26) combines the data on manufactured durable goods with a separate report that shows that home resales fell 2.6 percent in June. A decline in health insurance for private employees between 1980 and 1995 was mostly due to its rising cost, GAO says in a new report. Despite a strong economy and employment growth, GAO found, private health coverage slowly but steadily declined during that period for the under-age-65 population, from 79.5 percent to 70.5 percent (Daily Labor Report, page A-7). Employees can expect modest salary increases next year, as employers lean toward variable pay programs that emphasize productivity, according to preliminary results of a compensation survey by William M. Mercer, Inc. Employers told Mercer, a human resource management consulting firm, that they project salary increases of about 4.2 percent in 1998, an amount unchanged from this year's increases and close to levels of the last several years (Daily Labor Report, page A-6). When the enormous baby boom generation enters retirement, the labor force will grow more slowly, limiting economic growth, a panel sponsored by the Senate Special Committee on Aging says. Some boomers also will lack the financial resources to retire, and panel members recommended encouraging workers to retire later as a solution to both problems (Daily Labor Report, page A-9). Generally agreeing with proposed changes in the government's race and ethnic categories, key members of Congress and civil rights leaders say they are concerned how federal agencies will tabulate and use the data that will be collected after new guidelines are issued this fall. A hearing by the House Government Reform Subcommittee on Government Management, Information, and Technology, was the first public forum on race and ethnic standards since the release of recommendations by an interagency committee that completed a 4-year review of the issue (Daily Labor Report, page A-13).
