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BLS Daily Report, Monday, November 10, 1997
RELEASED TODAY: The number of persons who worked at some time during
the year increased by more than 2 million in 1996 to 141.4 million,
according to data from the annual survey of work experience. At the
same time, the number who experienced some unemployment declined by 1.3
million to 16.8 million ....
Nonfarm payroll employment grew by a seasonally adjusted 284,000 in
October, and the jobless rate fell to a 24-year low of 4.7 percent, the
Labor Department reports. The BLS payroll survey showed stronger and
more widespread job growth than most analysts anticipated. Factory
employment shot up by 54,000 in October, the largest monthly gain in
manufacturing payrolls since February 1990. A further tightening of
labor markets, an uptick in average hourly earnings, an unemployment
rate that fell from 4.9 percent, and increased financial instability in
Asia shake U.S. financial markets ....Some analysts said residual
effects from the latest minimum wage increase contributed to the
upswing. But Philip Rones, BLS assistant commissioner for current
employment analysis, dismissed this supposition ...."The effect is to
increase average earnings a penny or two," Rones said. "There may be a
small residual effect, but earnings increased in a lot of industries
where there aren't a lot of minimum wage workers" ...."While many
industries participated in October's rise, half the gain occurred in
just two industries - industrial machinery ... and transportation
equipment ....," said BLS Commissioner Katharine Abraham, at a JEC
hearing ...(Daily Labor Report, pages D-1, E-1)_____U.S. jobless rate at
24-year low; inflation feared. Economic report helps to put stocks in a
skid ....(Washington Post, Nov. 8, page A1)_____U.S. jobless rate
declines to 4.7 percent, lowest since 1973. Payrolls rise by 284,000.
Hourly wages continue climb. Strong labor data stir worries of
inflation ....(New York Times, Nov. 8, page A1)_____The decline in the
unemployment rate lends credence to Alan Greenspan's concern that the
economy's breakneck growth rate has resulted in a dearth of employable
adults ....(Wall Street Journal, page A2).
The Federal Reserve agrees with the Boskin Commission's conclusion that
the consumer price index is overstated by about one percentage point,
Fed chairman Alan Greenspan said in Frankfurt, Germany, where he was
addressing the Center for Financial Studies. About half of the
overstatement, he said, was due to insufficient adjustment for quality
improvement and new products, and the other half to the way individual
prices were figured in the overall mix. Greenspan said Fed economists
have "corroborating evidence of price mismeasurement" by looking at
sectors that interrelate in the economy. He cited "implausibly weak"
growth of output and productivity in the service sector ....(Daily Labor
Report, page A-4).
The White House and Republican congressional leaders put the finishing
touches on a politically sensitive compromise for conducting the year
2000 census that would allow the administration to experiment with
statistical sampling to achieve a more accurate count, but give
Republicans ample time and resources to challenge the work in court
.....(Washington Post, page A4).
Increasing numbers of Americans are choosing not to buy health insurance
even when their employers offer it, according to a study that sheds new
light on why the ranks of the uninsured have been swelling in recent
years. The study, published in today's issue of the journal Health
Affairs, shows that the number of people who turned down their
employers' health plans more than doubled over the past decade, from 2.6
million in 1987 to 6 million last year. That trend
has emerged even as the proportion of workers who are offered insurance
through their jobs has increased ....The study was done by economists at
the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, HHS ....(Washington
Post, page A12; Wall Street Journal, page B2)_____Poor workers turning
down employers' health benefits. More Americans than ever are being
offered health insurance through their jobs. Even so, more and more
workers, especially those who earn low wages, are declining to take the
benefit ....(New York Times, page A24).
The Wall Street Journal's feature "Tracking the Economy" (page A4) shows
the Technical Data Consensus Forecast for nonfarm productivity, third
quarter, due to be released Thursday, increasing 3.0 percent in
comparison with the previous quarter's rise of 2.7 percent. The
Producer Price Index for October, to be released Friday, is predicted
to be up 0.1 percent, in contrast to rising 0.5 percent in September.
The U.S. unemployment rate seems likely to continue to hurt temporary
staffing agencies, as these companies find it even harder to recruit
workers. A strong U.S. economy is fueling demand for labor at a time
when low unemployment is shrinking the labor pool ....(Wall Street
Journal, page B7D).
Necessity and uncertainty drive many to take multiple jobs, says The
Washington Post (Nov. 9, page H5). For some workers, fearful of
corporate or government downsizing, moonlighting is one way of hedging
their bets ....In September, slightly more than 7.8 million workers,
representing 6 percent of the work force, had two jobs, according to
BLS. And the percentage of employees with two jobs rose from 5.9
percent in 1994 to 6.2 percent in 1996. Of the nearly 8 million people
holding down two jobs, 238,000 work full time at both positions.
Several factors - including stagnating wages, a decade of downsizing,
and rising family expenses - are behind the phenomenon, workplace
experts say ....
The economy, which has been chugging along without driving salaries and
wages exorbitantly higher, is expected to remain on that path next year,
according to William M. Mercer, a management consultancy that's been
looking at planned white-collar salary increases for 1997. Mercer
surveyed 1,600 companies and found that executives are likely to get an
average 4.3 percent raise, while managers and professionals can expect
an average 4.2 percent increase. Employees in clerical, administrative,
and technical positions can look forward to an average 4.1 increase
(Washington Post, Nov. 9, page H5).
DUE OUT WEDNESDAY: Mass Layoffs in August 1997
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