BLS DAILY REPORT, TUESDAY, MARCH 31, 1998:
Sales of new homes soared to a record high in February,
as the robust economy, low mortgage rates, and warm weather enticed
throngs of buyers. Single-family home sales rose 4.8 percent, to a
seasonally adjusted annual rate of 893,000 units last month, after a
revised 5.2 percent gain in January, the Commerce Department said.
February's annual rated was the highest on record, surpassing the
previous high of 880,000 set in March 1996 (The Washington Post, page
E1). __Unseasonably warm weather helped to spur U.S. new home sales to
a record pace in February (The Wall Street Journal, page A2).
The rise in home sales indicates that inflation may
quicken, says The Washington Post (page E2). Inflation could push the
Fed to raise lending rates, and higher interest rates are bad for banks,
which borrow money to conduct business.
A new generation enters the intense, often confusing,
world of day sleeping and 3 a.m. lunch breaks, says "Work Week" column
(page 1, The Wall Street Journal). Nearly 3.2 million people work full
time "graveyard" shifts, BLS reported last week, up slightly from three
million in 1991.
And demographics are shifting: night workers are
increasingly likely to be under 25 years old and white collar. "It's a
changing, silent work force," says a shift work consultant with
Interface: Work/Family, St. Paul, Minn. Most likely to work nights:
police and security guards, says BLS. Least likely: construction
workers.
OPEC agreed to cut total crude-oil production by 1.25
million barrels a day, after an 8-hour meeting that yielded specific
pledges about how much each country will now produce (The Wall Street
Journal, page A2).
__The price of crude oil fell 55 cents to $16.21 a
barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, despite Monday's meeting
where the OPEC ministers from the 11 nation group ratified the cuts.
Experts predict the price will fall again today, on disappointment that
OPEC isn't doing more to cut supplies (USA Today, page 1).
Manufacturing executives expect modest business growth
through May, while construction executives see demand for housing
remaining strong, according to Dun & Bradstreet Corp.'s latest monthly
surveys. The Murray Hill, N.J. based information services company's
February survey of 1,000 manufacturing executives found that production
and new orders are expected to increase. "Fallout from Asia's debt
crisis thus far appears not to have hurt the U.S. manufacturing sector
as significantly as many had been predicting, and a major reason is
continued strong domestic demand," says the chief economic adviser to
D&B (The Wall Street Journal, page A4).
The demand for high tech employees is so strong that
"candidates we have already placed in new positions are receiving
counteroffers from their current employers, as well as additional offers
from other companies - even after they have started work for our
clients," says the chief executive officer of a company that recruits
and places computer engineers, programmers, and other high tech types.
In fact, people are jumping from offer to better offer so quickly that
this company isn't getting paid because it collects is placement fees
only after a new employee has been on the job at least 30 days. Money
isn't always the prime motive to change jobs. Some jump ship to work
for a company with leading-edge technology. Others, particularly in
California, will change if they can lop 10 to 15 minutes off their
commute, because they want to maximize their free time, and they can get
away with it (The Wall Street Journal, page B6).
10 million Americans, many of them in working families,
don't get enough food, says The Washington Post "Health" supplement
(page 7). "It was shocking to me to see the number of people who
reported hunger who were married, working, and living in families with
children" says the lead author of a report by Federal researchers in the
current issue of the American Journal of Public Health."
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