BLS DAILY REPORT, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 11, 1998
RELEASED TODAY: More than 21 million persons did some work at home as
part of their primary job in May 1997. The overall number of persons
doing job-related work at home did not grow dramatically between 1991
and 1997, but the number of wage and salary workers doing paid work at
home did ....
__Productivity in the nation's nonfarm business sector grew by an annual
rate of 1.6 percent in the fourth quarter and 1.7 percent for the year,
BLS reports. The annual productivity figures show that output advanced
4.5 percent as hours of all wage earners increased 2.7 percent. Hourly
compensation grew 3.8 percent in both 1996 and 1997 ....The 1997
increase in real hourly compensation was the largest since a 2.1 percent
rise in 1992 ....(Daily Labor Report, page D-1).
__U.S. business productivity grew solidly in the fourth quarter, but the
gain was not as sharp as previously estimated. Productivity growth for
firms outside the farm sector were revised down to 1.6 percent, on a
seasonally adjusted annual basis, from the previous estimate of 2.0
percent ....(Washington Post, page C10).
__Growth in productivity, an indicator of how quickly living standards
can rise, slowed a bit as 1997 ended. Many analysts say that
productivity growth has been higher than has been reported by the
government recently. They say the discrepancy comes from the difficulty
in measuring output gains in services, which are being helped by the
rapid advance of high-technology tools ....(New York Times, page D2).
__Productivity growth during the final quarter of 1997 was a tad slower
than first estimated. Still, the revised figure didn't diminish the
year's healthy productivity gain ....(Wall Street Journal, page A2).
Despite their smaller numbers, members of the "baby bust" generation
have not enjoyed the labor market success that their baby boom
counterparts did two decades ago, according to an article in the
February issue of the Monthly Labor Review. The article, "Comparing the
Labor Market Success of Young Adults from Two Generations," by Kurt
Schwammel, economist in the Office of Employment Projections, BLS,
points out that, between 1979 and 1996, the largest gains in employment
and earnings among adults aged 25 to 34 occurred when most members of
the cohort were baby boomers. Observers had predicted that the baby
bust cohort would have an easier time finding good jobs than baby
boomers, but Schwammel found baby bust workers were more likely to be
employed in lower-paying jobs ....(Daily Labor Report, page A-5, text
E-3).
DUE OUT TOMORROW: U.S. Import and Export Price Indexes -- February 1998
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