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BLS DAILY REPORT, MONDAY, AUGUST 3, 1998:
U.S. employers laid off 132,476 workers in 1,253 mass layoff actions in
April, BLS reports. The number of mass layoff actions and workers
affected by those layoffs increased substantially from March (Daily
Labor Report, page D-30).
The U.S. economy continued to surprise analysts in the second quarter,
with still vibrant consumer spending given an unexpected boost to
growth, the Commerce Department reports (Daily Labor Report, page D-3).
__U.S. economic growth slowed sharply to a 1.4 percent annual rate this
spring, but strong consumer and business spending kept growth from
disappearing altogether, as some economists had forecast. A combination
of the General Motors Corp. strike, which began June 5 and repercussions
from the ongoing Asian financial crisis, weighed on the economy and
caused the slowdown from the first quarter's roaring 5.5 percent pace
(The Washington Post, August 1, page 1).
__A powerful array of forces at home and abroad slowed the economy to a
modest but still healthy pace during the second quarter. The Commerce
Department said the nation's gross domestic product grew at a 1.4
percent annual rate during April, May, and June. It was the most
sluggish quarter in 3 years, and marked a substantial slowdown from the
blistering pace of growth in the first quarter, which the department
today revised upward to 5.5 percent from its earlier estimate of 5.4
percent. The slowdown further unnerved Wall Street, where investors are
already anxious over the ability of companies to sustain strong earnings
growth. Although considerable uncertainties remain, not least among
them the continued effects of Asia's financial crisis on the United
States, the consensus among analysts is that growth for the rest of the
year should be 2 to 3 percent, considered respectable (The New York
Times, August 1, in a page 1 article by Richard W. Stevenson).
__Economic growth decelerated in the spring to its slowest pace in 3
years, but continued strong consumer spending cushioned the blows from
the Asian crisis and the General Motors strike. Productivity, or output
per labor hour, is the long-term key to higher living standards, since
it allows companies to pay higher wages without raising prices or
cutting profits. A slip in productivity has been blamed for slowing
economic and wage growth in the 1970s and '80s. Analysts, including Fed
Chairman Greenspan, have suggested that the 1990s boom has reflected a
productivity increase, even though the official numbers have been
inconclusive (The Wall Street Journal, page A2. The Journal's page 1
chart is of the GDP, by year, 1989 to the present).
An article in The Washington Post (August 1, page D9) on the convention
of the National Association of Black Journalists, says Edward Seaton,
president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, and editor of
the "Manhattan, Kan., Mercury" noted that only 11.5 percent of print
journalists are minorities, up from 11 percent 2 years ago (In
broadcasting the figure is 20 percent). His group has had to abandon a
longtime goal of 15 percent minority employment by the year 2000,
instead setting a 20 percent goal for the year 2010.
The Wall Street Journal's feature "Tracking the Economy" (page A6)
predicts that the July unemployment rate will be 4.6 percent when it
comes out Friday, according to the Technical Data Consensus Forecast.
The actual June unemployment rate was 4.5 percent. Nonfarm payrolls
will increase 30,000, according to the same prediction, in contrast to
the 205,00 actual increase in June.
"According to data from BLS, the percentage of the private work force
that is unionized declined to less than 10 percent last year, from about
27 percent in the early 1950s (public sector union membership, however,
is growing)" says Kevin Hassett, resident scholar at the American
Enterprise Institute, writing on the editorial page of The Wall Street
Journal (page A14). According to Hassett, "unions drove up labor
costs". Economists have investigated two potential avenues of
adjustment: Unionized firms could purchase more machines, or they could
expand by buying nonunionized firms, outright. Neither approach seems
to work, says Hassett.
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[PEN-L:477] BLS Daily Report
Richardson_D Tue, 4 Aug 1998 13:20:05 -0400boundary="---- =_NextPart_000_01BDBFCB.CC61E950"
