[PEN-L:653] BLS Daily Report

[Richardson_D]

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BLS DAILY REPORT, FRIDAY, AUGUST 7, 1998

RELEASED TODAY: Payroll employment rose slightly, and unemployment was
unchanged in July.  Nonfarm payroll employment edged up by 66,000 to
125.8 million, as growth was curtailed by strikes and plant shutdowns in
automobile-related manufacturing.  The jobless rate remained at 4.5
percent....   

Orders to U.S. factories edged up 0.1 percent in June, reflecting a
steep drop in the transportation sector related to the GM strike,
Commerce Department data show.  Decreases in orders for motor vehicles
and parts, as well as aircraft, "more than offset" increases in orders
for shipbuilding, tanks, and railroad equipment....  (Daily Labor
Report, page D-1; Washington Post, page F4; New York Times, page
C16)_____The small increase was attributed to production problems at
home and soft demand abroad.  Many factories were hampered by the United
Auto Workers strike against General Motors Corp. and by production
problems at Boeing Co.  The financial crisis in Asia is also hampering
the ability of that region's countries to order American goods.  At the
same times, U.S. manufacturers are facing more competition from Asian
imports....  (Wall Street Journal, page A2).

New UI claims filed with state agencies increased by 6,000 to a
seasonally adjusted 307,000 for the week ended Aug. 1, data from the
Employment and Training Administration show....  (Daily Labor Report,
page D-4; New York Times, page C16).

New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut continue to benefit from robust
job growth, but the income gap has widened sharply between the highest
and lowest paid workers, according to reports from the Federal Reserve
Bank of New York and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
Perhaps most striking, at a time of huge gains on Wall Street, an
analysis by the Fed found that full-time workers near the bottom of the
region's income spectrum have seen their paychecks shrink after
inflation.  Compared with the rest of the nation, "the earnings gap grew
at a faster rate in the region, with a particularly pronounced rise
occurring in the New York metropolitan area," said the federal analysis,
which looked at wages from 1979 to 1996....  As in other parts of the
country, New York City and its suburbs are feeling the impact of the
steep downturn in Asia, where cutbacks in trade with Japan, Malaysia,
Thailand, and other nations could become more severe, the Port Authority
said.  The most prosperous Asian nations collectively account for a
third of the New York region's international trade, the authority said.
But the region is far less dependent on Asia for exports and imports
than some other parts of the United States, the report said, and should
weather the Asian downturn better than most.  For example, Los Angeles
and Long Beach, Calif., rely on Asia for more than 80 percent of their
international merchandise trade....  In its analysis of wage levels, the
Federal  Reserve Bank looked at the amounts paid to full-time male
workers in the 17 years ended in 1996, the most recent year for which
data were available from the Census Bureau....  (New York Times, page
A23).  

It took retailers more than a year to catch up with the stellar American
economy, and now, as growth slows slightly and the stock market behaves
erratically, shoppers are showing no signs of slowing their spending.
Retailers yesterday reported the strongest July same-store sales in five
years, a result of robust demand for clothing and housewares.  The
figures resumed a trend that began with a 10.2 percent gain in April and
a 7.1 percent rise in May.  Sales stumbled slightly in June, increasing
4.4 percent....  (New York Times, page C3)_____Results were strong
across nearly all retail categories, ranging from discounters and
department stores to specialty apparel and electronics stores....  (Wall
Street Journal, page B4)


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