[PEN-L:176] BLS Daily Report

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BLS DAILY REPORT, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1998

RELEASED TODAY:  The gap in hourly compensation costs for manufacturing
production workers between the United States and the average for 28
foreign economies widened in 1997, reflecting the U.S. dollar's
appreciation against many foreign currencies.  The average cost level
for the 28 foreign economies studied by BLS was 16 percent lower than
U.S. costs, when weighted by their importance in trade with the United
States.  The gap was only 5 percent in 1995 -- the smallest difference
in the 1975-1997 period. ...

Import prices fell for the 10th consecutive month in August, dropping
0.3 percent, BLS reported.  Export prices dropped 0.6 percent in August,
with farm prices leading the decline.  "The 0.3 percent decline for
import prices in August continued a three-year downward trend," BLS
said. ... (Daily Labor Report, page D-4)_____U.S. import prices,
excluding petroleum products, fell 0.3 percent in August, the 11th
straight monthly decline.  That reflects financially troubled Asian
countries having to sell their goods to the U.S. at fire-sale prices.
.... While the decline in import prices is good for consumers in the
short term because competition forces U.S. producers to keep their
prices low, it has shown signs of eroding U.S. manufacturers' profit
margins, which isn't good for the overall economy (Wall Street Journal,
page A2).

Held down in part by sluggish auto sales, total U.S. retail sales
increased by 0.2 percent in August, according to Census Bureau figures.
.... (Daily Labor Report, page D-1)_____Consumers bought furniture and
back-to-school clothes, but slowed their purchases of big-ticket items
(Washington Post, page B9; New York Times, page C6)_____The gain didn't
make up for July's 0.6 percent drop. ... (Wall Street Journal, page A2).

Business Week (Sept. 21, page 14) publishes a letter from Commissioner
Abraham, responding to a reader's letter ("Prices may be stable, but
add-on fees are soaring") that implied that movements in the CPI do not
reflect service charges and other fees sometimes associated with
consumer purchases.  Abraham wrote, "As a matter of fact, such fees are
routinely taken into account in CPI calculations.  As a rule, prices
reflect the full amounts that consumers are actually charged."   

For reasons that government statisticians can't explain, the monthly
survey of private and government payrolls shows employment increasing
much faster than the monthly survey of 50,000 households -- and
policymakers don't know which figure to trust, writes John M. Berry
("Trendlines," Washington Post, page B9). ... Many analysts, including
those at BLS, regard the payroll figures as the better measure of
month-to-month changes in employment, but, over longer periods of time,
the results of the household survey may do just as well.  Given the
current divergence, some analysts are closely watching both figures. ...
BLS economist Tom Nardone said he and his colleagues have been exploring
all the differences in the two surveys to find out why they have been
behaving so differently. ... "It's possible that it is not one thing
going on but a lot of small things going in the same direction," Nardone
said.  

Many men are caught in the "Daddy Trap," says Business Week (Sept. 21,
page 56).  In the last two decades, expectations of men at home have
intensified dramatically.  Dads are more involved with their families,
and in general they enjoy that heightened role.  Yet their jobs haven't
adjusted.  Faced with pressure to take on more child-rearing and
household chores, fathers still find themselves locked into rigid
full-time jobs.  Some of the tension is workplace-inflicted.  A lot is
self-imposed.  The result, in either case, is conflict, guilt, and
stress.  It turns out that dads are no more satisfied than moms with
their work-family balance, according to a sample of 6,328 working
parents derived from Business Week's survey of corporate work and family
programs, conducted with the Center for Work & Family at Boston College.
.... 

DUE OUT TOMORROW:
   Consumer Price Index -- August 1998
   Real Earnings:  August 1998


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