[PEN-L:2702] BLS Daily Report

[Richardson_D]

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BLS DAILY REPORT, THURSDAY, JANUARY 28, 1999

RELEASED TODAY:  The Employment Cost Index (ECI), not seasonally adjusted,
for December 1998 was 139.8 (June 1989=100), an increase of 3.4 percent from
December 1997. ...  On a seasonally adjusted basis, compensation costs for
civilian workers rose 0.7 percent during the September-December 1998 period,
following a gain of 1.0 percent in September 1998.  Wages and salaries also
increased 0.7 percent during the September-December 1998 period.  The
increase was 1.2 percent in the June-September 1998 period.  Benefit costs
increased 0.6 percent in the September-December 1998 period; for each of the
two previous quarters, the increase was 0.8 percent. ...  

In the third quarter of 1998, personal income in 48 states and Washington,
D.C., grew more than 3 times faster than the increase in prices paid by
consumers, according to the Department of Commerce.  Across the nation,
personal income grew 1.1 percent in the third quarter, the same as in the
second.  The advances in personal income growth were greater than the 0.3
percent hike in prices paid by U.S. consumers as measured by the price index
for personal consumption expenditures. ...  (Daily Labor Report, page D-1).

Despite an abundance of credit and other bright economic conditions for
startups - not to mention scads of success stories about young entrepreneurs
striking it rich - the number of businesses started in the U.S. is on the
decline.  A recent study by the National Federation of Independent Business
found that business starts fell 4 percent in 1997, on top of a 14 percent
drop in 1996.  The federation's preliminary figures for 1998 point to a
third straight year of decline. ...  Ironically, the reason for the drop
seems to be precisely the reason for the success of so many new businesses
these days:  the strong economy.  A senior research fellow at the NFIB,
located in Washington, D.C., says, "There's always a large number of people
who go into business for themselves because of the loss of a job or the fear
of the loss of a job.  That negative push is lighter today."  An adjunct
professor of entrepreneurship at Columbia Business School says that, as
employees, "everybody seems to have better opportunities now than they may
have had three or four years ago." ...  As further testament to the
conflicting pull of the strong economy on entrepreneurial activity, the NFIB
study shows that, while fewer new businesses are being launched, fewer small
businesses are failing as well. ...  (Wall Street Journal, page A2).


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