BLS DAILY REPORT, TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2000:
Today's News Release: "REGIONAL AND STATE EMPLOYMENT AND UNEMPLOYMENT:
AUGUST 2000" indicates that regional and state unemployment rates were
stable in August. All four regions registered little or no change over the
month, and 46 states recorded shifts of 0.3 percentage point or less. The
national jobless rate was essentially unchanged at 4.1 percent. Nonfarm
employment increased in 31 states and the District of Columbia.
Moonlighting is on the wane, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports. Since
1995, the number of workers holding second jobs has dropped to 5.7 percent
of the work force from 6.4 percent. Fewer than half do so to make ends meet
or pay off debts, BLS says. Many hold second jobs because they enjoy the
work, want the experience, or hope to save for the future (The Wall Street
Journal's Work Week feature, page 1).
Hiring moms is into vogue, especially for small business owners who find
that flexibility on hours is a relatively cheap benefit that allows them to
compete with large companies whose schedules may be more rigid, says The
Wall Street Journal (page B2). The past 2 decades have seen moms go to work
in record numbers. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number
of working mothers with children under 3 years of age rose 9.5 percent to
5.3 million between 1990 and 1999. During the 1980s, the number rose 47
percent. The slowed growth has occurred despite a federally mandated
welfare to work program that has moved about 2 million families -- many
headed by women -- off the public assistance rolls since 1996. Now, at a
time when employers are doing more than ever to lure working moms, the pool
of such workers is getting almost as dry as the rest of the market. The
unemployment rate among working moms -- as among other workers -- is also at
a 30-year low -- about 6 percent -- compared with double digits early in the
90s. "A lot of this is attributable to employers offering more flexible
work schedules," says Steve Hipple, a Labor Department economist in
Washington, D.C. In fact, federal figures show that 28 percent of all
workers had flexible schedules in 1997, the most recent data available,
compared with 15 percent in 1991. "That makes working a lot easier and more
attractive to mothers," he says.
With overtime on the rise, fatigue is becoming an issue for workers, says
Mary Williams Walsh writing in The New York Times (September 17, page 1).
The average American employee works just 2 more hours a week than in 1982,
according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But Randy E. Ilg, a senior
economist at the Bureau, says that figure probably understated the problem
because women have been surging into the work force, and their generally
shorter hours appear to have pulled down the average. Only in the workweek
statistics by households does the increase jump off the page, Mr. Ilg said.
"Twenty years ago, you had one person in the household working," he said.
"Today you've got two. And who goes to the grocery store now? Who takes
the check to the bank on the weekend? Who does the dishes after dinner?"
The increased use of cellular phones, laptops and beepers also make
Americans feel like they are working more, Mr. Ilg said. So do today's
longer commutes. For all the travails of blue-collar workers, the people
putting in the longest hours these days are white-collar workers on salary,
Mr. Ilg said. Their ranks have been swelled by the information economy: 60
percent of the jobs created in the last 10 years are managerial and
professional positions. Many of these people toil in a legal twilight zone,
often performing duties that did not exist in 1938, when Congress drew clear
cut distinctions between workers and managers. The law is silent on how
such worker should be compensated for their long hours, if at all.
The percentage of young Americans holding summer jobs fell again this year,
due to the strong economy, expanded summer-school programs and the growing
popularity of unpaid internships, the Labor Department said (The Wall Street
Journal's Work Week feature, page 1).
World oil prices soared again yesterday, amid fears that increased tensions
between Iraq and Kuwait might disrupt production in the Persian Gulf region.
The price of crude oil contracts on the futures market at the New York
Mercantile Exchange rose above $37 a barrel for the first time in a decade
before closing at $36.88, up 96 cents for the day (The Washington Post, page
E1; The New York Times, page C4).
__As utilities warn residential customers to expect higher heating costs
this winter, commercial natural-gas users also are bracing for a tough
winter. In addition to hotel chains and other real-estate companies,
steelmakers which have to use clean-burning natural gas for much of their
production are changing buying procedures to cope with today's high prices
(The Wall Street Journal, page A2).
Throughout the high-tech era, government research laboratories have been
seedbeds for some of the most important advances in computing, detecting
nuclear weapons, robotics, gene sequencing, and other fields. And for
engineers and computer scientists, the laboratories have been havens of job
permanence. Now the technology boom in Silicon Valley and across the nation
has changed all that. The lure of the private sector and its many start-up
companies is so strong that national research laboratories are losing their
best and brightest in growing numbers. Senior scientists making $90,000 a
year at a government laboratory can go to private companies and increase
their salaries by 50 percent. Add a lucrative stock-option package and the
appeal can be irresistible (The New York Times, page 1).
The labor market is so tight, at least in most urban areas, that many
employers are already paying more than the prevailing $5.15 minimum wage to
attract workers, writes Robert D. Hershey, Jr., in The New York Times (page
C1). In many cases, companies are already paying more than the proposed
higher minimum. For example, except for high school students, unskilled help
gets an average starting wage of about $7 an hour in the suburban stretch
between Baltimore and Washington, D.C. Nevertheless, today's prosperity
seems likely to blunt only temporarily, not block, the economic forces that
a higher minimum wage tends to unleash. Many companies may find profits
eroded, in some cases to the point of failure, while hours are cut and
prices are pushed up. Jobs may arguably be lost or the creation of new jobs
slowed. The significance of these effects following previous increases in
the minimum wage is a matter of debate, especially the effect on employment.
"The impact is very different, depending on who you talk to, says the senior
vice president of the National Restaurant Association and leader of a
multi-industry alliance devoted to minimum wage issues. Among the variables
are whether a business is in a high-cost urban area or a low-cost rural one,
whether workers are tipped or rely solely on wages, and whether the
enterprise is in one of the 10 states -- Washington, Oregon, California,
Alaska, Hawaii, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and
Delaware -- plus the District of Columbia, that have their own minimums set
higher than the federal one. In low-cost areas, employees are more likely
to be earning the minimum than elsewhere, meaning that a mandated increase
has greater impact.
A good job and salary often aren't enough to attract potential hires to
cities with high real estate and living costs. Firms, particularly those in
booming Northern California, New York, Boston, and Washington, D.C. must
offer recruitment packages featuring housing allowances, spousal assistance,
stock options, and signing bonuses to attract talent. "Candidates today
aren't willing to take a step backwards in their standard of living," says
the president of Management Recruiters International, Inc., Cleveland (The
Wall Street Journal "Work Week" feature, page 1).
Los Angeles may be famous for its car culture, but the strike by 4,000 bus
and train drivers is expected to hit its underground economy and low-wage
service industries hard. Hospitals, hotels, office buildings and apparel
companies are expected to suffer when low-paid workers can't cross L.A.'s
sprawl. Workers of the city's Metropolitan Transportation Authority went on
strike Saturday in a dispute over wages, work hours, and health care
benefits (The Wall Street Journal, page A4).
About 49 percent of 631 employees from big and small companies surveyed by
New York's Fortune Personnel Consultants say they have been with the same
company for more than 10 years. Of those, 19 percent report they've been
with the same company for more than 20 years. Why do employees stay so
long? Challenging work ranked tops for 25 percent of respondents, with
"ability to balance work and family" next at 24 percent. Pay ranked a mere
third, at 17 percent. For those under 35, pay ranked even lower (The Wall
Street Journal, page B16).
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