> BLS DAILY REPORT, THURSDAY, JUNE 7, 2001:
>
> High-technology employment grew by 235,000 jobs to 5.3 million in 2000, a
> 4.6 percent rise, according to a report by the American Electronics
> Association. It was the slowest growth rate since 1995, but it helped
> keep unemployment "extremely low" in many technology-related professions,
> the AEA reports. According to the latest available wage data gathered by
> the organization, average annual wages in the high-technology sector as a
> whole rose to $64,900 in 1999, up from 1998's $58,976 and 95 percent
> higher than the nation's average private sector wage of $33,200 in 1999.
> In 1994, high technology wages were 67 percent higher than the private
> sector average, according to the report. The state with the highest
> high-technology employment in 2000 was California, with 973,600 jobs,
> followed by Texas with 440,700. Ranking next were New York,
> Massachusetts, and Florida (Daily Labor Report, page A-7).
>
> The United States faces a demographic tidal wage that poses significant
> challenges for individuals' retirement security and the U.S. economy as a
> whole, according to a General Accounting Office report "National Saving:
> Answers to Key Questions," dated June 2001. The GAO report says the
> consequences of low personal saving, U.S. reliance on foreign borrowing,
> long-term economic growth and standards of living for future generations
> is sometimes overlooked. The personal savings rate has plunged, with
> American households spending virtually all of their current incomes, the
> GAO study says (Daily Labor Report, page A-7).
>
> New claims for state unemployment insurance shot up last week to the
> highest level in nearly 9 years, suggesting that workers are having
> trouble holding onto their jobs in the slumping economy. Jobless claims
> have risen sharply for 4 weeks in a row. Job uncertainties are helping to
> turn Americans into more cautious shoppers. Most of the nation's largest
> retailers reported disappointing sales in May, following a brief recovery
> in April, merchants said today in another report. The number of Americans
> filing new applications for jobless benefits, meanwhile, rose unexpectedly
> by 13,000 to a seasonally adjusted 432,000 for the workweek ending June 2,
> the Labor Department said. The more stable 4-week moving average of
> jobless claims, which smoothes out week-to-week fluctuations, also rose
> last week to 413,500, the highest point since October 3, 1992 (Jeannine
> Aversa, Associated Press,
> http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/businessnews/article/0,2669,ART-522
> 73,FF.html; http://www,nypost,com/apstories/business/V1582.htm;
> http://www0.mercurycenter.com/breaking/headline2/017711.htm).
>
> The higher productivity growth seen in recent years may be here to stay,
> but the low inflation and unemployment of the late 1990s that accompanied
> it may not be. That is a warning from Federal Reserve Governor Laurence
> Meyer, who has been saying for several months that even if the
> productivity surge of the late 1990s proves permanent, some of its
> benefits will prove transitory, as workers get used to higher productivity
> growth and raise their wage demands accordingly. If Meyer is right, it
> means the economy will experience either higher unemployment or higher
> inflation -- or a bit of both -- than it had in the late 1990s. The chief
> economist of Standard & Poor's says the test of whether Meyer is right
> will be whether workers demand ever higher wages even though productivity
> growth has stopped rising (The Wall Street Journal, page A2).
>
> Mutual fund managers' pay stays in the Bull Market, says The Wall Street
> Journal (page C1), adding that "while stock prices rise and fall, the
> paychecks of mutual fund managers seem to know just one direction -- up".
> The median U.S. stock portfolio manager working at a mutual-fund company
> expects to make a total of $436,500 this year, up from $322,000 in 1999.
> This is according to a study by executive search firm Russell Reynolds
> Associates and the Association for Investment Management and Research, a
> large industry group for investment professionals. The pay raises come
> despite the fact that in the 2 years since March 1999, the average stock
> fund in the U.S. has managed about a 9 percent gain. The pay survey is
> based on anonymous responses from about 10,000 investment professionals
> during the first quarter. An accompanying table makes this comparison in
> annual pay: Baseball payer, $2.3 million; chairman of Merrill Lynch,
> $32.5 million; truck driver, $33,259; high school teacher, $43,587; police
> officer $35,186. Investment management continues to have a gender gap,
> with women earning 10 to 22 percent less than men.
>
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