> BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS DAILY REPORT, MONDAY, JUNE 11, 2001:
>
> The job market is less than rosy, we hear from BLS economist Philip Rones.
> Signs of the worsening economy: The unemployment rate is the highest it
> has been since late 1998...employment has fallen 2 months in a row for the
> first time in nearly a decade...the manufacturing and temporary help
> industries are shedding workers rapidly. But a few sectors are showing
> strength. Computer services, finance, education, social services, health
> care. Occupations projected to grow the fastest are computer-related --
> engineers, support specialists, systems analysts, database administrators
> (Bottom Line, July 1, page 5).
>
> The Wall Street Journal's graph "Tracking the Economy" (page C7) indicates
> that the Producer Price Index for May, due out from the Bureau of Labor
> Statistics Thursday, is expected to be up 0.3 percent according to
> Consensus Global Forecast, the same percentage that it rose in April. The
> Producer Price Index except for food & energy for May is predicted to rise
> 0.2 percent, identical to its rise the previous month. The Consumer Price
> Index for May, due out Friday, is predicted to rise 0.4 percent, a bit
> higher than the 0.3 percent actual increase in April. The Consumer Price
> Index except for food & energy for May is predicted to rise 0.2 percent,
> the same amount it increased in the previous month. Although import
> prices for May, due out Wednesday, are predicted to rise 0.1 percent, they
> decreased 0.5 percent the previous month.
>
> An acute shortage of health-care workers is driving Washington area
> hospitals overseas to recruit hundreds of nurses critical to patient care,
> in one case guaranteeing a private recruiter more than $1 million in fees
> to deliver 235 foreign nurses, according to hospital executives. Since
> last summer, no fewer than six Washington area hospitals have held 10 job
> fairs in Britain and the Philippines, securing commitments from more than
> 700 nurses. The forays have been undertaken by the Washington Hospital
> Center, Children's, Georgetown University, George Washington University,
> Washington Adventist and Shady Grove Adventist hospitals. The shortage is
> especially severe at the Washington Hospital Center, which is paying
> temporary staffing agencies up to $70 an hour to hire freelance nurses,
> including some from out of the Washington area, to fill more than a third
> of its 1,236 nursing positions. That provides a powerful incentive to
> recruit full-time nurses who are paid, on average, less than $25 an hour
> -- and to recruit in places such as Manila, where nurses are paid less
> than $1 an hour (The Washington Post, page A1).
>
> Wealthier Americans are most confident that their retirement savings plans
> are on track, according to a graph in The Washington Post, page E2).
> While 77 percent of households making $75,000 a year or more said that
> their plans are in good shape, only 32 percent of those making less than
> $30,000 annually took a positive view. Source of the data is a Gallup
> poll.
>
> In the late 1990s, consumer spending surged on houses, cars and all sorts
> of hard goods ranging from digital video-disc players and cellphones to
> personal computers. The chief investment officer at Wells Capital
> Management calculates that by last year, consumer
> spending on durable goods and housing, adjusted for inflation, had reached
> a postwar high of 19 percent of total household spending, compared with 16
> percent in 1990. The reasons? First, the length of the economic expansion
> made consumers more willing to take on debt to buy big ticket items.
> Second, the price of many of these products declined relative to services
> and nondurable goods. Finally, declining interest rates lowered the
> burden of financing expensive items and enabled more and more homeowners
> to refinance high-rate mortgages taken out in the 1970s and 1980s. Savings
> were plowed back into spending. An accompanying graph shows that in 2000
> 67 percent of Americans owned their own home, up from 64 percent in 1990;
> 58 percent had a PC, up from 22 percent in 1990; 39 percent had a
> cellphone, up from 2 percent in 1990; and 40 percent had a camcorder, up
> from 11 percent in 1990 (The Outlook feature in The Wall Street Journal,
> page A1).
>
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