BLS DAILY REPORT, MONDAY, AUGUST 4, 1997 __The economy keeps up its robust pace of job creation, adding 316,000 jobs to nonfarm payrolls in July, according to data released by BLS. The gain meant that 2.5 million jobs have been created over the last year. The unemployment rate declined to 4.8 percent, returning to its May level. Release of the upbeat employment report capped a week during which virtually every government economic report portrayed a vigorous expansion on a low inflation path ....(Daily Labor Report, page D-1; statement on July employment situation by BLS Commissioner Abraham to Joint Economic Committee, page E-1). __The U.S. economy continued to create jobs, as the unemployment rate fell to 4.8 percent, although wages did not rise ....(Washington Post, Aug. 2, page F1). __The economy entered the summer with fresh strength, as an unexpected number of new jobs dropped the nation's unemployment rate to 4.8 percent last month, matching a 23-year low set in May. While analysts had predicted that the economy would rebound from a spring slowdown, the jobs data, combined with a private report on manufacturing, fanned fears that the rebound would be too strong ....(New York Times, Aug. 2, page A1). __The economy added a stronger-than-expected 316,000 new jobs in July after a healthy 228,000 gain in June, and the jobless rate fell to 4.8 percent from 5.0 percent in June ....(Wall Street Journal, page A2). BLS names Lois L. Orr as associate commissioner for employment and unemployment statistics, effective Aug. 3, says the Daily Labor Report (page A-12). Orr will fill a vacancy left by Thomas Plewes, who left BLS in November for a new assignment as second in command of the U.S. Army Reserve. Orr has worked for BLS since 1959, when she joined the agency as an economist in the Office of Field Operations in the Chicago region. She served as assistant regional commissioner for the Chicago region, and in 1985 was chosen regional commissioner. Since March 1997, Orr has been the associate commissioner for field operations ....BLS also recently appointed Philip L. Rones assistant commissioner for current employment analysis. Rones has worked for BLS since 1974. Rones has been chief of the division of labor force statistics in the office of employment and unemployment statistics since 1994. The manufacturing sector picked up speed in July, the National Association of Purchasing Management reports. The NAPM employment index continued to grow in July, but at a slower rate than in June ....An index greater than 47 percent, over time, is generally consistent with an increase in BLS data on factory employment ....(Daily Labor Report, page A-8)__The index of manufacturing strength shot up to the highest level since November 1994 ....(Wall Street Journal, page A2). Personal income rose 0.6 percent in June, while spending advanced a more restrained 0.3 percent, the Commerce Department reports. Wage and salary disbursement advanced by 0.8 percent, after a 0.3 percent May increase ....(Daily Labor Report, page D-18). New orders for manufactured goods rebounded in June, the Census Bureau says, largely due to an increase in new orders for transportation equipment, stemming from orders for aircraft and parts and for motor vehicles and parts ....(Daily Labor Report, page D-46). "Measuring Productivity in the 90's: Optimists vs. Skeptics" is the title of an article by Louis Uchitelle in the New York Times (Aug. 2, page 25) ....The productivity enthusiasts argue that the new electronic technologies have finally been harnessed and exploited in the workplace. Starting in 1994 or so, they say, the nation's workers have been producing more for each hour and each day they work. Most important, this improvement will last, they say. Their enthusiasm, however, relies heavily on their own narrow measures of productivity ... and on circumstantial evidence. The official broad statistics flatly deny that productivity is rising. Quite the contrary, they show it weaker than ever in the 1990's. Many economists, embracing official statistics, are skeptical of the bullish view ....The stakes in this debate are enormous. The performance of the stock market and the future financing of Social Security and Medicare are increasingly tied to the outcome ....One test came this week, when Commerce announced updated estimates of how much the economy, as measured by the GDP, has actually grown since late 1992. The productivity optimists had expected a sharp upward revision ....But the GDP revision was minor ....The article is illustrated with a graph, with the data attributed to BLS, of average annual percentage changes in output for each hour worked in the nonfinancial corporate sector and in all nonfarm private business. Sales results released by auto makers show an industry in an old-fashioned price war, with companies offering some of the broadest discounts ever in efforts to increase their market shares ....(New York Times, Aug. 2, page 25). "Leaner government keeps callers on hold," says "The Federal Page" in the Washington Post ....Federal workers these days are, by and large, psyched to serve. They have voice mail and fax-on-demand and more caller options than Detroit has car colors ....But more than 30 million callers last year simply gave up, according to one government estimate. And that's considered an improvement. To experience what callers endure, two Knight-Ridder reporters put away the press credentials that earn them special treatment. Guided only by information operators, a standard phone directory, and the kindness of strangers in the bureaucracy, they started asking question ....Fifty of them. In 50 different federal offices. For two weeks ....The administration has figured out that treating callers well improves their attitude toward the federal government. Moreover, it's three times more expensive to answer a letter than a phone inquiry, according to experts at the National Performance Review ....The same administration, however, has downsized by 70,000 the number of clerical workers who used to, among other things, answer phones. In other words, Washington has bet that voice mail, e-mail, hot lines, personal computers, and Web sites would offset the loss of about a third of their support staff. Private industry has made much the same wager, but there are two differences. One is that government's complexity more often defies automated answers ....Also, many government offices got rid of clerical help before voice mail had replaced the workers ....In fact, of the ten Knight-Ridder questions that proved unanswerable, most involved unreturned voice mail messages ....Of course, getting to the right offices is the real trick ....It's hard, in the end, to conclude that the service was substandard. Forty of 50 difficult questions got answered, the majority in three calls or less, not counting transfers in the course of a call. Most were answered in three hours, including time waiting for calls back. National Performance Review experts said that the best private-sector companies aimed to answer inquiries in one call. They kept callers waiting less than 15 seconds, and always offered live operators as an option to voice mail. That's hardly realistic for the federal government, however ....
