This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not understand this format, some or all of this message may not be legible. ------ =_NextPart_000_01BD9092.FE3CE0F0 charset="iso-8859-1" BLS DAILY REPORT, THURSDAY, JUNE 4, 1998 RECENT RELEASES: PRODUCTIVITY AND COSTS (Thursday) -- BLS reports revised productivity data - as measured by output per hour of all persons - for the first quarter of 1998. The revised seasonally adjusted annual rates of productivity change in the first quarter were: 1.7 percent in the business sector; and 1.1 percent in the nonfarm business sector.... METROPOLITAN AREA EMPLOYMENT AND UNEMPLOYMENT (Wednesday) -- In April, 200 of the 328 metropolitan areas recorded unemployment rates below the U.S. average (4.1 percent, not seasonally adjusted), while 1l9 areas had higher rates. The 20 metropolitan areas with the lowest jobless rates - all below 2 percent - were again in the Midwest and South. Of the 20 areas with the highest rates, 11 were in California and 6 more were along the Mexican border in other states.... The Conference Board says that, following a 0.2 percentage point gain in March and a 0.4 point gain in February, the composite index of leading economic indicators edged up 0.1 percentage point to 105.3 percent of its 1992 base in April, indicating continued economic growth ahead. "The leading index shows almost no risk of a recession in 1998," according to the Conference Board, a New York based business research organization.... (Daily Labor Report, June 3, page D-1; New York Times, Bloomberg News, June 3, page D9). Most small manufacturers expect 1998 to be a prosperous year with their biggest concern attracting and retaining qualified workers, according to a National Association of Manufacturers survey. NAM's annual survey of small manufacturers uncovered little impact from or worry about the Asian financial crisis, with nearly 50 percent of respondents predicting 1998 will be more profitable than 1997 and more than 60 percent planning to raise worker wages by at least 5 percent.... (Daily Labor Report, page A-4). Sales of new single-family homes rose to a record level in April.... (New York Times, Bloomberg News, June 3, page D9)_____Spurred by a robust job market, high consumer confidence, and low mortgage rates, new home sales climbed to a record in April. Sales of new homes rose 5.2 percent in April, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 888,000.... (Wall Street Journal, June 3, page A2). "The Sky Didn't Fall" is the title of an op-ed article by Bob Herbert in the New York Times. Herbert begins, "Finally the benefits of the nation's long-running economic expansion are reaching the folks at the bottom".... He cites a study by Jared Bernstein, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, that notes that from 1996 to 1997, the hourly wages of the bottom 20 percent of workers increased by 3.2 percent in real terms. That compared with a 1.5 percent increase in the top 20 percent of wage and salary workers.... Bernstein and others have cited three principal reasons for the recent wage growth: tight labor markets, continued low inflation, and increases in the minimum wage.... Bernstein and John Schmitt are co-authors of a rigorous study of the impact of the 1996-97 minimum wage increase. It found that the increase raised the wages of nearly 10 million workers, most of them adults and more than half of them women, without causing job loss.... 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[PEN-L:434] BLS Daily Report
Richardson_D Fri, 5 Jun 1998 11:02:21 -0400boundary="---- =_NextPart_000_01BD9092.FE3CE0F0"