BLS DAILY REPORT, MONDAY, MAY 12, 1997 The number of mass layoffs occurring in U.S. firms increased by 83 percent in the fourth quarter of 1996, to a total of 1,802, compared with 985 in the third quarter, the Labor Department reports. BLS says the 1,802 mass layoffs resulted in the separation of 397,643 workers from their jobs in the October through December period of 1996. In the third quarter, 222,419 workers lost their jobs due to mass layoffs ....(Daily Labor Report, page D-1). The Washington Post's "Washington Business" section features articles on the topic "Women at Work" and includes such BLS data as: In 1975, 44.9 percent of women with children under 18 worked outside the home; in 1995, that figure was 70.2 percent. Women hold 69.7 percent of all jobs in retail sales. The percentage of women who belong to labor unions fell from 14.6 percent in 1983 to 12.3 percent in 1995. About 755,700 women worked in the hotel industry in 1996, taking 55 percent of all jobs in that industry. Women still earn less than men, taking home 76.4 cents for every dollar earned by a man ....More women in the Washington area have climbed into the executive ranks than anywhere else in the country, accounting for about 22 percent of executive, administrative, and managerial positions here .... U.S. prosperity eludes millions of newcomers, says an article in Saturday's Washington Post (page A1) ....In a time of rapid technological change and growing demand for skills and education in the work force, large number of newcomers are unskilled and poorly educated ....The good news is that those born abroad tend to improve their lot the longer they stay, and those who arrived before 1970 are doing as well as or better than natives. But immigrants, both legal and illegal, who have settled here since 1990 are generally faring worst of all. Nationwide, a third live in poverty, nearly three times the rate for the U.S. born, and 36 percent failed to finish high school, more than double the percentage for natives .... The number of jobs generated by the U.S. tourism industry is increasing faster than the nation's overall job growth, with much of it occurring in high-paying executive positions, a new study of industry employment conducted by the Travel Industry Association of America shows ....In a national economy built largely on manufacturing, it's a surprise to many people that tourism and travel now rank as the first-, second-, or third-largest employer in 32 states and the District of Columbia. Only the health care industry consistently does better. Overall, tourism generated more than 6.6 million jobs in 1995, a number that has grown 33 percent in the past decade, the study shows. The nation's total nonagricultural employment, meanwhile, grew 20 percent during the same time. Looking forward, travel industry employment is expected to grow more than 18 percent from 1994 to 2005. During the same time, construction employment is forecast to grow nearly 10 percent, mining employment is expected to decline by 27 percent, and manufacturing employment is expected to drop 7 percent ....(Washington Post, May 11, page H4). Start-up businesses remain a good source of new jobs, Dun & Bradstreet Corp. says. The financial research firm found that more than 170, 000 new businesses created nearly 847,000 jobs last year, up 15 percent from the number of jobs created by new firms in 1995. Dun & Bradstreet said nearly all big industry sectors had an increase in new jobs, with the services, construction, transportation, and public utilities sectors enjoying the biggest gains (Washington Post, May 11, page H4). The Wall Street Journal's "Tracking the Economy" feature (page A2) shows that the Technical Data Consensus Forecast predicts that producer prices for April will be down 0.1 percent, as they were last month, when that figure is announced Wednesday. Consumer prices for April are predicted to go up 0.2 percent, after increasing only 0.1 percent last month, when the CPI comes out Thursday. In a Washington Times commentary article, Bruce Bartlett, a senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis, writes that a new study from the International Monetary Fund argues that growth in service employment is a sign of economic strength, not weakness. The background paper looks at the causes and implications of deindustrialization. It finds that the rise of the service sector is a worldwide phenomenon and that service employment has actually grown more rapidly in Europe and Japan that in the United States ....Yet manufacturing's share of national output has remained steady. The explanation for this apparent contradiction is that manufacturing productivity has grown much more rapidly than productivity in the service sector. Looking at all industrialized countries together, the study's estimate is that output per man hour rose 3.6 percent per year in manufacturing from 1960 to 1994, but only 1.6 percent in services. In the end, the study finds diverging productivity trends account for all the shift out of manufacturing and into services ....
