BLS DAILY REPORT, THURSDAY, AUGUST 28, 1997 RELEASED TODAY: The number of employed youth increased by 2.8 million (not seasonally adjusted) from April to July, the traditional summertime peak for youth employment. This year's seasonal expansion in employment of 16- to 24-year-olds was slightly larger than the 2.6 million increase in 1996. The number of unemployed young people, which also grows at this time every year, rose by 448,000, somewhat fewer than a year earlier (603,000) .... Wage data compiled by the Bureau of National Affairs for all industries in the first 34 weeks of 1997 show that the median first-year wage increase in newly negotiated contracts was 3 percent, the same as the comparable figure for the same period of 1996 ....(Daily Labor Report, page D-9). For decades, the U.S. has been evolving from a manufacturing economy to a service economy. As Labor Day 1997 approaches, two major corporations stand in sharp relief, says The Wall Street Journal (page B1). Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the discount retailer, has passed General Motors Corp., the auto giant, as the nation's largest private employer. The shift is more than symbolic. Union jobs with lush pay and benefits, like GM assembly-line work, are disappearing. In their place are nonunion jobs like in the men's department at a Wal-Mart. Worker in both punch a time clock and share a stake in their employers' success. The Wal-Mart workday is less physically taxing than GM's, but the hours are longer and the pay barely supports even a thrifty family. Still, Wal-Mart offers a measure of responsibility and a path of advancement to hourly workers, thousands of whom are promoted to management each year .... The 10 metropolitan areas with the fastest growth in personal income during 1995 were mainly in the Southwest, Rocky Mountains, and Southeast regions, according to data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis of the Department of Commerce. Three of the 10 areas were all or partly in Arizona, with the Yuma area leading the list with a 17.1 percent gain in personal income that was attributed to a large expansion in vegetable crop production. The average gain across the United States was 6.2 percent. It was the first release of 1995 personal income data by metropolitan areas ....Looking at per capita income, BEA found that San Francisco had the highest in 1995. Close behind was the West Palm Beach-Boca Raton, Fla., metro area. At the other end of the scale, "all of the areas with the lowest per capita personal income, except El Paso, Texas, were small in terms of personal income and population, and were located in the Southwest or Southeast regions." The five lowest ranking were on the U.S.-Mexico border ....(Daily Labor Report, page D-1). Office smog probably isn't something you have heard of, yet. But you will soon, says Alun M. Anderson, editor of "New Science," a weekly international science magazine, whose article appears on the op. ed. page of The Washington Post. The article says that humans, perfumes, chemicals, and electronic equipment don't always live happily together .... In an op. ed. column, "All Globalization Is Local," Jim Hoagland quotes from a speech Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, made earlier this summer at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Greenspan ended by "arguing that democracy is a necessary component for the efficient long-term functioning of a free market economy. Only `a free press and government data information systems that are perceived to be free of hidden political manipulation' can empower consumers and producers to shift resources rationally" ....
