BLS DAILY REPORT, TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 1997 With thousands of solid-paying, career-oriented jobs available, a steadily increasing number of high school graduates are deciding they don't need to spend four years in college to get their piece of the American dream. A tight labor market and the fast pace of change in many industries, particularly high-technology, have companies scrambling to fill positions. Most people still need some form of education beyond high school ....Recent Labor Department statistics show that 10 of the 18 fastest-growing occupations don't require four-year degrees. Home care and home health aides top the list, followed by more technical positions such as electronic pagination systems workers and medical assistants ....A table of the fastest-growing non-college careers is attributed to BLS (Washington Post, Aug. 31, page H5). Close to 7 million Americans were scheduled to get a raise when the federally mandated minimum wage rose to $5.15 an hour on Sept. 1. Across the U.S., many fast food workers, retail clerks, gas station attendants, and others will be earning 40 cents an hour more when they report to work as the second phase of the increase goes into effect. It was raised to $4.75 from $4.25 last Oct. 1. Most of the 6.8 million workers affected are women who work in the service sector, according to a report to be issued Sept. 2 by the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank. The institute's study found that in 18 states more than 10 percent of the work force will be affected by the increase, which primarily benefits low-income families ....(Reuter story, Washington Post, Sept. 1, page A12)_____Nearly 10 million Americans got a raise yesterday courtesy of Uncle Sam. The federal minimum wage rose by 40 cents an hour, to $5.15 ....(Washington Post, page D9). Labor union membership has declined substantially over the past decade around the world, even in European countries with traditionally strong unions. Only in the Scandinavian countries has there been a steady growth of union membership. There have also been fewer strikes in the past decade. Charts showing these trends are attributed to national governments, the International Labor Organization, and Labour Market Trends (Washington Post, Aug. 30, page A24). For most managers and professionals, nonstandard job arrangements do little to ease efforts to balance the needs of work and family, according to a new study commissioned by the Alfred P Sloan Foundation. The so-called nonstandard work arrangements examined for the study included working for temporary help agencies, on-call work, independent contracting and part-time work ....In addition, nonstandard work arrangements typically pay less in both wages and benefits than traditional jobs. And most of the workers in nonstandard arrangements are women ....That may explain why the majority of managers and professionals who are mothers prefer regular, full-time work. The conclusion is the product of a year-long study by researchers from the Washington-based Economic Policy Institute, a think tank funded by organized labor, and the Women's Research & Education Institute using 1995 data -- the latest available -- from the Current Population Survey of BLS. The survey is one of the government's largest monthly reviews of the U.S. work force. The report estimates that 26.2 percent of workers in executive, managerial, and administrative positions as well as professional occupations are engaged in nonstandard work arrangements ....The study showed that 33 percent of the managerial women and 41 percent of the professional women cited family needs as the reason for seeking nonstandard employment arrangements ....While there have been other studies of nonstandard work arrangements, this is one of the first to take a look at the effect of these job arrangements on managers and professionals and the connection between these jobs and the worker's family status. The report showed that race, gender, and family status play a role in determining an employee's alternative work arrangement ....Not surprisingly, women managers and professionals in all types of nonstandard work tended to work fewer hours a week than women in regular full-time jobs ....Unlike their female counterparts, the overwhelming majority of men who are self-employer or independent contractors work more hours than regular full-time workers ....(Washington Post, Aug. 31, page A14)_____Most workers -- including managers and professionals -- who choose nonstandard work arrangements continue to earn less in both wages and benefits than do their counterparts who hold more traditional jobs, according to two studies by the Economic Policy Institute and the Women's Research and Education Institute. Nearly 30 percent of the workforce is currently employed in these nonstandard jobs .....Men in managerial and professional nonstandard jobs, on average, work about 10 percent more hours per week than their counterparts holding regular full-time jobs ....Both reports, "Nonstandard Work, Substandard Jobs" and "Managing Work and Family: Nonstandard Work Arrangements Among Managers and Professionals," are available from the Economic Policy Institute ....The analyses are the most extensive to date of data taken from a February 1995 supplement to the CPS. In a series of articles describing the February 1995 data, BLS used the term "contingent" work, as well as alternative work schedules. Another supplement on alternative work arrangements was included in the February 1997 survey, but results are yet to be released by BLS. The team of researchers from EPI and the women's institute decided not to use the term "contingent" because they felt it had become confusing, with a number of different definitions used in various research papers ....Executive summaries of the reports are available at http://www.epinet.org (Daily Labor Report, page AA-3). There is a broad shift in the way Europeans work: the rapid decline of the traditional full-time job. Temporary jobs, part-time work, and other forms of nontraditional employment -- long anathema to European unions and governments -- have become by far the most important source of new jobs across the Continent ....The proportion of part-time workers in the U.S. has been steady at about 18 percent for more than a decade. But the proportion is higher in many European countries and is growing quickly. And the number of temporary workers -- people who may work a full week but move from company to company -- is soaring ....Charts on temporary and part-time workers in European countries are attributed to Eurostat and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (New York Times, Sept. 1, page A1). The first formal migration study to be sponsored by the American and Mexican governments has concluded that the number of undocumented Mexican workers who have settled in the U.S. in this decade is far lower than some have suggested, only about 105,000 a year. Drawn from a two-year analysis of American and Mexican census and other data, the figure is the first authoritative estimate of the net annual flow of illegal Mexican workers into the U.S. ....(New York Times, Aug. 31, page A1). The rush by companies to save money by outsourcing business departments -- to have work such as janitorial services done by outside, independent firms -- may be slowing. A survey by the American Management Association found that more than half the firms studied have taken back at least one previously outsourced activity. And only 25 percent said that outsourcing actually reduced their costs, according to a report in Recruiting Trends, a newsletter for recruitment executives. But the research also shows that employers still outsource an average of nine functions. Finance, accounting, information systems, and marketing show the highest increases (Knight-Ridder story, Washington Post, Aug. 31, page H5). Consumer spending shot up 0.8 percent in July, the biggest jump in six months as Americans returned to the shopping mall after a spring lull, the Commerce Department reported. Personal income growth failed to keep up with spending, rising just 0.1 percent, the smallest gain since last October. That could mean the July spending pace won't be sustained ....(AP story, Washington Post, Aug. 30, page F3)_____Judging by a rebound in consumer spending during July, the third quarter was off to a strong start that suggests personal expenditures will help boost overall economic growth after lagging in the spring quarter ....(Daily Labor Report, page D-3; New York Times, Aug. 30, page 38; Wall Street Journal, page A2). Most American workers like their jobs but think their supervisors' management and people skills are poor, according to results of a national survey by Bethesda-based management consulting company Watson Wyatt Worldwide. About 61 percent told the company that they are "satisfied" or "very satisfied" with the work they do, but fewer than one in three believes managers at the firms where they work make good and timely decisions ....(Washington Post, page D9) Internal Revenue Service data to be released today will show that from 1980 to 1995, a period when corporate revenues and profits soared, the senior executives of companies did even better, with their pay increasing at a much faster rate ....(New York Times, page D4).
