[PEN-L:434] BLS Daily Report

[Richardson_D]

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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....  

DUE OUT TOMORROW:  The Employment Situation


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