BLS DAILY REPORT, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 2, 1999
RELEASED TODAY: In April, 215 metropolitan areas recorded unemployment
rates below the U.S. average (4.1 percent, not seasonally adjusted), while
102 areas had higher rates. Of the 24 metropolitan areas with jobless rates
below 2.0 percent, 13 were in the Midwest and 9 were in the South. Of the
10 areas with rates above 10.0 percent, 7 were in California and 2 were
along the Mexican border in other states....
Initiatives undertaken by the Labor Department, if successfully implemented,
"have the potential" to improve the timeliness and accuracy of prevailing
wage determinations under the Davis-Bacon Act, GAO says. ... GAO finds, in
response to a congressional conference report directive, that DOL is
evaluating procedures to improve the wage determination process by
redesigning its Wage and Hour Division's survey process, which includes
redesigning survey forms to obtain data more efficiently and using
technology to analyze data more quickly. DOL also is considering using data
from BLS surveys to determine prevailing wage rates. ... The use of BLS
Occupational Employment Statistics data for wage determinations presents the
Wage and Hour Division with "a number of operational issues" regarding the
setting of wage rates, department officials said. ... Because OES data
provide no information on benefit payments, division officials said they
would have to link OES data with other data sources that include benefit
data to meet Davis-Bacon wage determination requirements. The best
alternative source of benefit data -- the BLS National Compensation Survey
-- is problematic because it is available only at the national level or for
limited geographic areas, DOL said. ... (Daily Labor Report, page A-9).
The factory sector continued its rebound in May, with manufacturing
employment finally showing a gain after 11 months of decline, according to
the National Association of Purchasing Management monthly survey.
Production and new orders gained momentum in May, with NAPM's employment
index rising 4 percentage points to 53.5 percent. ... The Asian financial
crisis hurt manufacturing for more than a year. Employment, as measured by
the BLS current establishment survey, lost some 402,000 jobs since it last
peaked in March 1998. ... Prices reversed course in May, rising after 16
monthly declines. Manufacturers reported higher prices in May compared with
June, especially in petroleum products, metals, plastics, and paper. ...
(Daily Labor Report, page A-1).
The composite index of leading economic indicators dipped 0.1 percent in
April, the first decline in 10 months, but the economy should continue its
expansion through the rest of the year, the Conference Board reports. ...
Stock prices and the length of the average factory workweek gave the index
its biggest boost during the month. ... (Daily Labor Report, page D-1).
New construction spending declined 2.4 percent in April, reflecting weakness
in residential, commercial, and public construction, the Commerce Department
says. ... The decline was the steepest since construction outlays fell 3.0
percent in January 1994 and was also a bigger drop than economists were
anticipating. However, when compared with April a year ago, construction
spending was up 8.0 percent. ... (Daily Labor Report, page A-6).
The manufacturing sector gained more strength in May, a report from
corporate purchasing management indicted, but two other measures suggested
the economy is moderating from the breakneck pace it set in the first
quarter. While the NAPM factory index rose in May to the highest reading
since the start of the Asian financial crisis, April construction spending
fell 2.4 percent and the index of leading indicators fell for the first time
in almost a year. ... But financial markets discounted much of the economic
news, focusing on evidence in the purchasing managers' report that prices
paid by producers for materials had risen, and stock and bond prices
slumped. ... (Washington Post, page E1)_____The rebound in United States
manufacturing accelerated in May, and more factories reported paying higher
prices for materials. Separately, the index of leading economic indicators
fell 0.1 percent in April, its first monthly decline in almost a year. And
the country's construction spending unexpectedly fell, the first decline in
6 months. ... (New York Times, page C8)_____U.S. manufacturing activity
picked up considerable steam in May to the point of showing some emerging
inflationary strains. But other economic reports suggest that some sectors
of the economy may be cooling a bit. ... (Wall Street Journal, page A2)
The Department of Defense announced that it was briefly pulling its
computers off the Internet to upgrade security by installing hardier
"firewall" protection between computer systems that are accessible to the
outside world and those that should not be. Noting the recent spate of
hacker attacks on government Web sites, a Pentagon spokesman said the
upgrade is part of a long-term computer security effort. ... In fact, the
Defense Department is engaged in long-term planning that could completely
move its unclassified networks off the Internet and on to a proprietary
system. ... Securing government Web sites against attack is difficult
because the sites are designed for open access; that's why
security-conscious computer managers separate Web computer systems from
those that contain critical internal information. ... (Washington Post,
page A2)_____Raids by agents of the FBI last week against several suspected
computer hackers are part of a new government cybercrime unit's crackdown
against illegal tampering with computer networks and Web sites, a Federal
prosecutor says. The raids prompted a counteroffensive in which disparate
hacker groups took responsibility for bringing down additional corporate and
government sites, including the FBI's public information site. ... (New
York Times, page A14).
Americans feel stressed. Conventional wisdom says that longer working hours
cause this pressure. But the best data show that the number of hours most
Americans work has changed little, say Kathleen E. Christensen, who directs
the program on working families at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and Ralph
E. Gomory, president of the foundation and a former senior vice president of
IBM, writing on the op. ed. page of The Washington Post. ... In today's
two-career family, there are three jobs, two paid and one unpaid, but only
two people to do them. ... But while the arithmetic of the family has
changed fundamentally, the institutions of the workplace, home, and
neighborhood have not. Workplaces mainly have the structure they had when
all employees were full-time males. They are intolerant of part-time
employees, who often function without benefits and without a reasonable
career path. Home and neighborhood have also failed to adapt. Repair
services and land-use patterns continue to assume full-time homemakers who
can wait at home for repairs, run the house, buy groceries, and chauffeur
the children. Child care is still personal, unorganized, and catch as catch
can. ... Society can do better. At minimum, better part-time careers need
to be made available. ... At home, we need to rethink how services are
provided. ...
Compensation programs that provide flexible work arrangements, personal
convenience services, career counseling, and other types of work/life
programs should be used to reward employees, according to 43 percent of
employers responding to the "1999 Survey of Performance Based Work/Life
Programs." ... The study was conducted by the American Compensation
Association and The Segal Co., a human resources consulting firm. It showed
that only 18 percent of survey respondents currently use some work/life
programs to reward employee performance. The survey is based on responses
from 1,256 organizations. ... (Daily Labor Report, page A-5).
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