> BLS DAILY REPORT, THURSDAY, JUNE 24, 1999:
>
> Today's BLS News Release: "Employer Costs for Employee Compensation -
> March 1999" indicates that in March 1999, employer costs for employee
> compensation for civilian workers (private industry and State and local
> government) in the United States averaged $20.29 per hour worked. Wages
> and salaries, which averaged $14.72, accounted for 72.5 percent of these
> costs, while benefits, which averaged $5.58, accounted for the remaining
> 27.5 percent. Legally required benefits averaged $1.65 per hour (8.1
> percent of total compensation), representing the largest non-wage employer
> cost. Employer costs for paid leave benefits averaged $1.34 (6.6 percent)
> insurance benefits averaged $1.29 (6.4 percent). and retirement and
> savings benefits averaged 76 cents (3.7 percent) per hour worked.
>
> The average annual pay of U.S. workers rose by 4.5 percent to $30,336 in
> 1997, the largest yearly advance since 1992, BLS reports. Private
> industry workers fared better than government employees in 1997, the data
> show. The wages of private industry workers -- who comprise 84.4 percent
> of the labor force -- advanced 5.1 percent in 1997, compared with 3.2
> percent for government employees (Daily Labor Report, page D1).
>
> Ethnic Chinese and Indian immigrants run nearly 25 percent of the
> high-tech companies started in Silicon Valley since 1980, according to the
> study by Anna Lee Saxenian, a professor of regional development at the
> University of California, Berkeley. The 2,775 immigrant run companies had
> total sales of $16.8 billion, and more than 58,000 employees last year.
> Ms. Saxenian says those figures likely understate the contributions of
> immigrant entrepreneurs, because many companies they started are run by
> native-born Americans. But there's evidence that the traditional pattern
> is changing. Chinese and Indian immigrants run 29 percent of the
> companies founded between 1995 and 1998, a figure Ms. Saxenian thinks is a
> more accurate reflection of their influence. "The big change in the 1990s
> is the recognition of not just the technical, but the managerial
> capabilities of immigrants," says Ms. Saxenian (The Wall Street Journal,
> page B6).
>
> With top management consultants offering college grads starting salaries
> of $50,000 and up, you'd think they wouldn't have problems attracting
> strong candidates. But with many of the smartest undergrads seeking
> high-tech employers, Booz, Allen & Hamilton, Boston Consulting Group,
> McKinsey, and the rest are competing furiously. So furiously that one of
> them, Andersen Consulting, will even walk their new hires' dogs. Little
> things mean a lot this year. To woo students, it's not unusual for a firm
> to fly in prospects for a weekend stay at a four-star hotel (Business
> Week, June 28, page 8).
>
> The S& P MMS median forecast calls for a drop in existing home sales to an
> annual rate of 5.2 million in May form a 5.24 million pace in April.
> Higher mortgage rates may be curbing sales, which hit a record 5.42
> million in March (Business Week, June 28, page 144).
>
>
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