BLS DAILY REPORT, FRIDAY, MARCH 24, 2000
RELEASED TODAY: In January 2000, there were 1,936 mass layoff actions by
employers as measured by new filings for unemployment insurance benefits
during the month. Each action involved at least 50 persons from a single
establishment, and the number of workers involved totaled 223,784. Both the
number of layoff events and the number of initial claimants for unemployment
insurance were lower than in January of the previous two years. ...
Both the number of mass layoff events and the number of workers affected by
them dropped off sharply in the fourth quarter of 1999, compared with one
year earlier, according to BLS data.(Daily Labor Report, page D-1).
New claims filed with state agencies for unemployment insurance benefits
rose 4,000 to a seasonally adjusted total of 266,000 during the week ended
March 18, according to the Labor Department's Employment and Training
Administration. ... (Daily Labor Report, page D-9).
A $20 million Labor Department grant, for the Washington Metro Area
Technology Initiative, to train workers for high-tech jobs in Virginia,
Maryland, and Washington, D.C., should put more than 3,000 people to work,
Labor Secretary Alexis Herman says. Businesses that have worker shortages
helped design the program, and the training is customized to supply their
needs. "We don't have a worker shortage in this country, but we do have a
skills shortage," Herman said. ... (Daily Labor Report, page A-7;
Washington Post, page E3).
Women already account for more than 55 percent of both the bachelor's and
master's degrees awarded by U.S. colleges, and they are rapidly closing the
gender gap among newly minted PhDs. The National Opinion Research Center at
the University of Chicago reports that females received 41.8 percent of the
doctorates granted in the 1998 academic year, up from 40.6 percent in 1997
(Business Week, March 27, page 30).
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