BLS DAILY REPORT, FRIDAY, MARCH 13, 1998
TODAY'S NEWS RELEASE: The Producer Price Index for Finished Goods
declined 0.1 percent in February, seasonally adjusted. This decline
followed decreases of 0.7 percent in January and 0.2 percent in
December. The index for finished goods other than foods and energy
advanced 0.1 percent, after falling 0.1 percent a month ago. Prices
received by producers of intermediate goods declined 0.2 percent,
following a 0.6 percent drop in the prior month. The crude goods index
fell 2.5 percent, after decreasing 4.5 percent in January ....
Free-falling petroleum and nonpetroleum prices again sent import prices
down in February as measured by the U.S. Import Price Index, which
dropped 0.8 percent during the month, BLS reports ....(Daily Labor
Report, page D-5).
New claims filed with state agencies for unemployment insurance benefits
fell 7,000 to a seasonally adjusted 298,000 for the week ended March 7,
the Employment and Training Administration of the Department of Labor
announces. This is the smallest new claims total since July 26, 1996,
when it stood at 276,000 ....(Daily Labor Report, page D-7; Wall Street
Journal, page A2).
Retail sales rose a seasonally adjusted 0.5 percent in February, after
an upwardly revised 1 percent hike in January, the Commerce Department's
Census Bureau reports ....(Daily Labor Report, page D-1)_____Consumer
spending began the year at a healthy pace after a disappointing holiday
shopping season, the Commerce Department reports. It said retail sales
rose as unseasonably warm weather brought shoppers out early to buy
spring clothes and garden supplies. The January gain was the biggest in
six months ....(New York Times, page C4; Wall Street Journal, page A2).
Americans are working less, stressing more. The workweek is shrinking,
so why does it feel longer? Blame it on downsizing, e-mail, laptops,
and dual-career families, says USA Today (page 1B) ....U.S. workers
actually are working less each week than our parents and grandparents
did. The average time worked across all industries is 39.5 hours a
week, down from 42.5 hours in 1948, the Department of Labor says. The
low point was 38 hours in 1982 ....The workweek figures are based on
surveys of about 50,000 households, and some suspect they are, if
anything, too high. John Robinson, a University of Maryland sociology
professor, has done time-diary studies that show people tend to
overestimate how much they work ....Technology, pursuit of the good
life, and restructuring are some of the culprits ....Hints of those
demands can be found in Labor Department statistics. Since 1982, the
average number of hours worked each week has edged up. Hours worked
each year also are up, driven in part by more women toiling more weeks
in the year.
Are profits lifting wages? In key finance sectors, it seems so, says
Business Week (March 16, page 22). One of the developments that has
sparked inflation fears - and jolted the bond market - in recent weeks
is the Labor Department's report that the employment cost index for
private sector workers surged by 1.2 percent in the fourth quarter, its
highest quarterly rise in five years. But economist James Glassman of
Chase Securities Inc. argues that the wage surge reflects "strong
productivity growth and robust profitability rather than an inflationary
threat." Virtually all of the fourth-quarter acceleration in
private-sector compensation, and much of the 1997 rise, he notes, was
accounted for by an unusual surge in the finance, insurance, and real
estate sectors ....Glassman points out that ECI wages and salaries
include sales commissions earned by stockbrokers, real estate agents,
mortgage brokers, and others. And booming activity in stock and real
estate markets also bolstered regular salaries - as well as overtime
premiums, insurance and savings benefits, nonproduction bonuses, and
other fringes that are counted as benefits. The key point, of course,
is that, rather than crimping profits, such compensation hikes actually
reflect rising profitability ....(Business Week, March 16, page 22).
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