BLS DAILY REPORT, FRIDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1996
RELEASED TODAY:
EMPLOYMENT SITUATION -- Both unemployment and nonfarm payroll
employment were essentially unchanged in September. The jobless rate
was 5.2 percent in September; it had been 5.1 percent in August.
Payroll employment fell in manufacturing and local government in
September, and growth slowed in several other major industries. Average
hourly earnings rose by 6 cents over the month ....
COMMISSIONER'S STATEMENT -- In summary, the labor market was
somewhat weaker in September. Payroll employment was flat, as all major
industries showed either slower growth or declines. The unemployment
rate, at 5.2 percent, showed very little movement.
New claims filed with state agencies for unemployment insurance were
unchanged at 340,000 during the week ended Sept. 28, ETA reported
....(Daily Labor Report, Oct. 4, page D-1; USA Today, page 2B).
New orders to U.S. factories dropped 1.9 percent in August, the steepest
decline since January 1993, the Census Bureau reports ....(Daily Labor
Report, Oct. 4, page D-3; New York Times, page D4; Wall Street Journal,
page A2).
Factory orders registered their biggest decline in 3-1/2 years in
August, and new claims for jobless benefits remained at a three-month
high last week, easing fears that higher interest rates may be needed to
slow the economy ....(Washington Post, page D1).
The number of workers who believe they will be able to retire at the age
they had expected and in a comfortable life-style has declined by more
than 12 percent since last year, according to a survey conducted on
behalf of the Employee Benefits Research Institute. While 74 percent of
workers surveyed in 1995 were either very confident or somewhat
confident that they would have enough money to live comfortably in
retirement, only 62 percent replied in that way in 1996, according to
the Sixth Annual Retirement Confidence Survey, conducted by Matthew
Greenwald & Associates Inc., a Washington-based research and consulting
company. But the drop in confidence levels is good news, according to
the president of EBRI, a Washington-based nonpartisan, nonprofit public
policy research organization. Because, as workers "become more
skeptical of what others will do, they increasingly will do more for
themselves to supplement the base programs" provided by Social Security
and employers, he told reporters ....(Daily Labor Report, Oct. 3, page
A-9).
