BLS DAILY REPORT, THURSDAY, APRIL 20, 2000
RELEASED TODAY: A total of 1.7 million injuries and illnesses that required
recuperation away from work beyond the day of the incident were reported in
private industry workplaces during 1998. The total number of these cases
has declined in each year since 1992. In contrast, the number of injuries
and illnesses reported with only restricted work activity rather than days
away recuperating has increased during this same time period by nearly 70
percent to over 1,000,000 cases in 1998. ... Since 1993, truck drivers have
experienced the largest number of injuries and illnesses with time away from
work.
The inflation adjusted weekly earnings of most U.S. workers climbed 3.7
percent over the year ended in the first quarter of 2000, according to BLS.
In current dollars or without adjustment for inflation, the weekly pay of
the nation's 98.2 million full-time wage and salary employees rose 6.9
percent between the first quarters of 1999 and 2000. The CPI-U increased
3.2 percent over the same period, making the real pay gain 3.7 percent. ...
(Daily Labor Report, page D-25).
Higher prices for oil imports and a Boeing strike that lowered aircraft
exports helped widen the U.S. trade deficit to a record $29.2 billion in
February, the Commerce Department says. ... The Secretary of Commerce says
that about half the increase is due to higher petroleum prices. ... (Daily
Labor Report, page D-1; Washington Post, page E3)_____The United States
trade deficit widened to a record in February, elevated by surging oil
prices and growing demand for imports. The deficit in goods and services
trade grew in February as imports climbed to a record and exports fell for a
second consecutive month. ... (New York Times, page C14; USA Today, page
3B)_____The U.S. trade deficit, continuing its record-breaking pace of last
year, widened in February as high oil prices led a big jump in imports.
Aside from oil prices and Boeing labor woes, economists said the underlying
cause of the expanded deficit remains the same strong U.S. economic growth
and consumer demand coupled with weak economic growth overseas, said a
National Association of Manufacturers economist. ... (Wall Street Journal,
page A2).
Base salaries were expected to rise at about 4.4 percent this year, or about
the same rate as last year, as more companies use stock options and profit
sharing to supplement pay. An American Compensation Association survey
showed that 63 percent of the companies offered stock-based plans to
employees in 1999. Almost 57.2 percent extended stock options to hourly and
nonunion employees (Washington Post, page E17).
For years, antipoverty efforts have stressed work, education, and marriage
as the way up the economic ladder for the single, jobless mothers who seemed
to account for the bulk of urban poverty. Now a new analysis of census data
shows that in New York City, in the midst of an economic boom, poverty rates
rose sharply among just the kind of families with children that were
supposed to be safe: those that include two parents, a worker, and a
household head with more than a high school degree. Comparing three years
ended in 1998 with the last comparable stretch of prosperity, in the late
1980's, the study found that the overall rate of poverty in New York City
among families with children climbed to 32.3 percent, from 29.3 percent,
despite a rise in education and employment that would have been expected to
reduce poverty. The official federal poverty threshold is $13,133 for a
family of three. The survey was released by the nonprofit Community Service
Society of New York and suggests a collision of several trends: the growing
gap between rich and poor, a surge in immigration, and, as welfare changes
push recipients off the rolls, increasing competition for low-end jobs with
eroding wages. ... (New York Times, page A25).
The Labor Department commissioned a new survey to research the impact of the
Family and Medical Leave Act, an effort that it hopes will be under way in
the next couple of months. The survey will be conducted by Westat Inc.,
which released a survey in October 1995 that found approximately two-thirds
of employers covered under the 1993 law had changed their personnel policies
to comply with it, mostly by increasing the reasons for which leave can be
taken. The new survey will include research into how family and medical
leave can be made more accessible and affordable. It is intended to update
the 1995 research on the law's effect on businesses and employees conducted
for the now-defunct Commission on Family and Medical Leave. ... (Daily
Labor Report, page A-9).
The Washington Post carries an obituary for Rudolph Mendelssohn, 85, who
spent 40 years at the Bureau of Labor Statistics and retired as assistant
commissioner of the Office of Systems and Standards in 1980. ...
DUE OUT TOMORROW: Regional and State Employment and Unemployment: March
2000
application/ms-tnef
