Note the next to last item on Wall Street employment--it has now exceeded the level of Oct., 1987, just before the last melt down. Dave ---------- From: Ayres_M Sent: Thursday, December 12, 1996 5:37 PM To: DailyReport Cc: Hoyle_K; Ayres_M Subject: Daily Report BLS DAILY REPORT, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 12, 1996: The media tended to include the November Producer Price Index numbers in stories on the stock market. Despite the focus some investors put on the producer price rise, several analysts discounted its significance, says The Washington Post (page D1). They said the report had little effect on the markets because the increase was largely due to rising energy prices, some of which have begun to fall again. Excluding food and energy prices, the remainder of the Producer Price Index rose just 0.1 percent following a 0.3 percent decline in October. Over the past 12 months, this core portion of the index was up only 0.6 percent. __Except for a surge in energy prices, inflation at the producer level remained benign in November, more reassurance that Federal Reserve policy makers will likely find no need to raise interest rates at their final 1996 meeting next week (Robert D. Hershey, Jr., writing in The New York Times, page D2). __Soaring energy costs pushed wholesale prices for finished goods up 0.4 percent in November, but inflation from other major corners of the economy remained tame (The Wall Street Journal, page A2). For U.S. workers, increases in productivity outpaced increases in pay. Comparative percent change 1994-95 is given for the U.S., Canada, Japan, Germany, Sweden, and Britain, with data attributed to BLS (The Washington Post, page D2). Women are not on the boards of nearly a fifth of Fortune 500 companies, and those companies are badly lacking the diversity needed to compete in a global economy, says the Catalyst Group, which released an annual survey of women on corporate boards. More companies appoint women to their boards each year, yet the pace of change has slowed and women will hold only 626 of the total 6,123 seats at Fortune 500 companies (The Washington Post, page D2). __Women passed a milestone in the board room in 1996, for the first time holding more than 10 percent of the directors' seats at the nation's 500 largest companies. But two sauer notes marred that upbeat news: the rate of increase of female directors has declined, and only 11 of the 1,216 inside directors at Fortune 500 companies are women, five of whom are related to the chief executives of the controlling family (The New York Times, page D4). __Women now hold more than 10 percent of all board seats on Fortune 500 companies, a new study shows (The Wall Street Journal, page A6). The Washington Post's lead editorial (page A20) is on child labor. "The single most important factor in reducing child labor, and one the UNICEF report does not sufficiently highlight, is economic growth," says The Post. "In economies that grow, the number of poor people decreases; as poverty is reduced, so is exploitative child labor...Countries that emphasize schooling, including especially for girls, do better than countries that don't." Employment on Wall Street has soared to a record level, surpassing the previous high set before the Octobers 1987 stock market crash. The hiring boom shows how Wall Street securities firms have put slack in the taut line they had held on hiring of brokers and investment bankers in recent years (The Wall Street Journal, page C1). Child care can be enormously complicated -- not to mention hugely expensive, says The Wall Street Journal, in its supplement "Personal Finance". Included in the article is a table showing "Costs Around the Country" which gives the cost of "full-time live-out nanny" and "day care center" for New York, Miami, Kansas City, Mo., Seattle, and Oakland, Calif. (page R26).
