BLS DAILY REPORT, THURSDAY, JUNE 8, 2000
RELEASED TODAY: The U.S. Import Price Index increased 0.6 percent in May.
The increase was attributable to a 6.5 percent upturn in petroleum prices,
as nonpetroleum prices declined 0.2 percent for the month. Export prices
also rose in May, up 0.2 percent, after dipping 0.1 percent in April. ...
A survey shows that about half of male Vietnam-era veterans had participated
in special education and training programs after their discharge from the
service, BLS reports. As of September 1999, when the data were collected,
about three-fourths of the disabled Vietnam-era veterans and one-half of the
nondisabled veterans took part in a variety of education and training
programs. About 44 percent of those who reported participating in such
programs said they had used the GI bill. The survey also showed that 5.7
percent of all male Vietnam-era veterans took advantage of veterans'
educational assistance programs offered by the Department of Veterans
Affairs, and another 2.5 percent had participated in vocational
rehabilitation programs under the VA. BLS conducted the survey of veterans
-- not just from the Vietnam era but from other periods as well -- last
September as a supplement to the monthly household survey. ... (Daily Labor
Report, page D-3).
Despite mixed signals of employers' hiring projections, employment prospects
remain robust for the third quarter, and workers continue to enjoy low
layoff incidence and minimal risk of job loss, according to the Bureau of
National Affairs' latest quarterly employment survey. Job opportunities for
production and service employees will diminish somewhat this summer, while
white-collar workers will see moderate-to-strong boosts in their hiring
prospects, according to the survey. ... (Daily Labor Report, page D-1).
Americans increased their borrowing at a less feverish pace in April,
ringing up the smallest rise in consumer credit in 6 months, the Federal
Reserve said today. Total consumer credit rose at a seasonally adjusted
annual rate of 7.8 percent. That was the smallest gain since October.
Still, the increase in borrowing was larger than many analysts were
expecting. Consumer spending accounts for two-thirds of all economic
activity and has been the engine behind the supercharged economy. ... (New
York Times, page C8; Wall Street Journal, page A2).
"As corrugated boxes go, so goes the economy?" asks Dean Starkman in The
Wall Street Journal's "Economy" feature (page A2). If that's true, those
ubiquitous, mostly brown boxes are confirming other recent economic
indicators, suggesting that U.S. manufacturing growth may be cooling.
Shipments of corrugated boxes, which rise and fall in sync with demand
across broad sectors of the economy, rose a tepid 0.9 percent in the first
quarter. ...
DUE OUT TOMORROW: Producer Price Indexes -- May 2000
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