[PEN-L:11560] FW: Daily Report

[Richardson_D <Richardson_D@xxxxxxx>]

BLS DAILY REPORT, WEDNESDAY, JULY 30, 1997:

RELEASED TODAY:  Most state unemployment rates showed little change in
June, as 44 states and the District of Columbia recorded shifts of 0.3
percentage point or less from May.  The national jobless rate
increased to 5.0 percent over the month.  Nonfarm payroll employment
rose in 36 states and the District of Columbia in June.

Total compensation costs paid by private industry employers climbed
2.9 percent over the year ended in June as measured by the Employment
Cost Index, BLS reports.  The latest ECI data show an unusually stable
picture of wage and benefit trends, says James Houff, BLS senior
economist.  "It's probably the flattest report we've ever had," he
said (Daily Labor Report, page D-1).
__John M. Berry, writing in The Washington Post (page D8), says that
the cost of most workers' pay and benefits rose only moderately over
the past year, even though employers have had to scramble to find
workers in many parts of the country because of tight labor markets.
 But a chief economist of the Bank  Boston is quoted as saying "I have
to believe, given the tightness of labor markets, that the best news
(on labor costs) is behind us."
__Employee compensation costs rose slightly this spring because of an
increase in benefits, but the gain posed no inflationary threat, says
Robert D. Hershey, Jr., writing in The New York Times (page D1).  On
page D6, a Bloomberg News article printed by The Times says that
Treasury prices extended their rally yesterday after reports showed a
muted increase in labor costs.
__Labor costs remained tame in the second quarter, rising 0.8 after a
scant 0.6 percent gain in the first quarter, despite the tightest
labor market in more than 2 decades (The Wall Street Journal, page
A6).

The Clinton Administration took a first step toward establishing a
government-wide standard of confidentiality by issuing an
administrative order under the Paperwork Reduction Act, an OMB
official announces at a House hearing.  The importance of establishing
government-wide confidentiality standards for statistical information
is to ensure the privacy and confidentiality of people and
organizations who furnish data for federal statistical programs,
according to the "Federal Register".  Once the confidentiality
standards are established and legislation passed that will remove
barriers currently in place, agencies will be better able to share
statistical data.  Some members of Congress also have pushed for
consolidating statistical agencies.  Introduced last Congress, HR 2521
would have consolidated into one agency the Census Bureau, BLS, and
BEA (Daily Labor Report, page A-9).

Workplace injuries and illnesses cost an estimated $172 billion each
year and result in approximately 6,500 deaths from injury and more
than 60,000 deaths from disease, according to "Occupational Injury and
Illness in the United States:  Estimates of Costs, Morbidity and
Mortality," which appeared in a journal of the American Medical
Association called the "Archives of Internal Medicine".  The study was
authored by J. Paul Leigh, an economist with San Jose State
University, and researchers from Stanford University Medical Center
and Mount Sinai School of Medicine. The study, described as the first
of its kind, also said workers suffer an estimated 13.2 million
nonfatal injuries and 862,200 illnesses annually.  According to the
study, actual numbers may be much higher due to a variety of reasons,
including "undercounted" occupational injuries and illnesses (Daily
Labor Report, page A-6).

After two monthly increases, the Consumer Confidence Index dropped
nearly 3 points in July to 126.5 percent of its 1985 base, the
Conference Board reports.  Consumers remain optimistic about the job
market, with the proportion saying there will be fewer jobs remaining
low in July at 12.3 percent.  Buying plans for big ticket items
continued at about the same rate (Daily Labor Report, page A-1).
__Lynn Franco, associate director of the Consumer Research Center,
commenting on the Consumer Confidence data, said the decline was not a
sign the economy is in any trouble.  "Despite the slight decline in
consumer confidence this month, both the present situation and
expectations indexes are at historically high levels," she said.  "The
latest readings continue to signal healthy economic growth ahead."
(The Washington Post, page D8).
__Bloomberg News, as quoted in The New York Times (page D2), says that
Americans' confidence in the economy fell unexpectedly this month, but
remained close enough to a 28-year high to suggest that consumer
spending might accelerate.
__The Wall Street Journal (page A6) includes consumer confidence data
in its article on the employment cost index, and shows the consumer
confidence index 1994 to the present on a page 1 graph.

A National Association of Business Economists survey points to
continuing strength in the economy, with gains in hiring, business
investment, and consumer demand.  Economists who were surveyed said
that demand for their firms' products and services strengthened in the
second quarter, reversing a slight slowdown in the first quarter.
 Two-thirds believe that demand will pick up over the next 6 months.
 Not one of the respondents forecast significantly lower volume,
"pointing to continued good growth in the economy," the association
said.  In the second quarter of this year, the association's
employment index rose to a "very strong" 23.7 level, surpassed only
during the second quarter of 1984 when it reached 27.6.  When asked
about hiring plans over the next 6 months, 42 percent of those
surveyed said they intend to increase employment, up from 33 percent
last quarter (Daily Labor Report, page A-5).
__A poll published by the National Association of Business Economists
shows that "price increases are increasingly difficult to realize" and
that the pace of labor-cost increases "appears to have slowed" from
that of the first quarter (The New York Times, page D1).

German workers fear that they may soon be affected by forces set loose
from freer global trade that are pushing more countries toward the
American approach of working longer for less.  The competitive edge
that created the German miracle has eroded, leaving a sense that the
good times are over (The New York Times, page 1).  Illustrating the
article (on page A4) is a graph that shows vacation days for employees
on the job for one year.  While Austrian workers get 30 days, U.S.
workers get 10 days.

Robert J. Samuelson, in a column on the op. ed. page of The Washington
Post (A23), quotes BLS statistics to argue that, in addition to the
actions taken by the Federal Reserve to keep inflation at bay, market
forces have contributed to the recent period of price stability in the
United States.

DUE OUT TOMORROW:  Mass Layoffs in May 1997