BLS Daily Report

[Richardson_D <Richardson_D@xxxxxxx>]

BLS DAILY REPORT, THURSDAY, JULY 20, 2000

RELEASED TODAY:  Median weekly earnings of the nation's 100.2 million
full-time wage and salary workers were $566 in the second quarter of 2000.
This was 4.2 percent higher than a year earlier, compared with a gain of 3.3
percent in the CPI-U over the same period. ...

The National Organization on Disability releases a survey showing that,
while employment among people with disabilities has remained virtually
unchanged since 1986, the employment rate among those who say they are able
to work has improved slightly. The survey, conducted in May and June, is the
most recent in a series of surveys conducted by NOD and Louis Harris and
Associates, a polling company.  It compares the activity of disabled and
non-disabled people in a number of different categories, including
employment, education, and social activities.  According to the survey, 32
percent of working-age respondents with disabilities are currently working
full or part time, compared with 81 percent of non-disabled working-age
respondents.  These figures are virtually unchanged from statistics released
2 years ago that showed 29 percent of disabled respondents as employed,
compared with 79 percent of non-disabled respondents. ...  But among
disabled respondents who said they are able to work, more than half (56
percent) said they are currently employed.  In 1994, only 47 percent of the
same group said they were working. ...  (Daily Labor Report, page A-10).

An important but frequently overlooked factor in the nationwide decline in
crime over the past few years has been the corresponding decline in the
unemployment rate, writes Bob Herbert in his "In America" column (New York
Times, op-ed page).  Aggressive policing and long prison sentences get most
of the attention. ...  Now a study by a pair of Washington economists, Jared
Bernstein and Ellen Houston, appears to confirm that a job is one of the
most effective weapons in the nation's crime-fighting arsenal. ...  The
study by the Economic Policy Institute looked at crime rates and employment
statistics in several regions of the country between 1989 and 1998 and found
evidence to support that theory. ...  The study looked specifically at
unemployment rates for young men. ...

The U.S. trade deficit shot up to a record $31 billion in May, as America's
trade imbalance with oil-producing nations climbed to its second highest
point ever.  The Commerce Department reported that the deficit widened by
1.8 percent in May. ...  May's deficit was bigger than many analysts
expected (Washington Post, page E1)_____A sharp drop in exports caused the
nation's trade deficit to widen to another record in May.  Economists say
the May deficit reflects continued strength in America's economy compared
with the economies of its trading partners.  Analysts also pointed to the
strength of the U.S. dollar as another culprit.  A strong dollar makes U.S.
goods more expensive abroad. ...  (Wall Street Journal, page A2).

The Internet is rapidly changing the way workers search for jobs and
employers recruit workers, writes Alan B. Krueger, Bendheim Professor of
Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University, in "Economic Scene"
(New York Times, page C2). ...  Internet job boards took off after
Monster.com and HotJobs.com advertised during the 1999 Super Bowl.  There
are an estimated 30,000 job boards worldwide, ranging from Monster.com,
which says it has 3.9 million resumes and 397,000 job postings, to more
specialized job boards, like Accounting.Com and utah.jobs.com. ...  Job
boards are, in part, substituting for help-wanted ads placed in newspapers.
The number of such ads usually increases when the unemployment rate
declines, yet the Conference Board finds that newspaper help-wanted
advertising fell last year, when unemployment reached its lowest level in 30
years.  And the volume of help-wanted ads has been flat throughout the
booming 1990s.  Unemployed workers were two-thirds as likely to surf the
Internet to search for work as to look at traditional help-wanted ads,
according to a new study of the December 1998 Current Population Survey by
economists Peter Kuhn of the University of California at Santa Barbara and
Mikal Skuterud of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. ...  They found
that 15 percent of unemployed job seekers and 7 percent of employed workers
regularly used the Internet to search for a job.  Among those with access to
the Web from home, these numbers swelled to half of the unemployed and 15
percent of the employed. ...  More than a third of professional, managerial,
and technical unemployed workers used the Internet to search for work,
compared with 5 percent of manual workers. ...  Internet job boards are
lowering the cost of finding employees, averaging 5 percent of the price of
placing a help-wanted ad in a major newspaper for 30 days.

DUE OUT TOMORROW:  Regional and State Employment and Unemployment:  June
2000

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