November 1999, Vol. 122, No. 11
Labor month in review
The
November Review
Less
stress
Six
real raises, all in a row
Second
job entrepreneurs
In the November issue of this Review in odd-numbered years, we have gotten into the custom of releasing a new set of Bureau of Labor Statistics projections of the workforce and its industrial and occupational structure. And, as usual, a senior official from the division responsible for preparing the projections, Charles Bowman this year, has done a far better job of summarizing their work than the editors have space or expertise to do here. We would like to point out some of the themes that strike us as the most interesting and important to watch unfolding over the years to 2008:
• The increasing importance of the world economy. Growth rates for exports and imports are projected to be higher than the growth rate of the domestic economy. By 2008, exports are projected to equal 20 percent of GDP and imports 24 percent versus 13 percent and just over 16 percent, respectively, in the 1998 base year.
• The continuing aging of the labor force. The median age of workers is projected to rise to nearly 41 years. At that level, the median age of the labor force will just exceed the previous high of 40.5 years reached in 1962.
• The dominance of the service-producing sector as a source of employment growth. In the projection period—1998 to 2008—the service sector will account for more than 90 percent of job growth.
• The growing importance of education. Occupations that require at least an associates degree will account for 40 percent of all job growth out to 2008, compared to a one-quarter share of all jobs that existed in 1998.
There were an estimated 3,418 cases of occupational stress involving days away from work in 1997. This was the lowest number of cases in the 1992-97 period. Compared to 1992, there were 15 percent fewer cases of occupational stress in 1997.
BLS first collected data on detailed case characteristics of nonfatal occupational injuries and illnesses in 1992. Cases of occupational stress involving days away from work are classified by BLS as cases of "neurotic reaction to stress." Occurrences of neurotic reaction to stress are relatively infrequent—the incidence rate for private industry was 4 cases per 100,000 full-time workers in 1997. Additional information is available from "Occupational Stress: Counts and Rates," by Timothy Webster and Bruce Bergman, Compensation and Working Conditions, Fall 1999
Last year, wages and salaries adjusted for inflation increased by 2.2 percent in private industry—the same change as in 1997. The 1998 increase marked the sixth year in a row that inflation-adjusted wages and salaries rose. Since its inception in the mid-1970s, the Employment Cost Index (ECI) for wages and salaries in private industry adjusted for inflation has increased in 14 years and has fallen in 9. The largest increase in the constant-dollar ECI for wages and salaries occurred in 1982, when it rose by 2.4 percent. The steepest decline was in 1979, when constant-dollar wages fell 4.1 percent.
The Employment Cost Index is a fixed-employment-weighted index that tracks quarterly changes in labor costs, free from the influence of employment shifts among occupations and industries. The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) is used to adjust the ECI for inflation. Annual changes are December to December. Find out more in Employment Cost Indexes, 1975–98, BLS Bulletin 2514.
Almost 2 million workers can be described as "second job entrepreneurs." They have primary positions in wage-and-salary jobs and hold second jobs as self-employed workers in unincorporated businesses. The median age of second job entrepreneurs in 1998 was about 43 years, nearly 4 years older than the median for all workers. The largest proportion of second job entrepreneurs was the 35-to 44-year-old group—over a third were in this age group.
More than 75 percent of all second job entrepreneurs worked their second jobs
in one of four occupational groups: executive, administrative, and managerial;
professional specialty; farming, forestry, and fishing; or sales occupations. In
comparison, about 44 percent of all workers are in these occupations. Find out
more in "Second Job Entrepreneurs," Occupational Outlook Quarterly,
Fall 1999. (OOQ is on-line at
http://www.bls.gov/opub/ooq/ooqhome.htm)
Communications regarding the Monthly Labor Review may be sent to the Editor-in-Chief at 2 Massachusetts Avenue NE, Room 2850, Washington, DC, 20212, or faxed to (202) 691–7890.
Within Monthly Labor Review Online:
Welcome | Current
Issue | Index | Subscribe
| Archives
Exit Monthly Labor Review Online:
BLS Home | Publications & Research
Papers
