Overview of Report on the American Workforce 2001

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For the most part, the Report on the American Workforce is presented on this website in Adobe PDF format. (The preface, acknowledgments, and message from the Secretary of Labor are displayed in HTML format as well.) The 204-page report is divided into sections on this site to make it more usable. For example, each of the statistical tables in the Appendix is presented in its own PDF file.

Single copies of the print version of Report on the American Workforce 2001 are available. Request a copy by sending e-mail to blsdata_staff@bls.gov with your mailing address included in your request, by mailing a request to the Office of Publications and Special Studies, U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Washington, D.C., 20212, or by calling 202-691-5200.

1999 report still available: Download the Report on the American Work Force 1999 (PDF 1,037K).

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This is the Department of Labor’s fifth Report on the American Workforce. 
Previous editions appeared in 1994, 1995, 1997, and 1999. Each volume has provided a broad context for analyzing the issues faced by the Department of Labor, as it delivers on its mandate to prepare the American workforce for new and better jobs and to ensure the adequacy and competitiveness of America’s workplaces. In this volume, the Report traces the broad outlines of the economy in the 20th century, its impact on the American worker, and the evolution of the statistical tools needed by policymakers, workers, employers, and researchers, as they embark on a new century.

The Report’s outline and context is presented in the opening message from Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao. An introductory essay outlines the economic, technological, social, and business developments of the just-completed century. The three chapters explore, in turn, demographic change and demographic statistics, the evolution of compensation and compensation reporting, and economic structure and economic classification. A compendium of statistical tables completes the book. Katharine G. Abraham, Commissioner for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, established the strategic direction for this series of reports. Deborah Klein and Richard M. Devens provided overall direction for this year’s volume.

Information in this report is available to sensory-impaired individuals on request. Voice phone: (202) 691-5200. Federal Relay Service: 1-800-877-8339. This material is in the public domain and may be reproduced without further permission. Appropriate citation is requested. 

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The introductory essay outlines the progress of the American worker over the course of the 20th century. This piece also suggests the degree to which our understanding of the workforce, as result of refined statistics, improved substantially during the century. The introduction was written by Donald M. Fisk.

Chapter 1 describes the important changes in the composition of the American population and workforce that are the result of immigration and internal migration, particularly the movement of African American workers out of the South. These changes have driven the continuing development of methods for classifying demographic data to track the economic status of a growing variety of groups in the population. The authors of the chapter on minority measurement are N.Clyde Tucker; Geoffrey D. Paulin; Howard N Fullerton, Jr.; Thomas M. Beers III; Terry M. McMenamin; Abraham T. Mosisa; Sharon R. Cohany; and Howard V. Hayghe.

The second chapter chronicles the evolution of compensation practices over the course of the 20th century and the continuing efforts to capture these practices in useful statistical data. The components of compensation continue to evolve. Variable pay benefits—such as profit sharing and stock options—are growing in importance; and other benefits, such as family care and health promotion programs have emerged. The authors of chapter 2 are Thomas Moehrle, Jordan Pfuntner, Richard Schumann, Albert Schwenk, Robert Van Giezen, Michael Horrigan, William Goodman, and Michael Cimini.

Chapter 3 describes the structural evolution of the economy and the concomitant development of systems of industrial and occupational classification. Though not often visible, economic classification schemes are critical in determining how well statistics reflect the true workings of the economy. The chapter’s contributors were Daniel Hecker, Jerome R. Pikulinski, and Norman C. Saunders. The authors wish to acknowledge the assistance of the History Staff of the Bureau of the Census, U.S. Department of Commerce.

The Report was edited by Monica Gabor, Daniel Houlder, and Monica Carpio and was designed and composed by Margaret Jones, Phyllis Lott, Dorothy Williams, and Bonita Boles, under the direction of Monica Gabor. Imran Khan and Mary Jablonski were responsible for Web design and production.
 

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