April 11, 2005 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Work stoppages in 2004

The number of workers idled because of lockouts and strikes in 2004 rose from the prior year while the number of days of idleness fell.

[Chart data—TXT]

There were 17 major work stoppages that began during 2004 and one major work stoppage that continued from 2003, resulting in 170,700 idled workers and 3.3 million workdays of idleness. Comparable figures for 2003 were 14 stoppages, 129,200 workers idled, and 4.1 million workdays of idleness.

In private industry, the largest number of stoppages occurred among the service-providing industries (seven) and in the manufacturing sector of the goods-producing industries (three). Of the stoppages in the service-providing industries, four were in the health care and social assistance sector and three were in the accommodation and food service sector.

In State and local government, two stoppages were in the transportation and warehousing sector and one was in the health care and social assistance sector.

These data are from the BLS Collective Bargaining Agreements program. To learn more about work stoppages, see "Major Work Stoppages in 2004" (PDF) (TXT), news release USDL 05-598. Major work stoppages are strikes or lockouts that idle 1,000 or more workers and last at least one shift.