Labor month in review
The March Review
Strong productivity growth in 2000
More mass layoffs in 2000
More work stoppages in 2000
Unemployment down in most States
Even after the collapse of the dot-com bubble, it is clear that new technologies and new organizational paradigms have contributed to the increasing adoption of new working arrangements. This issue of the Review explores the growing incidence and impact of strategies ranging from contingent work to flexitime.
Steven Hipple reports on the persistence of contingent employment even as general labor market conditions improved. The unemployment rate, for example, dropped nearly a full percentage point between February 1997 and February 1999, but the contingency rate—the proportion of total employment that are contingent workers—was virtually unchanged at about 4.3 percent. Contingent work is conceptually an arrangement that is transitory and conditional and has often been used to denote a new, less loyal, less secure, "just-in-time" approach to staffing the new economy.
An analytical issue related to contingent work is the use of independent contractors, on-call workers, temps, and other alternative work arrangements. Marisa DiNatale finds that such workers account for less than one-tenth of total employment in 1999, a share that is not growing. In fact, the share accounted for by independent contractors, the largest of these groups, declines slightly between 1997 and 1999.
The final two articles discuss various aspects of flexible scheduling or flexitime, another growing characteristic of today’s labor market. Lonnie Golden finds that flexibilty in daily scheduling has grown to the point that it reaches more than one worker in four. Golden also finds, however that this often comes at a cost, either in terms of an extended workweek or stretching out of the work day, or in terms of accepting part-time work or irregular shifts.
Bonnie Sue Gariety and Sherrill Shaffer look at the relationship between wages and flexitime and find that flexible schedules are associated with higher wages. This, they state, "compares the relative strengths of two opposing effects: a negative compensating wage differential resulting from workers’ preferences for flexitime and a positive wage differential associated with higher productivity of workers on flexitime attributed to what economists call the ‘efficiency wage hypothesis’."
Strong productivity growth in 2000
Productivity in the nonfarm business sector, as measured by output per hour, rose 4.3 percent in 2000. The increase was the biggest since a 4.5-percent rise in 1983. The increase in productivity during 2000 was due to a 5.7-percent growth in output and a 1.3-percent rise in hours. During 1999, productivity increased 2.6 percent, as output grew 4.8 percent and hours of all persons increased 2.2 percent. Additional information is available in "Productivity and Costs, Fourth-Quarter and Annual Averages for 2000 (Revised)," news release USDL 01–56.
In 2000, there were 15,738 layoff events and 1,835,592 initial claimants for unemployment insurance in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Both the number of events and the number of initial claimants were higher than in 1999, when layoff events totaled 14,909 and the total number of initial claimants was 1,572,399.
In 2000, manufacturing accounted for 35 percent of all mass layoff events and 42 percent of initial claims filed. Initial claim filings were most numerous in transportation equipment (192,047), food and kindred products (88,942) and industrial machinery and equipment (73,215). A mass layoff event involves at least 50 workers from a single establishment. Read more about recent mass layoffs in "Mass Layoffs in December 2000," news release USDL 01–33.
There were 39 major work stoppages in 2000, up from only 17 in 1999. Of the major work stoppages beginning in 2000, 31 were in the private sector; the remainder occurred in State and local government. In the private sector, 14 stoppages occurred in goods-producing industries and 17 occurred in service-producing industries. In the public sector, 4 of the 8 stoppages were in education. (Major work stoppages are defined as strikes or lockouts that idle 1,000 or more workers and last at least one shift.) Learn more about work stoppages in "Major Work Stoppages, 2000," news release USDL 01–41.
Unemployment down in most States
Compared with 1999, annual average unemployment rates in 2000 were lower in 33 States and the District of Columbia, higher in 16 States, and unchanged in 1 State. The U.S. jobless rate decreased from 4.2 percent to 4.0 percent over the year.
The States posting the largest declines were Hawaii (–1.3 percentage points), West Virginia (–1.1 points), and Wyoming (–1.0 point). Twelve additional States plus the District of Columbia recorded decreases of at least 0.5 percentage point. See more about last year’s developments in "State and Regional Unemployment, 2000 Annual Averages," news release USDL 01–50.
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