October 1999, Vol. 122, No. 10
Labor month in review
The October Review
Summer jobs
Do you know the pay in San Jose?
Younger, more vulnerable
Productivity gains compared
In any number of scenarios from planning an overseas vacation to comparing national product accounts across sets of countries, one can make better judgements if one could convert local data into a common currency and value them at the same price levels. One of the tools needed to do this is a measure of purchasing power parity, or PPP. A PPP rate of exchange is that conversion factor that equalizes the purchasing power of different currencies by incorporating elements of both an exchange rate and a price index. Michelle A. Vachris and James Thomas illustrate the technique in their lead article.
Jane Waldfogel looks at trends in family leave coverage in the past decade. She finds that coverage did, in fact, increase after the passage of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) of 1990 and that the increase in coverage was particularly noticeable among men. While the data suggest that the FMLA was an important part of increasing the incidence of this benefit, she notes that State legislation was also significant, especially for workers in smaller firms not covered under the Federal statute.
There have been many studies, including several in this Review, of the trends in the inequality of earnings. Daniel S. Hamermesh now contributes a study of how some nonmonetary working conditions might also be unequally distributed. He finds that in addition to being on the wrong end of an unequal distribution of money earnings, lower wage workers are more likely to be working on the less-desirable shifts and are increasingly at risk of sustaining an occupational injury.
This issue also has a summary of the recently released 1999 Report on the American Workforce. Single copies of the report are available from the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Washington, D.C. 20212 or by calling 202�6�86.
The number of employed youth increased by 2.8 million from April to July, the traditional summertime peak for youth employment. A total of 22.2 million youth were employed as of July, 65.2 percent of the population age 16 to 24. About 7 in 8 employed youth were wage and salary workers in the private sector this July, the same as last year. About 70 percent of these workers were employed in either retail trade (7.6 million) or services (6.1 million).
The number of unemployed young people, which also grows at this time of year, rose by 484,000 between April and July. Because this analysis is of seasonal changes in youth employment and unemployment that occur every spring and summer, the data are not seasonally adjusted. Find out more in "Employment and Unemployment Among Youth桽ummer 1999," news release USDL 99�4.
Do you know the pay in San Jose?
In 1997, San Jose, Calif. had the highest average annual pay of any metropolitan area in the country. Average pay in the San Jose area was $48,702, well above the national average of $30,336. New York, NewYork, had the second highest average annual pay level, at $47,281. Rounding out the metropolitan areas with the top five pay levels were San Francisco, California ($42,583), New Haven-Bridgeport-Stamford-Waterbury-Danbury, Connecticut ($42,485), and Middlesex-Somerset-Hunterdon, New Jersey ($41,796).
For the Nation, annual pay in metropolitan areas averaged $31,717 in 1997. Average annual pay in nonmetropolitan areas in 1997 was $23,846. Pay data are for workers covered by State and Federal unemployment insurance programs. Find additional information in "Average Annual Pay Levels in Metropolitan Areas, 1997," news release USDL 99�2.
Younger workers are the most vulnerable to being poor. In 1997, workers under the age of 25 had poverty rates about twice the overall rate. Among workers age 16 to 19 years, 11.6 percent lived below the poverty level in 1997. For workers age 20 to 24, the poverty rate was about the same: 11.5 percent. These rates were approximately twice the average of 5.7 percent for all workers. Poverty rates of workers generally declined with age. The biggest drop was between the 20-to 24-year-olds and the 25-to 34-year-olds. Workers 65 and older had the lowest poverty rate of all, at 2.7 percent. These figures are for individuals who spent at least 27 weeks in the labor force in 1997. Find out more in "A Profile of the Working Poor, 1997," BLS Report 936.
Of 11 countries, Germany抯 gain in manufacturing labor productivity of 4.3 percent was the highest in 1998. Productivity growth in manufacturing in the United States was nearly as high, at 4.1 percent. Other countries with significant increases in manufacturing output per hour were France, Sweden, and Norway. Productivity in the manufacturing sector rose by 3.4 percent in France, 2.2 percent in Sweden, and 2.1 percent in Norway. Additional information is available in "International Comparisons of Manufacturing Productivity and Unit Labor Cost Trends, 1998," news release USDL 99�5.
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.
News releases discussed above are available at: http://www.bls.gov/bls/newsrels.htm
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