Labor month in review
The
January Review
One in nine had some unemployment in 2002
Increase in volunteering
Work injuries and illnesses in 2002
For the past quarter-century, Monthly Labor Review has benefited from Richard R. Nelson’s concise summaries of State labor legislation. While the overall structure of Federal labor law touches and influences all the States, labor lawyers, labor relations practitioners, labor union officials, and labor economists have come to realize that it is the diversity across States that often lends nuance and substance to their work. We all thank Richard Nelson for the contribution he has made to that work over the years. It is thus with sincere good wishes (and some trepidation) that we send him off on the retirement from government service that he announced during the editorial process of this year’s article.
Nelson and his co-author, John J. Fitzpatrick, Jr., chronicle the wide sweep of labor legislation that was enacted in a busier year in the Statehouses than has been the experience recently in the field of labor law. It is a sign of the times that one of the more frequent categories of legislation was the delineation of re-employment rights for National Guard and other personnel called to active duty.
Glenn Whittington, another long-time contributor, summarizes changes in workers’ compensation law enacted in 2003. Again, the interesting parts are the changes at a very fine-grained level: one State imposes a new limit on a class of treatments while another increases the number of such treatments allowed. In at least one case, chiropractic treatments in California and Florida, both the limiting State and the liberalizing State end up at the same number of authorized treatments. It is perhaps a more depressing sign of the times that in the first two States in the report, the fines for avoiding provision of workers’ compensation on the part of employers or for defrauding the system on the part of employees had to be substantially increased.
Loryn Lancaster, a relatively recent addition to our group of regulars, summarizes changes in the area of unemployment insurance. In this case, many of the important changes are at the federal level. There were two extensions of the Temporary Extended Unemployment Compensation program and, in yet another sign of how times have changed, the Department of Labor issued final regulations clarifying eligibility of unemployment benefits as a direct result of a major disaster.
The issue also includes a book review, May the Best Team Win: Baseball Economics and Public Policy, prepared by Kevin Skelly of the Bureau’s New York region. Readers should know that MLR accepts submissions for the book review section as well as articles from outside authors. For more details, contact us at mlr@bls.gov.
One in nine had some unemployment in 2002
In 2002, the "work-experience unemployment rate" for all workers—defined as the number unemployed at some time during the year as a proportion of the number who worked or looked for work at any time during the year—rose by 0.6 percentage point to 11.0 percent. At that level, the "work-experience unemployment rate" for all workers was the highest it has been since 1996, when it was 11.7 percent. Conversely, the proportion of the population that worked at some point during 2002 was 68.4 percent, 0.9 percentage point below its 2001 level.
Both the number of volunteers and the volunteer rate rose over the year ended in September 2003. About 63.8 million people did volunteer work at some point from September 2002 to September 2003, up 59.8 million from the previous 12-month period. The volunteer rate grew to 28.8 percent, up from 27.4 percent.
About 25.1 percent of men and 32.2 percent of women did volunteer work in the year ended in September 2003, increases of 1.5 and 1.2 percentage points from 2002, respectively. For teenagers, the volunteer rate jumped by 2.6 percentage points to 29.5 percent.
Volunteers spent a median of 52 hours on volunteer activities during the period from September 2002 to September 2003. Among the age groups, volunteers age 65 and older devoted the most time—a median of 88 hours—to volunteer activities. Those age 25 to 34 years spent the least time, volunteering a median of 36 hours during the year. Find out more in "Volunteering in the United States, 2003" news release USDL 03-888.
Work injuries and illnesses in 2002
A total of 4.7 million nonfatal injuries and illnesses were reported in private industry workplaces during 2002, resulting in a rate of 5.3 cases per 100 equivalent full-time workers. Among goods-producing industry divisions, incidence rates during 2002 ranged from 4.0 cases per 100 full-time workers in mining to 7.2 cases per 100 full-time workers in manufacturing. Within the service-producing sector, incidence rates ranged from 1.7 cases per 100 full-time workers in finance, insurance, and real estate to 6.1 cases per 100 full-time workers in transportation and public utilities.
Approximately 2.5 million injuries and illnesses were cases with days away from work, job transfer, or restriction; that is, they required recuperation away from work, transfer to another job, restricted duties at work, or a combination of these actions. The remaining 2.2 million injuries and illnesses were other recordable cases that did not result in time away from work. The incidence rate for cases with days away from work, job transfer, or restriction was 2.8 cases per 100 workers. See "Workplace Injuries and Illnesses in 2002," news release USDL 03-913.
Communications regarding the Monthly Labor Review may be sent to the Editor-in-Chief by e-mail to mlr@bls.gov, by mail at 2 Massachusetts Avenue NE, Room 2850, Washington, DC, 20212, or by fax to (202) 691–7890.
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