February 2004, Vol. 127, No. 2
Labor month in review
The
February Review
Union membership 2003
Real weekly earnings flat in 2003
Productivity in retailing
The BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook is far and away the most popular sub-section of the BLS Web site. The Handbook home page received more than 500,000 page views in December 2003, and the index of professional occupations was viewed almost 100,000 times. The projections that the articles in this issue present are the quantitative underpinnings of the Handbook and its evaluation of prospects in specific occupations. Thus, we think, it was worth the wait while the projections staff made their transition to the new North American Industry Classification System (NAICS).
Michael W. Horrigan, the Assistant Commissioner in charge of the employment projections program, provides an overview of the concepts and methods used to make the individual projections and the interactions among them. He also summarizes the results of each stage of the process.
Betty W. Su establishes the macroeconomic framework the rest of the projections will assume prevails in 2012: A $12.6 trillion dollar economy (in chained 1996 dollars) with a projected growth rate of GDP of about 3.0 percent and a projected productivity growth rate of 2.1 percent.
Mitra Toossi uses long-term population projections provided by the Census Bureau and an analysis of historical trends in labor force participation to project the labor supply scene in 2012: An overall labor force that has grown from 144.9 million in 2002 to 162.3 million in 2012—a growth rate of about 1.1 percent per annum.
Jay M. Berman reports on the detailed industry by industry flow of inputs and outputs. As mentioned above, the fact that this uses the new NAICS represents a significant break from the past use of the old-shoe Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) system.
On the basis of the industry production and employment needs reported above, combined with industry-occupation staffing patterns developed by the Occupational Employment Survey, Dan Hecker presents projected trends in occupational employment in 2012.
In 2003, 12.9 percent of wage and salary workers were union members, down from 13.3 percent in 2002. The union membership rate has steadily declined from a high of 20.1 percent in 1983, the first year for which comparable union data are available.
Union membership rates were higher for men (14.3 percent) than for women (11.4 percent) in 2003. The gap between men’s and women’s rates has narrowed considerably since 1983, when the rate for men was 10 percentage points higher than the rate for women. Blacks were more likely in 2003 to be union members (16.5 percent) than were whites (12.5 percent), Asians (11.4 percent), or Hispanics (10.7 percent).
Among occupational groups, education, training, and library occupations (37.7 percent) and protective service workers (36.1 percent) had the highest unionization rates in 2003. Natural resources, construction, and maintenance workers and production, transportation, and material moving occupations also had higher-than-average union membership rates at 19.2 percent and 18.7 percent, respectively. Among the major occupational groups, sales and office occupations had the lowest unionization rate—8.2 percent. Find out more in "Union Members in 2003," news release USDL 04-53.
Real weekly earnings flat in 2003
Average weekly earnings rose by 1.7 percent, seasonally adjusted, from December 2002 to December 2003. After deflation by the CPI-W, however, average weekly earnings were unchanged.
Before adjustment for seasonal change and inflation, average weekly earnings were $523.02 in December 2003, compared with $520.37 a year earlier. After adjustment for seasonality, weekly earnings were $522.35 in December 2003 and $513.76 in December 2002. Expressed in constant 1982 dollars, seasonally-adjusted weekly earnings were $280.44 and $280.53 in the final months of 2002 and 2003, respectively. For more information see, "Real Earnings in December 2003," news release USDL 04-30.
In 2002, labor productivity—as measured by output per hour—rose in four of the six largest retail trade industries (those with more than one million employees). Productivity grew 4.2 percent in the entire retail trade sector in 2002. Output increased by 3.3 percent while hours fell by 0.9 percent.
Among the largest retail industries, productivity increased 3.1 percent in grocery stores, 3.9 percent in building material and supplies dealers, 6.2 percent in clothing stores, and 10.9 percent in other general merchandise stores (such as warehouse clubs, catalog showrooms, and dollar stores). Labor productivity declined 1.0 percent for department stores and 2.6 percent for automobile dealers. Additional information is available from "Productivity and Costs: Wholesale Trade, Retail Trade, and Food Services and Drinking Places, 2002," news release USDL 03-972.
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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