Labor month in review
The
January Review
Contingent
workers
Injuries and
illnesses
New wage data
CPI base years
Next
month's review
An important part of Monthly Labor Reviews readership is made up of labor relations practitioners from both sides of the table. Every year, as a service to these readers and as perhaps under-appreciated background to others, the Review has summarized developments in State labor, unemployment insurance, and workers compensation legislation. These laws are the infrastructure of collective bargaining and economic security.
The proportion of workers who hold contingent jobsbasically those jobs that are not expected to lastdeclined slightly between February 1995 and February 1997, according to a supplement to the Current Population Survey (CPS). Using the broadest of three estimates of the number of contingent workers, about 4.4 percent of all employment was found to be contingent in 1997, compared with 4.9 percent in 1995.
For more information, see the Contingent and Alternative Employment Arrangements, February 1997, news release.
A total of 6.2 million injuries or illnesses were reported in private workplaces during 1996, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The resulting rate of 7.4 cases per 100 equivalent full-time workers was the lowest on record since BLS started reporting this information in the 1970s. Among goods-producing industries, the incidence rate for injuries and illnesses per hundred full-time workers fell from 11.2 in 1995 to 10.2 in 1996. In service-producing industries, the incidence rate fell from 6.7 per hundred to 6.2.
On December 18, 1997, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced the first release of national wage data from the redesigned Occupational Employment Survey. Data for 1996 are available for a comprehensive set of 764 occupations and cover employment, average (mean) wage, and median wage for each. The highest median straight-time hourly wages were found among a select group of health-diagnosing occupations-physicians and surgeons (more than $60.01), dentists ($47.66), and podiatrists ($47.64)-and professors of law ($45.02), medicine (37.04), and engineering ($36.29). The half-dozen jobs with the lowest median wages included waiters and waitresses ($5.37), food-and-fiber farm workers ($5.41), ushers and ticket takers ($5.47), fast-food cooks, ($5.48), dining room attendants ($5.49), and combined food preparation and service workers ($5.49).
The Bureau of Labor Statistics will maintain the current reference base of 1982-84=100 used for most Consumer Price Index (CPI) series. In addition, the 1967= 100 reference base will continue to be the alternate base for the All Items indexes. BLS had previously indicated its intention to change the numerical reference base from their present 1982-84=100 base to a 1993-95=100 base, and to eliminate the alternate reference base of 1967=100 with release of the January 1999 CPI. Again, these reference base changes will not occur.
The February issue features articles on the the demographic and spending patterns of young adults, the 1997 employment story, and workers in services jobs.
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