Labor month in review
The March Review
Revised
CLS tables
Fewer work stoppages
in 1997
Wages at home and
abroad
Regional range
narrows
Next month
The number of major work stoppagesthose involving at least 1,000 workers, dropped last year to a record low of 29. These labor disputes, which include worker initiated strikes and lockouts of workers by their employers, affected about 339,000 workers and resulted in almost 4.5 million days of idleness.
More than three-quarters of the years lost days stemmed from just four disputes. The United Parcel ServiceTeamsters alone accounted for more than 2 million idle days. A dispute between Wheeling Pittsburgh Steel and the United Steelworkers resulted in about three-quarters of a million lost days. Stoppages at General Motors and Chrysler accounted for 360,000 and 307,000 days, respectively, involving members of the United Automobile Workers.
Go to Major Work Stoppages News Release.
In a study of 28 foreign economies, trade-weighted hourly compensation costs for production workers in manufacturing edged down to an average of 91 percent of the U.S. cost level in 1996. Labor costs in Europe and Japan remained above U.S. costs, but those in Japan fell below those of Europe for the first time since 1992.
The two countries with the highest dollar compensation costs were Germany and Switzerland at 180 and 160 percent of U.S. costs, respectively. The two lowest cost countries were Sri Lanka (3 percent) and Mexico (8 percent).
Go to International Comparisons of Hourly Compensation Costs for Production Workers in Manufacturing, 1996 News Release.
Unemployment rates dropped in about three-quarter of the States in 1997. All four major regions and 8 of the 9 geographic divisions also recorded declines. North Dakota had the lowest unemployment rate among the States at 2.5 percent, followed by Nebraska, New Hampshire, South Dakota, and Utah. Alaska and the District of Columbia posted the highest rates at 7.9 percent.
At the region and division level, the spread between high and low unemployment rates narrowed in 1997. With an unemployment rate of 4.0 percent, the Midwest region maintained the Nations lowest unemployment rate for the seventh year in a row. The West, despite experiencing the largest percentage point decline in regional unemployment, reported the highest rate, 5.6 percent. The 1.6-percentage point spread compares with the 2.0-point range between the highest and lowest regional unemployment rates of 1996.
Go to Regional and State Employment and Unemployment News Release.
Next months issue covers wage inequality in the United States and Canada, the earnings of husbands and wives, developments in the trucking industry, and assessing the Consumer Price Index.
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