February, 2001, Vol. 124, No. 2
Labor month in review
The February
Review
Business services in librarians’ future
Stoppages shorter in 1999
Union men and women
Mass layoffs in 2000
Our annual labor market review reflects a somewhat mixed view of 2000. The year began well; the first half’s annualized employment growth rate was 2.3 percent, and the unemployment rate was dropping toward the lowest levels in 30 years. Improved labor market conditions were widely diffused as well. Jennifer L. Martel and David S. Langdon report, for example, that employment-to-population ratios for black and Hispanic workers reached record highs. However, slowdowns in construction and the service-producing sector yielded a sharp slowdown in overall job creation by yearend.
The article by Lucy P. Eldridge and Mark K. Sherwood explores the significant gap between manufacturing productivity rates in the United States and Canada. Over the period 1978 through 1998, factory productivity growth in the United States averaged a full percentage point higher, and the gap seemed to be widening in the latest data. Among the explanatory factors, they cite extraordinary productivity growth in the information technology sector in the United States, offset somewhat by higher growth in transportation equipment productivity within Canada.
The final article explores the impact of pension plans on retirement income that explicitly integrate information on Social Security benefits in determining the plan’s payout. Keith A. Bender finds that such plans might slightly increase benefits for workers with comparatively low tenure but decrease benefits for those retiring after longer tenures.
Business services in librarians’ future
The number of librarian jobs is projected to grow about 5 percent between 1998 and 2008. However, the occupation is expected to grow much faster in various industries, notably business services.
Librarian jobs in the business services industry are projected to grow by 87 percent between 1998 and 2008, by far the largest percent increase. Museums and botanical and zoological gardens are expected to experience a 51-percent growth rate, followed by social services at 44 percent, engineering and management services at 39 percent, and legal services at 22 percent. More moderate growth rates of 12 and 8 percent, respectively, are expected in local governments and State governments (exclusive of education and hospitals).
Education is not expected to record any growth in librarian employment, while the Federal Government is projected to have 12 percent fewer librarians in 2008 than in 1998. For more information, see "Librarians: Information experts in the information age," by Olivia Crosby, Occupational Outlook Quarterly, Winter 2000–01.
The average length of major work stoppages that began in 1999 was about 16 days, compared with 26 days in 1998 and 20 days in 1997. Disputes were concentrated in the 1–2 day and 7–14 day ranges in 1999. About 70 percent of stoppages lasted for 2 weeks or less, while 18 percent extended for more than 21 days.
The longest stoppage in effect in 1999 was at Kaiser Aluminum; the strike began in October 1998 and continued into 2000. The second longest was at Continental General Tire Company. Additional information is available from "Work Stoppages in 1999" by Fehmida Sleemi, Compensation and Working Conditions, Fall 2000. Major work stoppages are defined as strikes or lockouts that idle 1,000 or more workers and last at least one shift.
Union membership continued to be higher among men (15.2 percent) than women (11.5 percent) in 2000. The gap in unionization rates between the sexes, however, fell to 3.7 percentage points in 2000 from 4.7 percentage points in 1999. The gender gap in unionization rates has been closing over time. In 1983, the rate for men was 24.7 percent, and the rate for women was 14.6 percent, a difference of 10.1 percentage points. Read news release USDL 01–21, "Union Members in 2000," for more details.
In 2000, there were 15,738 layoff events and 1,835,592 initial claimants for unemployment insurance in the 50 States and District of Columbia. Both the number of events and initial claimants were higher than in 1999, when layoff events totaled 14,909, and initial claimants, 1,572,399.
In 2000, manufacturing accounted for 35 percent of all mass layoff events and 42 percent of initial claims filed, essentially unchanged from 1999 (33 percent and 40 percent, respectively) and 1998. Initial claim filings were most numerous in transportation equipment (192,047), followed by food and kindred products (88,942) and industrial machinery and equipment (73,215).
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.
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