March 31, 2000 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)
Transportation equipment makers added the most overtime
From March 1991 to
January 1998, overtime increased across all but one of the major
manufacturing industries. The increases ranged from 3 additional hours of
overtime in transportation equipment manufacturing to the relatively
slight increase of 0.6 hour in apparel factories.
[Chart data—TXT]
Some specific industries made exceptional contributions to the growth
in overtime hours. Within transportation equipment, for example, overtime
in the motor vehicle manufacturing went up 4.4 hours from December 1991 to
December 1997. Similarly, in that period, overtime in iron and steel foundries in the
primary metals industry were up 3.7 hours and within industrial machinery
and equipment, overtime for refrigeration and service machinery increased
by 2.9 hours.
A common factor among the industries that added the most overtime was a
highly skilled workforce. The 10 industries with the largest overtime
gains had more than 17 percent of their workers in highly skilled
positions. The comparable figure for the 10 industries with the smallest
increases in overtime was 8 percent.
These data are a product of the Current
Employment Statistics program.
Highly skilled positions were defined as engineers, technicians,
scientists, and precision workers and assemblers. Their share of
employment was based on the 1996 Occupational Employment Statistics
program. To find out more, see "Analyzing the recent upward surge in
overtime hours," by Ron L. Hetrick, Monthly Labor Review, February
2000. Industries in the chart are all at
the 2-digit Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) level.
Of interest
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