September 16, 1999 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)
Displacement rates for blue-collar and white-collar workers more similar in recent years
In the mid-1990s,
the displacement rate for blue-collar workers was much closer to the
white-collar rate than it was a decade earlier.
[Chart data—TXT]
Displacement rates for blue-collar workers were 5.7 percent in 1983-84
and 4.7 percent in 1985-86. The corresponding rates for white-collar
workers were 2.1 percent in 1983-84 and 2.6 percent in 1985-86, for an
average difference of nearly three percentage points in the 1983-86
period.
In 1993-96, the rates for the two occupational groups were less than a
percentage point apart on average. The displacement rates for blue-collar
workers were 4.2 percent in 1993-94 and 3.5 percent in 1995-96, compared
to rates for white-collar workers of 3.3 percent and 2.9 percent,
respectively.
Worker displacement rates represent the likelihood of being displaced
from a job. The rates cited here are for "long-tenured workers"—those
who were in their jobs for 3 years or longer. Displaced workers lose their
jobs because their plants or companies close down or move, their positions
or shifts are abolished, or their employers do not have enough work for
them to do.
These data are from supplements to the Current
Population Survey. Find more
information on displacement rates in "Worker displacement in the
mid-1990s," by Steven Hipple, Monthly Labor Review, July
1999.
Of interest
Spotlight on Statistics: National Hispanic Heritage Month
In this Spotlight, we take a look at the Hispanic labor force—including labor force participation, employment and unemployment, educational attainment, geographic location, country of birth, earnings, consumer expenditures, time use, workplace injuries, and employment projections.
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