Labor Statistics

U.S. labor costs rose more slowly last year than in all but one of the 11 countries that are major competitors of the United States, the Labor Department said Wednesday. The rise in U.S. labor costs--0.3% from 1987 to 1988--was dwarfed by increases such as 17% in Taiwan and 11.2% in South Korea. Of 11 countries for which the Bureau of Labor Statistics gave figures, only France recorded a decline, at 0.8%. While U.S.

The Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics conceded Friday that its key consumer price index overstates inflation, but by less than the 1.1 percentage point estimated by an independent panel. In a formal response to the Boskin Commission study released in December, BLS researchers specifically dismissed about half of the 1.1 point estimate and said much of the other half could not be estimated.

Up to 6 million Americans, or about 5% of the work force, hold temporary jobs, the Labor Department said Thursday in the first official estimate of the temporary labor force. The results were well below estimates offered by private analysts. Some had suggested that as much as 30% of 123 million employed Americans were are in "contingent" jobs, or jobs structured to last a limited time.

The new workers won't fit the new jobs. That's the fear of economists, government experts and community officials as they peer into the future, looking at the diverse work force of the 21st Century. Many ethnic minorities, particularly Latinos, will make up a bigger portion of the labor pool, but if current trends hold, many of them will lack the education the new jobs demand. The economic challenge for Latinos "is starkly different from that of blacks and whites," says Ronald E.

The ranks of union members in California increased by about 250,000 last year to 2.7 million, leading a modest national uptick in unionization, according to a report released Wednesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Nationwide, 16.1 million workers, or 12.4% of the workforce, belonged to a union in 2008, a gain of 420,000 from the previous year, the report said.

The rising nationwide clamor to cut health care costs contains a painful paradox that President Bush and members of Congress must confront: The health care industry is the only major sector of the ailing economy that continues to grow, and efforts to reduce spending could end up costing jobs.

Joe Pavao knows that somewhere in the huge American workplace, the North American Free Trade Agreement has wreaked havoc. "But for me," he says, "it's only good that has come out of it"--a steady job paying $9.31 an hour, plus health insurance, for dispatching tractor-trailers filled with upholstery fabric to Mexico. Now look 864 miles west to Fredonia, Wis., where Marvin Windsor, a 25-year veteran of assembly-line work, lost his $40,000-a-year job 15 months ago when the Square D Co.

California lost more than five times as many jobs in September as it did the month before, signaling that the state's employment woes continue despite a budding economic recovery. Employers cut 39,300 workers from their payrolls last month, according to figures released Friday by the state Employment Development Department, led by cuts in construction and government. A separate survey of joblessness showed that California's unemployment rate was 12.2% in September, down from a revised 12.3% in August.

The unemployment rate fell sharply in both the nation and California in May as the economy continued to generate steady job growth, the Labor Department reported Friday. The national jobless figure fell to 6%, down from 6.4% in April. But government officials said that the sizable decline appears to overstate the actual improvement in the nation's labor market last month. In California, unemployment dropped to 8.3%, down from 9.

Unemployment is bad enough in Orange County, but it could be worse. Consider how the county stacks up to other urban areas in joblessness. The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, which tracks that sort of thing, says Orange County ranked 158th in February among the 272 urban areas the feds compare each month. (February is the latest month available.) The county's unemployment rate then was 6.5%. That was up from 5.5% a year earlier but still a lot better than much of the rest of California.