Involuntary Part-time Work On The Rise

[Excerpt] A number of labor market indicators from the Current Population Survey (CPS) have pointed to a weakening labor market for more than a year, even before the onset of the current recession in December 2007 (as designated by the National Bureau of Economic Research). The official unemployment rate, for example, rose by 2.3 percentage points from its recent low of 4.4 percent in March 2007 to 6.7 percent in November 2008. The employment-population ratio, which is the proportion of the working-age population that is employed, trended down from a recent peak of 63.4 percent in December 2006 to 61.4 percent in November 2008

Why Has Unemployment Risen? Insights From Labor Force Flows

[Excerpt] Several economic indicators have shown that the labor market weakened from May 2007 to May 2008. The number of unemployed persons rose from 6.9 million to 8.5 million, and the jobless rate increased from 4.5 to 5.5 percent. Intuitively, a rise in unemployment might be expected to coincide with a decline in employment. However, total employment, as measured by the Current Population Survey (CPS), was little changed over this period. Recently released experimental data series on the flows of people between different labor force statuses help explain how unemployment increased

How New Fees Are Affecting the Producer Price Index for Air Travel

Since 2001, the airline industry has been affected by a number of external shocks, including terrorist attacks, volatile fuel prices, periods of challenging economic times, and an uncertain regulatory environment. In large part because of these factors, the industry has endured years of economic losses—$50 billion between 2001 and 2011—resulting in many bankruptcies and mergers. These losses have led airlines to focus on revenue-management strategies. One important way airlines have generated additional revenue is by adding surcharges and/or increasing ancillary fees for optional services or a la carte pricing. As an example, rather than airlines passing on higher fuel costs in the form of fare increases, fuel surcharges may be less noticeable. Passengers may be more likely to accept increases in fares if they know that fuel prices and fuel surcharges are rising in tandem. In addition, airlines have optimized capacity by eliminating and/or reducing the number of flights between some origins and destinations. These strategies have reduced the supply of available airline seats, giving airlines additional pricing power

Who Has Benefits in Private Industry in 2012?

Health, retirement, and paid leave benefits made up more than three-fifths of private industry employer-provided benefit costs in March 2012. Although employers in most states are not required to offer these benefits, they often make some form of each major benefit type available to their employees, especially to full-time and high-wage workers. For example, paid holidays are offered to 77 percent of private industry workers overall and about 90 percent of full-time and high-wage workers. Medical care and retirement benefit availability show similar patterns. This issue of BEYOND THE NUMBERS provides an overview of benefits for private industry workers, focusing on access to and participation in retirement, medical care, and paid leave benefits by various worker and establishment characteristics. The estimates of private industry benefit access, participation, and share of medical care premiums in this issue are from the “National Compensation Survey: Employee Benefits in the United States—March 2012,,” available online at http://www.bls.gov/ncs/ebs/sp/ebnr0018.pdf

Corporate Management in Selected Local Economies

[Excerpt] In June of 2006, Corporate, Subsidiary, and Regional Managing Offices establishments employed 1.7 million people. In some counties, managing offices employed a large portion of the workforce and thereby played an important role in the local economies. This study examines selected large counties (those with 75,000 jobs or more) with significant employment in managing offices

Automotive Industries: Concentration and Change

[Excerpt] From 2001 to 2005, States with heavy concentrations of jobs in automobile and automobile-related industries have exhibited employment declines. A few of these industries in a few States, however, have grown over the same four-year period. This report will focus on States with high employment concentrations in three specific auto-related industries: automobile manufacturing, motor vehicle body and trailer manufacturing, and motor vehicle parts manufacturing

Employment Growth Among Sectors in the United States, Japan, and Europe Based Upon Educational Attainment

[Excerpt] Employment growth in the United States outpaced that of Japan and Europe between 1980 and 1996. The number of jobs in sectors requiring higher levels of education grew at roughly comparable rates in these economies. Thus, differences in job creation rates have often been driven by differences in sectors requiring lower levels of educational attainment. In 1996, employment in the United States was more than 27 percent greater than in 1980. In Japan, employment grew about 15 percent over the period, while in the major economies of Europe, (France, West Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom) there had been little net increase—about 3 percent. (See table.) Employment growth among these nations varied over time, however, and there were important compositional differences in terms of sectors

A Glance at Long-Term Unemployment in Recent Recessions

[Excerpt] Following the official end of the 2001 recession in November 2001, unemployment continued to rise for some 19 months. The unemployment rate reached a peak of 6.3 percent in June 2003 before trending down to 5.0 percent in June 2005. Even when the overall unemployment rate started to decline, however, there was no immediate improvement in the number of unemployed who had been jobless for 27 weeks or more, often referred to as the long-term unemployed. Indeed, it was late 2003 before long-term unemployment peaked and early 2004 before it began to recede. In fact, in the aftermath of each of the last two recessions, long-term joblessness continued to climb far longer than it did during the downturns of the mid-1970s and early 1980s. This report compares the severity and length of long-term joblessness associated with each of the last four downturns. In the analysis that follows, the long-term jobless rate is defined as the proportion of the labor force (rather than of unemployment) that has been unemployed for 27 weeks or longer

Expenditures on Public Transportation

Public transportation expenditures consumed 6 percent of the average household\u27s transporation budget in 1997, divided between intracity and intercity travel (22 percent and 78 percent of total public transportation expenditures, respectively). Intracity transportation modes include mass transit, taxi and limousine service, and school bus. Intercity transportation modes include air, bus, train, and ship. This report highlights public transportation expenditures by consumer units in 1997, classified by income quintiles and by region

What Women Earned in 1998

[Excerpt] Women who work full time, regardless of age, race, or educational attainment, earn less, on average, than men. Overall, in 1998, median weekly earnings of female full-time wage and salary workers were $456 compared to$598 for men. Twenty years earlier the pay differential was even greater, however. In 1979, women who were full-time wage and salary workers had earnings that were only about three-fifths those of men. By 1998, however, women’s earnings were approximately three-quarters those of men