TEXT

 
                                    FOR DELIVERY: 9:30 A.M., E.D.T.
                                    FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 1994
 
 
 
        ___________________________________________________________
        Advance copies of this statement are made available to the
        press under lock-up conditions with the explicit
        understanding that the data are embargoed until 8:30 a.m.
        Eastern time.  ____________________________________________
 
 
                                Statement of
 
                            Katharine G. Abraham
                                Commissioner
                         Bureau of Labor Statistics
 
                                 before the
 
                          JOINT ECONOMIC COMMITTEE
 
                           UNITED STATES CONGRESS
 
                             September 2, 1994
 
 
 
        Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee:
 
             My colleagues and I are pleased to have the opportunity
 
        to comment on current labor market conditions.
 
             Nonfarm payroll employment rose by 179,000 in August,
 
        somewhat below the average for the year to date.  The
 
        unemployment rate held steady at 6.1 percent, as both
 
        employment and the labor force increased.
 
             Much of the August increase in the number of payroll
 
        jobs occurred in the services industry, which added 123,000
 
        jobs over the month.  Strong employment growth continued in
 
        business services -- though the gain in its personnel
 
        services component was notably smaller than in recent
 
        months -- and in health and social services.  The wholesale
 
        trade industry also expanded over the month, adding 18,000
 
        jobs.
 
                                     -2-
 
 
             Job growth throughout the remainder of the service-
 
        producing sector of the economy was quite limited.  In
 
        particular, retail trade employment overall was flat in
 
        August, after particularly large gains through much of the
 
        spring and summer.  Within retail trade, increases in
 
        automotive dealers, food stores, and furniture stores were
 
        offset by a decline in eating and drinking places.  Eating
 
        and drinking places had accounted for over half of the job
 
        growth in retail trade during the prior 2 months.
 
             Manufacturing employment expanded in August with a gain
 
        of 32,000.  Since last September, manufacturing has added
 
        143,000 jobs.  Notable over-the-month increases occurred in
 
        motor vehicles and related industries, such as fabricated
 
        metals.  There were also increases in industrial machinery
 
        and electronic equipment.  The manufacturing workweek and
 
        overtime hours, already at very high levels, edged up in
 
        August, after slipping slightly in recent months.
 
        Construction employment, which has been trending upward
 
        unevenly for 2 years now, held about steady over the month.
 
             Turning to the data from our survey of households, the
 
        unemployment picture has changed very little in recent
 
        months.  The unemployment rate has held at or near its
 
        present level of 6.1 percent since May, and the number of
 
        unemployed persons has remained at around 8 million.  There
 
        also has been little definitive movement in the unemployment
 
        rates for the major demographic groups.  The jobless rates
 
        for adult men and adult women were both 5.4 percent in
 
 
                                     -3-
 
 
        August, and the figure for teenagers was 17.5 percent.  The
 
        incidence of joblessness among minority workers remains much
 
        higher than among whites.  The unemployment rate among black
 
        workers in August, at 11.5 percent, was more than twice as
 
        high as the rate for whites, at 5.3 percent.  The rate for
 
        Hispanics, at 10.2 percent, was almost as high as that for
 
        blacks.
 
             With respect to our other principal measures of labor
 
        market difficulty, the number of persons working part time
 
        even though they would have preferred full-time employment
 
        totaled 4.3 million in August.  There were also 1.7 million
 
        former jobseekers who reported that they would have liked,
 
        and were available to take, jobs in August, but were not
 
        counted as unemployed because they had not actively sought
 
        work within the last 4 weeks.  Of these, just under half a
 
        million said that they had not sought work for job-market
 
        related reasons, and hence were categorized as discouraged.
 
             I would note that employment in the household survey
 
        showed an increase of more than 700,000 in August, the first
 
        significant advance since May.  As I have commented before,
 
        the household survey's estimate of employment not only has
 
        fluctuated widely this year, but its cumulative growth has
 
        lagged well behind the estimates of job growth from our
 
        establishment survey.  We have seen similar patterns in the
 
        past, but the behavior of this year's data may reflect, at
 
        least in part, the introduction of the redesigned survey
 
        questionnaire.  If the current seasonal adjustment factors,
 
 
 
                                     -4-
 
 
        which necessarily are based on our experience with the old
 
        survey, are not consistent with the true seasonal pattern of
 
        employment in the redesigned survey, this could have
 
        produced anomalous movements in the household employment
 
        figures.  Thus, we continue to rely on our payroll survey as
 
        the more accurate gauge of monthly employment change.
 
             Accompanying the large employment increase in August
 
        was an equal gain in the labor force (the labor force is the
 
        sum of the employed and unemployed).  The August labor force
 
        increase brings the net change since January to about half a
 
        million.  This change is fairly small, but, as with the
 
        employment data, the estimated labor force growth could have
 
        been affected by the survey redesign.
 
             In summary, the nation's job market continued to
 
        improve in August.  Payroll employment increased moderately
 
        compared with the average monthly growth for the year to
 
        date, and unemployment has been about the same for 4
 
        consecutive months, after improving earlier in the year.
 
 
 
             My colleagues and I now will be happy to answer any
 
        questions you may have.