Current labor statistics

Monthly Labor Review, Oct, 2003

Beginning in 1990, surveys of State and local governments and small private establishments were conducted in even-numbered years, and surveys of medium and large establishments were conducted in odd-numbered years. The small establishment survey includes all private nonfarm establishments with fewer than 100 workers, while the State and local government survey includes all governments, regardless of the number of workers. All three surveys include full- and part-time workers, and workers in all 50 States and the District of Columbia.

FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION on the Employee Benefits Survey, contact the Office of Compensation Levels and Trends on the Internet:

http://www.bls.gov/ebs/

Work stoppages

Description of the series

Data on work stoppages measure the number and duration of major strikes or lockouts (involving 1,000 workers or more) occurring during the month (or year), the number of workers involved, and the amount of work time lost because of stoppage. These data are presented in table 31.

Data are largely from a variety of published sources and cover only establishments directly involved in a stoppage. They do not measure the indirect or secondary effect of stoppages on other establishments whose employees are idle owing to material shortages or lack of service.

Definitions

Number of stoppages: The number of strikes and lockouts involving 1,000 workers or more and lasting a full shift or longer.

Workers involved: The number of workers directly involved in the stoppage.

Number of days idle: The aggregate number of workdays lost by workers involved in the stoppages.

Days of idleness as a percent of estimated working time: Aggregate workdays lost as a percent of the aggregate number of standard workdays in the period multiplied by total employment in the period.

Notes on the data

This series is not comparable with the one terminated in 1981 that covered strikes involving six workers or more.

FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION on work stoppages data, contact the Office of Compensation and Working Conditions: (202) 691-5282, or the Internet:

http://www.bls.gov/cba/

Price Data

(Tables 2; 32-42)

PRICE DATA are gathered by the Bureau of Labor Statistics from retail and primary markets in the United States. Price indexes are given in relation to a base period--1982 = 100 for many Producer Price Indexes, 1982-84 = 100 for many Consumer Price Indexes (unless otherwise noted), and 1990 = 100 for International Price Indexes.

Consumer Price Indexes

Description of the series

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is a measure of the average change in the prices paid by urban consumers for a fixed market basket of goods and services. The CPI is calculated monthly for two population groups, one consisting only of urban households whose primary source of income is derived from the employment of wage earners and clerical workers, and the other consisting of all urban households. The wage earner index (CPI-W) is a continuation of the historic index that was introduced well over a half-century ago for use in wage negotiations. As new uses were developed for the CPI in recent years, the need for a broader and more representative index became apparent. The all-urban consumer index (CPI-U), introduced in 1978, is representative of the 1993-95 buying habits of about 87 percent of the noninstitutional population of the United States at that time, compared with 32 percent represented in the CPI-W. In addition to wage earners and clerical workers, the CPI-U covers professional, managerial, and technical workers, the self-employed, short-term workers, the unemployed, retirees, and others not in the labor force.