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:: Monday, March 01, 2004 ::

Secretary of Labor: Prognosis positive for U.S. workers By Elaine L. Chao
Many commentators missed an important piece of economic news earlier this month. The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its biennial projections of job growth for the coming decade, which show a promising future for the American worker.

According to BLS, hardly known for irrational exuberance, job growth in industries such as information technology, health care and construction is projected to expand so rapidly that employers could have a hard time finding skilled workers. The demand for computer software engineers, for example, is expected to grow by nearly 50 percent, while the demand for medical assistants is projected to grow by nearly 60 percent.

Job Losses Erode Union Membership Labor Research Association
Ongoing layoffs and the anti-union posture of the Bush administration are slicing union membership. The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently released new data on union membership for 2003, documenting the ongoing decline in private sector unionization. The number of workers who are union members fell by 369,000 to 15.8 million.

The AFL-CIO reports that its unions added 142,000 new members in 2003, but the BLS data indicate that it lost substantially more in the ongoing round of layoffs. The number of initial representation elections conducted by the National Labor Relations Board also fell last year, from 2,871 in FY 2002 to 2,659 in FY 2003.?

The overall percentage of wage and salary workers who are union members dropped to 12.9 percent last year, down from 13.3 percent in 2002 and 20.1 percent 20 years ago. The portion of workers represented by unions fell from 14.5 percent to 14.3 percent, with almost all of this decline occurring in the private sector.

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