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The three stats are released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), a branch of the U.S. Department of Labor (www.bls.gov). The bonus metric is released by The Conference Board, a private, nonprofit research organization. Average Hourly Earnings Payroll data. Each month, the BLS collects payroll data from records reported on a voluntary basis to […]
Cost-of-Living Index Each month, the BLS collects data on prices of a “market basket” of food, clothing, shelter, fuel, prescriptions, transportation fares, medical fees, and other goods and services that people buy for day-to-day living. The BLS measures changes in these costs and reports them in the form of the CPI. The CPI, as defined […]
Why do your employees need to be trained in back safety? One in five U.S. workers suffers a back injury on the job. Back injuries are the second most common cause of days away from work, next to the common cold. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were nearly 200,000 reported back injuries […]
Employers may find this new information useful for planning or justifying their retirement plan expenses: Contrary to the popular belief that defined benefit retirement plans are more costly for employers to administer, data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates that private-industry employers now spend more per employee hour worked for defined contribution plans. […]
You know that personal problems can have an adverse effect on employee performance. And one of the biggest personal problems is often finances–a burden which can sometimes come into stark focus at this time of year when holiday spending binges may occur. But even ongoing financial responsibilities can sometimes get out of hand–sometimes through no […]
Figures from the most recent census show that minorities account for almost a third of the U.S. workforce, 10% of workers are age 55 or over, and almost half the workforce are women. In the future, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that minorities will approach 50% of the American workforce, and the number […]
Supreme Court Review While the case the Supreme Court will hear involves public colleges and universities, the ruling could eventually impact other courts’ decisions on affirmative action programs outside of higher education, notes BLR Legal Editor Susan Schoenfeld. In 2003, the Supreme Court ruled in Grutter v. Bollinger that public colleges and universities could not […]
The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently issued a report on women’s earnings in 2007. According to the report, women who were full-time wage and salary workers had median weekly earnings of $614, or about 80 percent of the $766 median for their male counterparts. That ratio has grown since 1979 (the first year for which […]
Although I gather it’s not illegal yet to talk on a handheld cell phone while driving, I’ve been hearing about some situations in which the company was held liable for accidents when the employee was doing business on the cell phone while driving. Even while driving to a ball game with the kids and taking […]