1. Printing of "Occupational Outlook Handbook" (no posi- 2. Inclusion of Hawaii and Alaska in the Monthly Report 4. Payment to States for increased salary rates in con- Program items: Decrease: Completion of the conversion of the national employ- Total change___. -$22,000 25,000 25,000 7,000 50, 000 12,000 62, 500 -200, 000 40,000 -500 Mr. CLAGUE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, first I would like to take the opportunity to introduce our new deputy commissioner, Mr. Robert Myers, at my right. Mr. Myers was formerly Assistant Commissioner of the Bureau. He spent about 10 years abroad in various capacities and he has returned to us this last year. Senator HILL. We are delighted to have you here, Mr. Myers. PREPARED STATEMENT Mr. CLAGUE. Mr. Chairman, I have a statement on our regular budget which I would like to present for the record. Senator HILL. All right, sir. You may proceed in your own way. (The statement referred to follows:) STATEMENT OF EWAN CLAGUE, COMMISSIONER OF LABOR STATISTICS The budget estimate for the regular program of the Bureau of Labor Statistics for fiscal 1961 is $10,519,000. This is approximately the same as the budget for the present fiscal year. In addition, we have a request for a continuation of special funds for the revision of the Consumer Price Index. This will be discussed later. On our regular budget we have a series of small mandatory items over which the Bureau has little control. These are as follows: Printing of Occupational Outlook Handbook (no positions, nonlabor $25,000) – Inclusion of Hawaii and Alaska in the Monthly Report on the Labor Inclusion of Hawaii in employment and labor turnover statistics (no positions, nonlabor $7,000) - Payment to States for increased salary rates in connection with cooperative State employment and labor turnover programs (no positions, nonlabor $50,000) –– Inclusion of Hawaii in the wage and industrial relations program (3 positions, $9,438, nonlabor $2,562) ---. To provide for employee health benefits, Public Law 86-382 (no positions, nonlabor $62,500). $25,000 25,000 7,000 50,000 12,000 62, 500 I want to speak briefly about several of these. One is the Occupational Outlook Handbook. The 1959 edition of this handbook is now in print. It is larger than ever before, covering some 600 different occupations. The first printing of the Government Printing Office amounts to 40,000 copies. The previous 1957 edition sold in the amount of 33,000 copies at a price of $4. The present edition is priced somewhat higher-$4.25. These circulation figures are independent of the separate reprint leaflets Covering certain specific occupations or groups of occupations. A total of about 215,000 such leaflets have been distributed during the past 2 years. With each new edition, interest in the handbook grows and its usefulness increases markedly. In view of the large numbers of young people entering the labor force in the early 1960's, it is especially appropriate that this book should have the widest possible circulation. The You will note that several other items relate to the inclusion of Alaska and Hawaii in the national statistics of the United States. Sample areas from these two States will be incorporated in the Monthly Report on the Labor Force. This is the series, on nationwide employment and unemployment, for which the Bureau of Labor Statistics assumed responsibility last July. Bureau of the Census continues to collect the information through their field surveys and to produce the basic tabulations of the data. The analysis is done in the Department of Labor. Hawaii is also being brought into the FederalState system of employment and labor turnover statistics as well as into wage and industrial relations programs of the Bureau. Alaska and Hawaii are now being included in as many as possible of the Nation's statistical series. One year of overlapping is provided for in such series, so that the new sets of figures can be linked with the old. You will note that we have shown decreases amounting to $222,000, one of them for 1 day less pay in 1961 and the other for the completion of the conversion of the national employment series to the new standard industrial classification. There is one program item involving an increase of $40,000 for a study of the labor aspects of world markets. During the past several years criticisms have been made "that the United States is pricing itself out of world markets." This criticism is often accompanied by the explanation or assumption that labor costs are the major factor; in other words, that U.S. wages are high compared to foreign wages. Comparisons of wages and labor costs between the United States and other countries is a difficult matter. It involves not only the wages themselves but a great variety of other employment costs such as social security payments, family allowances, medical benefits, and many others; these differ widely from one nation to another. Of course, the productivity or output per man-hour of labor is an important element of labor costs. High wages do not necessarily mean high labor costs, if labor productivity is also high. Some exploratory work on the international aspects of this factor will be started and probably will have to be continued or expanded in future years. This program will involve studies of major manufacturing nations of the world. Special provision is made for comparative studies of wages and worker purchasing power in the Soviet bloc. Many public and private agencies will find these studies useful. The U.S. Government is concerned with tariffs, trade agreements, and foreign policy questions. The studies could be used by U.S. businessmen who are establishing oversea plants or who want to estimate the effect of foreign competition on domestic production. American trade unionists are interested because such studies would reveal possible losses or gains in employment opportunities resulting from imports and exports. These studies would also be useful in providing information to American trade union leaders, businessmen, and Government representatives who are active in international labor bodies. We in the Bureau of Labor Statistics believe that this type of information will become of more critical importance in considering national and international policies during the next few years. I should like to mention briefly some of our accomplishments during the present fiscal year. One is that the Bureau will complete the work of putting our employment, hours, and earnings data on the new standard industrial classification and publish the new data in 1961. A number of new industries have developed in recent years and the composition of some older industries has been significantly changed. All major statistical agencies are now adapting their statistics to the new classification. Last year the House expressed its interest in the pricing of the standard 4-person family budget and the elderly couple's budget on which we had been working for several years. The pricing of these budgets took place last October and November; tabulations are now in process. Next spring we expect to issue the dollar cost of each of these budgets in about a half-dozen large cities. For the remaining 14 cities, it will be early summer before we can complete the work. However, budget information for a total of 20 will be available at that time. These are the same cities for which the local consumer price indexes are now available. We have completed, during the past year, a number of studies relating to the problems of the older worker in the American economy. We expect to publish them early in 1960. One of these is a study of the relative performance of clerical office workers by age group. It shows that, on the average, older office workers produce as much as younger workers, that their output is steadier over a period of weeks, and some of them perform much better than younger workers. Another is a study of personnel adjustments to the introduction of electronic computers in 20 large offices. This important study of office automation covers such items as displacement effects, changes in job and wage structure, retraining, consultation between workers and employers, and other factors; special attention is given to the relationship of these factors to older workers employed by the cooperating companies. This year we started a program to determine employment-creating effects of new construction-specifically, highways, schools, and hospitals. The last is quite complex and will take some time for study, but the other two are well underway. In addition to our own field studies, we are making maximum use of data already collected by such agencies as the bureau of Public Roads and the Housing and Home Finance Agency. This will help us in broadening our sample coverage and make it easier to start work on other types of construction next year (sewer and waterworks, public buildings). Finally, I should like to make a brief report on our progress in developing the expanded wage program which Congress authorized last year. Wage statistics for many years have lagged behind the basic data in the fields of employment and prices. Our wage programs in the past have been expanded during times of emergency but cut back again when the emergency was over. The new pro gram, which was adopted last year, provides for a study of occupational wages in 80 localities, an annual survey of higher level white-collar occupations, and intensive studies, over a 5-year cycle, of wage rates in selected manufacturing and nonmanufacturing industries. The 80 localities have been selected to represent large, medium, and small metropolitan areas throughout the United States. The industries to be studied consist of a balanced group representative of all wage tendencies in the economy. We need to know wage levels and trends from industry to industry and from locality to locality. In addition, studies will be made of employer expenditures on "fringe" benefits and our program of reporting current wage changes will be strengthened. The staff for these studies has been hired and is in process of training. As of late December, data collection had been completed or was underway for 26 of the 60 labor market surveys that will be done this fiscal year. The bulk of our fieldwork will, of course, occur in the coming months. This program will make it possible to relate in a meaningful way the employment, prices, and wage trends in the United States so that we can obtain a better understanding of the operation of our economy. Work has begun on the development of consumer price indexes for Anchorage and Fairbanks, Alaska. Housing surveys were conducted last October and November; the results are now being tabulated and analyzed. Surveys of family expenditures covering the year 1959 will be conducted in these two cities during the month of May. At the same time, the pricing of goods and services will also be started. Consumer price indexes for these two cities will be published early in 1961, together with place-to-place cost-of-living comparisons with Seattle. Beginning next autumn, housing surveys will be undertaken in the next two Alaskan cities, Juneau and Ketchikan. During fiscal 1961, a similar program will be in effect for these cities. In the following fiscal year, we shall be producing time-to-time indexes and place-to-place comparisons for these four Alaskan cities. GENERAL STATEMENT Mr. CLAGUE. I might make a few remarks concerning this budget. It is for $10,519,000, which is substantially the same as we have this year, a very small reduction. This is a composition, however, of some increases and of some declines we had on work we completed. We are finishing our standard industrial classification of industries, which we will introduce into our employment statistics in 1961. That is counterbalanced by some small increases which are not under our control, or under very little control. Those are several series of statisties in Alaska and Hawaii, our new States, which are gradually being introduced into all the statistics for the United States. Another is the increased salaries of State employees, which was mentioned by the Secretary, in connection with our cooperative statistical arrangements. There is also an amount set aside for our own employee health benefits. NEW PROGRAM OF SURVEY OF LABOR ASPECTS OF WORLD TRADE Th one new program that we have for the coming year is $40,000 for a survey of labor aspects of world trade. Mr. Chairman, for some years there has been a good deal of discussion about the effect of foreign wages upon imports, about the effect of imports upon domestic employment, about our exports in relation to employment, et cetera. We do not have much information at present about the composition of wages in foreign countries, particularly the difference between the cash wages and all the supplementary benefits, which in some cases amount to a very substantial fraction of the wages in various foreign countries. We are also interested in developing something about the purchasing power of wages in those countries. So we have presented a small program for the purpose of developing that kind of information. Senator HILL. How far will you be able to go with that $40,000? Just what do you contemplate that program will consist of? Mr. CLAGUE. It will consist of gathering information that is already available from a variety of published sources and putting it together. A good deal of this information is in fugitive form at present, in various types of studies that have been made for limited purposes. We think a good deal can be accomplished by getting together the information that already exists. The second source would be the reports of our labor attachés abroad. I think you know that our Labor Department has been interested for years in getting the labor attachés abroad to report various kinds of information, including statistics, which they send back to us, and which we can use in our analysis. So in general that is what we would be able to do with this small amount of money. Senator HILL. I note the mention in your written statement of your studies of older workers. Would you tell us something about them? Mr. CLAGUE. Yes, indeed. For several years, we have been making special studies of the experience of business concerns in the employment of older workers. We published some time ago our studies of production workers in the shoe and textile industries, where many older workers were employed. This year, we have made two different studies relating to this subject. One was a survey of white-collar workers in the clerical occupations. The other was a study of the effect on the workers of the introduction of electric computers in business concerns. In both of these studies, special attention was paid to the performance of workers over age 45. So far as performance is concerned, it was found that, age group by age group, the older workers turned out as much work as the young workers. Not only that, they were, on the whole, steadier in their performance, sustaining their work more evenly over a period of time. The automation study also analyzed the training potentialities of older workers, their capacity to readjust to another job or occupation, when their existing job was eliminated by machinery. These studies are important because the problem of older workers is becoming more important in business and industry. Senator HILL. Will you explain that? Why are they becoming more important? Mr. CLAGUE. Yes. Because of the way in which the labor force in this country is changing. We are just on the verge of a great expansion of young people in the labor force. These are the boys and girls born during World War II and in the early postwar period. They are now reaching the age of maturity and entering the labor force in large numbers. According to the estimates we have made in the Labor Department, no less than 26 million of these new young workers will enter the labor force during the decade of the 1960's. That is about 40 percent more than entered during the last decade, when young workers have been comparatively scarce. At the same time, middle-aged and older workers will be retiring from the labor force-over 12 million of them. The net gain in the labor force for the decade is estimated to be 132 million. |