Labor Department (US)

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U.S. Data Agency Blames Old Tech and Other Failures for Missteps

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The Bureau of Labor Statistics, which tracks jobs and inflation, issued a report on what caused embarrassing episodes in which data was released improperly.Outdated technology, inadequate funding and a failure to follow established procedures contributed to embarrassing missteps at the Bureau of Labor Statistics this year, a panel that examined the episodes said on Tuesday.Julie Su, the acting labor secretary, formed the 11-member group in September after a botched data release allowed some investors to see potentially market-moving employment data before the public. That followed two other episodes: one in February, in which an agency employee provided methodological information to finance industry “super users”; and another, in May, in which inflation data was inadvertently posted to the agency’s website half an hour before its scheduled release.The panel was chaired by a former Labor Department official and consisted mostly of current officials from the department and other federal agencies. It also included two members of the public. Ms. Su gave the group 60 days to “identify causes of and fixes to the inaccurate release of data” and report back.The panel found that the three episodes were “unique and unrelated,” and noted that none of them related to the quality or accuracy of the agency’s data. But it argued that even the perception that the agency was poorly run, or that favored groups had early access to information, threatened to erode public trust in government data.“The smallest glitch can undermine months of high-quality data work in a moment,” the panel wrote in its report.Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, echoed that message in a call with reporters on Tuesday.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    November Jobs Report Shows Gain of 227,000; Unemployment Rises

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    Hiring bounced back after disruptions from storms and a major strike.Job creation bounced back in November after disruptions from storms and a major strike, reinforcing a picture of modest employment expansion over the past several months.The U.S. economy added 227,000 jobs, seasonally adjusted, the Labor Department reported on Friday. With upward revisions to September and October figures, the three-month average gain is 173,000, slightly higher than the average over the six months before that.The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.2 percent, from 4.1 percent in October, as fewer people were able to find work. But for those who had jobs, wages jumped more than expected and were 4 percent higher than they were a year earlier.Unemployment rate More

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    Biden Administration Moves to End a Minimum Wage Waiver for Disabled Workers

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    A plan by the Biden administration would phase out a provision that allows employers to pay workers with disabilities less than the federal minimum wage.The Biden administration on Tuesday moved to end a program that has for decades allowed companies to pay workers with disabilities less than the minimum wage.The statute, enacted as part of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, has let employers obtain certificates from the Labor Department that authorize them to pay workers with disabilities less than the federal minimum wage, currently $7.25 an hour. The department began a “comprehensive review” of the program last year, and on Tuesday it proposed a rule that would bar new certificates and phase out current ones over three years.“This proposal would help ensure that workers with disabilities have access to equal employment opportunities, while reinforcing our fundamental belief that all workers deserve fair compensation for their contribution,” Taryn Williams, assistant secretary of labor for disability employment policy, said on a call with reporters.As of May, about 800 employers held certificates allowing them to pay workers less than minimum wage, affecting roughly 40,000 workers, said Kristin Garcia, deputy administrator of the Labor Department’s wage and hour division.Those figures reflect a steep decline in employers’ reliance on the program in recent years: The number of workers with disabilities earning less than the minimum wage dropped to 122,000 in 2019 from 296,000 in 2010, according to a report published last year from the Government Accountability Office.Since 2019, more than half of workers employed under this program earned less than $3.50 an hour, according to the report.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Trump Picks Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer for Labor Secretary

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    Lori Chavez-DeRemer, a first-term Republican representative from Oregon who narrowly lost her House seat this month, was chosen on Friday to serve as labor secretary in the coming Trump administration.“Lori has worked tirelessly with both business and labor to build America’s work force, and support the hardworking men and women of America,” President-elect Donald J. Trump said in a statement.A moderate from a swing district that includes parts of Portland, Ms. Chavez-DeRemer, 56, is not a major figure in American labor politics. But she was one of only a few House Republicans to support major pro-union legislation, and she split her district’s union endorsements with her Democratic opponent, Janelle Bynum, earning nods from ironworkers, firefighters and local Teamsters.When the House speaker, Mike Johnson, spoke at a Chavez-DeRemer rally in October, he said, “She’s got more labor union endorsements than any Republican I’ve ever seen in my life.”Labor leaders criticized Mr. Trump’s policies during his first term as president, and at one point in the race this year, he praised Elon Musk for a willingness to fire workers who go on strike. But Mr. Trump also proposed ending taxes on tips and overtime, and many rank-and-file union members embraced his pro-tariffs economic agenda.After Ms. Chavez-DeRemer’s defeat this month, the president of the Teamsters, Sean O’Brien, urged Mr. Trump to consider her for the labor secretary role, Politico reported. On Friday, Mr. O’Brien praised her selection, posting a photograph on X of himself standing with Mr. Trump and Ms. Chavez-DeRemer.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Trump Is Expected to Upend Biden Labor Policies Favoring Unions

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    After gains by organized labor under President Biden, a second Trump administration is likely to change course on regulation and enforcement.Joseph R. Biden Jr. promised to be the most pro-labor president in history. He embraced unions more overtly than his predecessors in either party, and filled his administration with union supporters.Labor seemed to respond accordingly. Filings for unionization elections spiked to their highest level in a decade, as did union victories. There were breakthroughs at companies like Starbucks and Amazon, and unions prevailed in organizing a major foreign auto plant in the South. A United Automobile Workers walkout yielded substantial contract gains — and images of Mr. Biden joining a picket line.As Donald J. Trump prepares to retake the White House, labor experts expect the legal landscape for labor to turn sharply in another direction.Based on Mr. Trump’s first term and his comments during the campaign — including his praise for Tesla’s chief executive, Elon Musk, for what he said was Mr. Musk’s willingness to fire striking workers — these experts say the new administration is likely to bring fewer challenges to employers who fight unions. “There will be a concerted effort to repeal pro-worker N.L.R.B. precedents,” said Heidi Shierholz, a senior Labor Department official during the Obama administration, referring to the National Labor Relations Board.Experts like Ms. Shierholz, who is now president of the liberal Economic Policy Institute, said they also expected the Trump administration to ease up on enforcing safety rules, to narrow eligibility for overtime pay and to make it harder for gig workers to gain status as employees.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    October Jobs Report Shows Hiring Slowed Amid Storms and Strikes

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    U.S. payrolls grew by only 12,000 in October, a figure that left markets placid but fueled political contention. Unemployment remained 4.1 percent.Job creation stalled in October, a month battered by strikes and hurricanes, presenting an unclear picture of where the labor market was headed even as overall economic growth remained impressive.Employers added only 12,000 jobs on a seasonally adjusted basis, the Labor Department reported on Friday, substantially fewer than economists had forecast. The unemployment rate, based on a survey of households, remained 4.1 percent.The report is the last before a presidential election in which polls have consistently found the economy to be a top issue for voters, and the low figure supplied a talking point for Republicans. It also strengthened the case for another interest rate cut when Federal Reserve policymakers meet next week.“It’s hard to say, ‘This was a strong report if it were not for the strikes and hurricanes,’” said Oliver Allen, a senior U.S. economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics. “If the numbers still look like that next month, and we have another step down in revisions, it’s a pretty weak set of prints.”Gains for August and September were revised downward, bringing the three-month average to 104,000 — down from 189,000 over the six months before that.Markets took the muddled data in stride, but the political reaction was fierce, with former President Donald J. Trump’s campaign saying the report was “a catastrophe and definitively reveals how badly Kamala Harris broke our economy.”Wages Rise SlightlyYear-over-year percentage change in earnings vs. inflation More

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    U.S. Employers Add 254,000 Jobs in September as Economic Growth Remains Solid

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    U.S. employers added 254,000 jobs in September, a sign that economic growth remained solid. The unemployment rate fell to 4.1 percent.Many have doubted it. Even the optimists have worried about it. But despite the hand-wringing, the American economy appears to be in remarkably good shape.Businesses added 254,000 jobs in September, the government reported on Friday, far surpassing forecasts. It was a sign that the economy, rather than stumbling into a slowdown, still has a spring in its step.The unemployment rate declined to 4.1 percent, from 4.2 percent. Reported pay gains for workers were also better than expected, at 4 percent over the previous 12 months, an uptick from the August reading. With inflation continuing to ease substantially, that is welcome news for households trying to gain financial traction.A Slight DropUnemployment rate More

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    U.S. Job Market Shifts to Lower Gear

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    Employers added 142,000 jobs in August, fewer than economists had expected, and previous months were revised downward.The labor market appears to be treading water, with employers’ desire to hire staying just ahead of the supply of workers looking for jobs.That’s the picture that emerges from the August jobs report, released on Friday, which offered evidence that while softer than it has been in years, the landscape for employment remains healthy, with wages still growing and Americans still eager to work.“This report does not indicate that we’re taking another step toward a recession, but we’re still seeing further signs of cooling,” said Sam Kuhn, an economist with the recruitment software company Appcast. “We’re trending more closely to a 2019 labor market, than the labor market in 2010 or 2011.”Employers added 142,000 positions last month, the Labor Department reported. That was somewhat fewer than forecast, bringing the three-month average to 116,000 jobs after the two prior summer months were revised down significantly. Over the year before June, the monthly average was 220,000, although that number is expected to shrink when annual revisions are finalized next year.The unemployment rate edged down to 4.2 percent, alleviating concerns that it was on a steep upward trajectory after July’s jump to 4.3 percent, which appears to have been driven by weather-related temporary layoffs.In other signs of stability, the average workweek ticked up to 34.3 hours and wages grew 0.4 percent over the month, slightly more than economists had expected but not enough to add significant fuel to inflation.Wages Are Outpacing InflationYear-over-year percentage change in earnings vs. inflation More

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    While the Public Awaited Jobs Data, Wall Street Firms Got a Look

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    A report was delayed on the Bureau of Labor Statistics website, but some investors got it in the meantime, raising new questions about agency practices.For more than half an hour on Wednesday morning, economists and investors were stuck repeatedly refreshing their browsers, looking for a delayed report on the U.S. job market from a government website.Not everyone had to wait that long.A number of Wall Street investment firms obtained details about the report — which showed a large downward revision to job growth in 2023 and early 2024 — at least 15 minutes before the information was posted on the Bureau of Labor Statistics website. That head start could, at least in theory, have given in-the-know investors an opportunity to profit on the information before the public at large.It isn’t clear how many people got early access to the data, or whether anyone actually traded on it. Markets seemed to react little to the revision in jobs data either before or after the general release. But the episode was the latest in a series of incidents in which the agency provided information to investors that wasn’t available to the general public.In February, an employee of the labor bureau sent information about housing inflation — at the time, an issue of intense interest to many investors — to a group of “super users” that included a number of hedge funds. The information turned out to be inaccurate, but even if that had not been the case, agency leaders said, it was inappropriate to share information selectively.Then, in May, the agency said it had inadvertently posted data on the Consumer Price Index — one of the highest-profile monthly economic reports — 30 minutes before the scheduled release time. The files in question are closely monitored by Wall Street firms but not by less sophisticated users.Taken together, the incidents raise concerns about the agency’s handling of sensitive information, said Julia Coronado, founder of MacroPolicy Perspectives, a research firm with Wall Street clients.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More