The private sector hemorrhaged jobs in October while the federal government expanded its workforce to even bigger levels, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released Friday.
The U.S. economy lost 28,000 private sector jobs while the federal government added 40,000, BLS data shows. The private sector job losses come amid a disappointing jobs report overall, with the country adding just 12,000 nonfarm payroll jobs — well below the 110,o00 economists expected.
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State and local government workers were roughly 40% more expensive to employ than private sector employees in the second quarter of 2024, largely due to generous benefit plans, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released Tuesday.
Total compensation costs, including wages, salaries and benefits, averaged $43.94 per hour for private sector employees, approximately 40% less than the $61.37 average hourly compensation cost for state and local government workers, according to the BLS data. The disparity was primarily driven by pricey government benefit plans, with costs averaging $13.04 per hour for private industry workers, over 80% less than the $23.57 per hour in benefit costs for their state and local government counterparts.
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The percentage of hourly and salaried workers in a union decreased in 2023, continuing a trend of ongoing decline in the past few decades.
The decline in 2023 was small, from 10.1% of the workforce to 10% even, but the trend is significant. In 1983, about 20% of hourly and salaried workers were in a union, meaning U.S. union membership has halved in about four decades.
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U.S. private-sector employers added 103,000 new hires in November versus 106,000 workers in October, according to Nov.’s ADP® National Employment Report, a collaboration with the Stanford Digital Economy Lab.
Consider what is occurring in a slice of service sector employment.
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The majority of Americans support Congressional efforts to block President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandates for large businesses ahead of a U.S. Supreme Court hearing on that very issue, according to a new poll.
Convention of States Action, along with the Trafalgar Group, released the poll, which found that 51.1% of surveyed voters support a bill in Congress to stop Biden’s vaccine mandates for large businesses. The poll reports that 40.6% of voters do not support the bill while 8.3% of voters are unsure.
The U.S. Senate passed a bipartisan measure in December to block Biden’s mandate, which requires employers with at least 100 workers to ensure they are vaccinated or undergo weekly testing. Businesses that do not comply face hefty fines. The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) would enforce the mandate.
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The Methane Emissions Reduction Act of 2021 has been proposed as a “pay-for” – a source of revenue – in the reconciliation infrastructure package. It would impose a “fee” on methane emissions from natural gas and petroleum production systems and related processes, but not on such emissions from agricultural and other operations. Accordingly, it is worse than a mere money grab: it’s a blatant exercise in punitive politics directed at the fossil-fuel energy sector, a tax on conventional energy.
Not so, says Representative Diana DeGette (D-CO), as summarized by the Washington Examiner:
“This is not a tax. It’s a fee on natural gas waste,” adding oil and gas operators have the technologies to combat methane leaks at low cost. “The smart players want to prevent waste because they can capitalize it to make money. Customers won’t be paying a fee on gas delivered. The only fee will be paid [by an operator] on what doesn’t make it to the consumer.”
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Private sector job creation for displaced workers slowed in July, with private payroll increases not meeting the growth expected by economists, CNBC reported.
Economists who were surveyed by Dow Jones expected private-sector employment to increase by 1 million, yet reported an increase of 167,000, CNBC reported. The report was issued by Dow Jones economists and Moody’s Analytics.
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Compensation for federal, state, and local government employees cost U.S. taxpayers $1.9 trillion in 2016. This amounts to an average of $15,176 from every household in the United States. President Trump recently moved to rein in some of these costs by canceling pay raises for federal civilian employees, who received $331 billion in compensation…
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