The March Review

Long time readers of Monthly Labor Review may have thought we had missed something in our February issue, the longstanding platform for the annual analysis of employment and labor force developments. Fear not. We have moved the annual employment story to March and divided it into two sections. The

move to March reflects the increased speed with which the basic payroll data on employment, hours, and earnings are benchmarked. Updates that used to be available in June are now ready by early February and can be incorporated in the annual story. The move to two articles is driven by the recent introduction of data on job openings and labor turnover. Trying to incorporate that stream of data into what had already been an increasingly bulky annual review was rejected in favor of the two-articles approach.

Teresa L. Morisi wrote the opening article on the basis of the Current Population Survey data gathered from households. While she reports that unemployment fell and employment rose by this measure in 2004, the pattern of recovery has been different than it has been in the average post-recession period.

Emily Lloyd and Charlotte Mueller analyze the payroll employment numbers and the job openings and turnover data that are gathered from business establishments. A strengthening in the employment data seemed to be confirmed by an uptrend in the job openings rate.

John Duke and Victor Torres present their analysis of multifactor productivity in the air transportation industry.

Maury B. Gittleman presents pay relatives that take into account the different composition of employment across metropolitan areas and the impact of the pay surveys being run at different times of the year in different cities.