United States Department of Labor
Here is a link to my statement on the April employment situation news release.
BLS also recently published a new edition of Beyond the Numbers. The article examined employment and wage changes over the 2007–2011 period in oil-producing counties in the Bakken Formation. The Bakken Formation is an oil-producing shale formation underneath North Dakota, Montana, and parts of Canada. In recent years, horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing techniques, combined with higher prices for crude oil, have led to rapid increases in oil extraction from shale formations like the Bakken Formation. The large increase in oil production has led to growth in employment and wages and has changed the industry profile of employment in the region.
The April issue of the Monthly Labor Review also was published this week. It features a “visual essay” of graphics about people with a disability in 2012. The issue also includes an article on differences in union and nonunion compensation from 2001 to 2011. Another article examined trends in consumer spending over the 3 decades from 1980 to 2009, with a focus on the asset boom of 1997–2007. Finally, the April MLR includes a report about the annual Consumer Expenditure Survey Microdata Users’ Workshop that was held at BLS in July 2012.