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PRICES & SPENDING • Mar 2020 • Volume 9 / Number 4

A historical look at soybean price increases: What happened since the year 2000?

Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Producer Price Index (PPI) program show an overall increase in soybean prices over the past 20 years. From January 1999 to December 2018, prices increased by 61.7 percent. This Beyond the Numbers article will focus on three periods (2003–04, 2006–08 and 2012–14) and examine the irregularities in the supply and demand for soybeans within each period. Each time frame includes various causes for the surge in the prices of soybeans.

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The 2020 census and CES employment

The U.S. Constitution mandates an enumeration, or a full count, of the entire population of the United States every 10 years. The census results are used to apportion Congressional Representatives and distribute billions of dollars in federal funds to local communities. The importance of the census and the Census Bureau’s scale of work mean that it must hire hundreds of thousands of temporary and intermittent workers to conduct this exercise. These workers are reflected in employment estimates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Current Employment Statistics (CES) survey.
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PRICES & SPENDING

Why the prices of natural and synthetic rubber do not always bounce together

The rubber industry is both global and diverse, providing important materials not just for the automotive industry, but also materials that are widely used in consumer products, construction, and other industrial applications. The rubber-producing sector is divided into two types of products: natural rubber and synthetic rubber. Natural rubber is an agricultural good primarily produced in East Asia and accounts for approximately 25 percent of rubber used in industrial production. Synthetic rubber is produced globally and was created in response to the strategic importance of rubber during World War II.
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REGIONAL ECONOMIES

Job openings and labor turnover trends for Northeastern states in 2018

The Northeast is known for its vibrant cities, dense population, and cultural diversity, but what are some of the labor market trends that set this geographical region apart? This Beyond the Numbers article explores trends in a number of measures—job openings, unemployment, hires and separations, quits, layoffs and discharges, and churn and fill rates—that can give us a deeper understanding of business cycles and labor demand in the Northeast and help businesses and workers make better informed decisions. This article reveals ways that data-users can use these estimates to evaluate labor demand and labor turnover at regional and state levels.
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