Early Spring

Spring has come early to the U.S. labor force. The Labor Department reported last week that, contrary to the usual seasonal pattern, total U.S. employment in February rose by 500,000 to a record monthly high of 64,520,000. At the same time, unemployment, which usually changes little in February, dropped by 218,000 to 3,931,000, the greatest January-February decline since 1942. The improved job picture brought the seasonally adjusted rate of unemployment down to 4.8%, lowest since October 1957. Seymour L. Wolfbein, Labor Department manpower expert, foresaw further improvement during the next few months. Said he: "We are going to get through this spring with an improvement in the economic situation generally and the employment situation particularly."

Other indicators:

P:Personal income in February was running at the seasonally adjusted annual rate of $393 billion, up slightly from the January record of $392.8 billion. For the first two months of 1960, the flow of personal income was up 6%, while prices rose only about 1%.

P:Industrial production in February dropped off one point from the January record to 110% of the 1957 average, the new base year that the Federal Reserve Board is using. Industrial production in February was 167% of the old 1947-49 average. While output of business equipment and materials was maintained at peak rates, production of consumer goods declined below the record January level.

P:Auto production for March, despite minor cutbacks, is scheduled to exceed February production, reach 667,900 units, best March since the alltime high of 794,105 in 1955. The heavy production will leave the industry with its first million-car inventory of dealers' stocks, but the oversupply is a calculated buildup for what dealers hope will be a heavy spring demand.

P:Department-store sales recovered sharply from winter storms and blizzards, moved to the highest dollar volume since mid-January. The Federal Reserve Board reported that department-store sales rose to 116% of the 1947-49 average, up from the previous week's 98%.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.