Word: levelling
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Joblessness is at its lowest level since 1974. The Labor Department reported last week that the unemployment rate dropped to 5.3% in June, down from 5.6% the previous month. Barry Bosworth, an economist at the Brookings Institution, thinks the jobless level is approaching the threshold at which it begins to spur wage and price increases. Says he: "I like an unemployment rate of 5.3%, but if it goes below 5%, then I would be concerned." Yet other economists think the work force can readily accommodate the scattered shortages. Says Beryl Sprinkel, chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers...
...labor: "There are essentially no domestic workers. They have gone with the wind." The situation . is not expected to improve over last year, when a privately funded study of Cape Cod, Mass., companies reported a shortage of 14,000 chambermaids, short- order cooks, waiters, clerks and other entry-level workers in that area. The survey, conducted by a public agency, the Office for Job Partnerships, calculated that businesses lost $48 million. This summer Cape Cod restaurants and motels are posting signs that read, 15-YEAR-OLDS WELCOME TO APPLY, an appeal that was unheard of just a few years...
Nonetheless, General Chai predicts that "if the Soviets continue their domestic reforms and accompanying adjustments in foreign policy, eventually the Three Obstacles will be eliminated and Sino-Soviet relations will be normalized." That could mean, he says, not only a Deng-Gorbachev summit but an exchange of high-level military visits as well. Americans, he adds, should not be alarmed: "For Sino-Soviet relations to be transformed into a more moderate and relaxed state would benefit all humanity...
Another frequently voiced concern was the environment. Rafik Nishanov, the Uzbekistan party chief, complained bitterly about a disastrous drop in the water level of the inland Aral Sea, which has been depleted over the years by efforts to irrigate the arid republics of Central Asia. The chief of a new environmental protection committee, Fyodor Morgun, blamed the "ill-considered drive to build gigantic plants" for a Pandora's box of ecological problems, including air and water pollution...
...winter-wheat harvest escaped the effects of the drought. But the spring- wheat crop in a belt from Montana to Minnesota, which accounts for one- fourth of the year's total harvest, may amount to only 250 million bu. That is less than half of last year's level. Result: consumers are likely to pay higher prices for pasta, much of which is made from the northern durum wheat. Should the drought persist through the summer, the same will hold true for soybean- based foods, which range from trendy tofu to salad dressing...