Good intentions?
Only about half of adults who buy athletic apparel participate in the sport the apparel was made for, reports American Sports Data Inc. A partial breakdown: 50% of all buyers of tennis shoes don't play tennis; 49% of people who buy running shoes don't run at all; 43% of people who buy leotards never work out in them.
Majority of unemployed get no benefits
Just 33% of the unemployed received unemployment insurance benefits in an average month last year, the lowest in the program's 52-year history, according to a study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington, D.C. Based on the monthly average, 5.5 million jobless people didn't receive benefits last year, the non-profit research group says.
Relatively high unemployment along with federal and state cuts in jobless insurance were cited as among the major causes. Fewer than one in four jobless got benefits in Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee and Texas.
Virginia had just 15.9% of the jobless getting such benefits in an average month, the lowest percentage cited.
Cable, broadcast jobs increase for women, minorities
Job opportunities for women and minorities in the cable and broadcast industries improved somewhat in 1986, according to figures compiled by the Federal Communications Commission.
Last year, women held 29.2% of the jobs in the top four categories - officials and managers, professionals, technicians and sales workers - in broadcasting, the FCC reveals. In the cable business, they held 27.4% of the jobs in the same categories. In 1985, the figures were 28.6% in broadcasting and 23.5% in cable.
The FCC says members of minority groups occupied 15.4% of the positions in the top four job categories in cable and 13.7% in broadcasting in 1986. In the previous year, minorities accounted for 14.7% of cable's top jobs and 13.5% of those in broadcasting.
Despite improvements, the cable and broadcasting industries lag behind others in employing women and minorities, the FCC says.
In 1986, women made up 44.5% of the labor force and minorities 20.5%, the FCC says. In the cable industry, however, women accounted for 40.4% of the work force last year and minorities 18.5%. In the broadcasting industry, women comprised 37.4% of the work force and minorities 16%.
Strikes lose millions of worker-days
The country's major manufacturers lost almost 5.8 million worker-days to strikes in 1986, up 68% from the previous year and up 135% from 1984, reports the CPA firm GrantThornton. Although it was a loss of 1.2 days' work out of every thousand, manufacturing strikes have decreased substantially since immediately after World War II.
Leading the list is USX Corp. which had the most costly strike. Others include: Deere & Co., Weyerhaeuser Co., General Electric Co. and Timken Co.
GrantThornton reports that the walkouts erupted from management's push for wage and work-rule concessions to stay competitive.