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While production-line workers are usually trimmed fast to meet any fall in sales, the payrolls in service industries, on the other hand, are slower to feel an economic change. Every year, the service industries have been absorbing more workers to serve the nation's growing market for leisure and travel, to sell its growing volume of goods and keep its millions of gadgets in operation. The growth in service workers since 1950: from 26.5 million to 32.3 million.
Though no one wants unemployment, coldly statistical economists can find some virtue in it. expect the U.S. to benefit through increased productivity. In 1957 productivity rose barely 1%, lagging behind wages. In 1958 it should rise sharply, not only because the new plants built by industry are more efficient but because increased competition for jobs should make everyone work a little better. Moreover, as jobs grow scarcer, wages will flatten out. While the Autoworkers' Walter Reuther still talks of demanding a four-day workweek and other plums, wage demands will be tougher to win from management, whose bargaining position has been strengthened by the economic downturn and the scandals in labor's own house that have cost it heavily in public opinion. As a result, the new year may see some angry clashes over the bargaining table, particularly in aircraft and auto industries, where long-term contracts run out. Labor experts expect a rash of strikes next year, unlike 1957, which saw only 16 million man-days lost through strikes, the lowest figure since World War II.
As the boom eased in the U.S., it was also easing around the world, bringing a drop in the demand for U.S. goods. The record dollar value of U.S. exports ($19.5 billion in 1957) and imports ($12.7 billion) may slip less than 5% in 1958. One of the major battles of 1958 will be over U.S. tariff walls and reciprocal trade pacts, with traders insisting that the U.S. does not buy enough and protectionists insisting that it buys too much. Yet in 1957, an encouraging answer to critics who say the U.S. does not trade enough was the case of foreign automakers: they boldly invaded Detroit's home grounds, boosted their sales of small cars by 110% to 235.000. Beyond trade, world-minded businessmen, who once looked only at U.S. gross national product but now talk of ''gross world product." will keep up their record flow of capital abroad. In the past two years. U.S. overseas investments soared from $1.7 billion annually to $3.8 billion annually.
The New Age. In 1958 the problems and opportunities abroad will pale beside those in another undeveloped area: the almost uncharted reaches of upper space. Post-Sputnik, the U.S. is determined to surpass the Russians in the new age of space. Obvious meaning to the economy: a sharp rise in Government spending.