Reported by Star-Bulletin staff & wire
Thursday, January 22, 1998
Labor Dept. gets grant for 'Year 2000' computer fix
The state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations has won a $3.2 million federal grant to deal with "Year 2000" computer problems affecting unemployment insurance payments, job placement records, payrolls and other key data.Computer systems tracking the programs could be shut down if the problem is not fixed before Jan. 1, 2000, officials say. The problem, mainly affecting large data-processing systems, involves software that can't read dates beyond Dec. 31, 1999.
About $11 million in unemployment benefits is paid out to 13,000 people in Hawaii each month. Also, about 30,000 job referrals are made and 100,000 transactions processed by the department each year.
Mortgage rates up slightly to 6.99%
WASHINGTON - The benchmark U.S. mortgage rate edged higher this week, though it stuck close to a four-year low that's likely to encourage consumers to continue to buy houses and refinance their mortgages.The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage rose to 6.99 percent this week, compared with last week's 6.89 percent, according to a survey of mortgage rates from Freddie Mac.
Today's report also showed that the average rate on an adjustable mortgage fell to 5.53 percent from 5.56 percent last week. Fifteen-year mortgage rates rose to 6.56 percent from 6.46 percent, Bloomberg News reported.
In other news ...
NEW YORK - AT&T Corp.'s new chairman is planning to cut as many as 19,000 jobs, or 15 percent of the company's work force, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The newspaper, citing unidentified people close to the company, said Chairman C. Michael Armstrong is also planning to reassign much of AT&T's senior management.