March 6, 1982

A Federal judge ruled yesterday that the physical test for applicants to New York City's Fire Department discriminates against women. He said that a new test must be developed and that up to 45 women must be appointed to the department. In his ruling, Judge Charles P. Sifton said that the test did not ascertain the qualities needed to perform well as a firefighter. The test involved such things as carrying a 120-pound dummy on one shoulder up and down a flight of stairs, scaling an eight-foot-high wall and running one mile.

Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr. met today with the second-ranking member of the Salvadoran junta as the State Department continued to insist that Nicaragua and Cuba were directing the guerrilla operation in El Salvador. But department officials were clearly concerned about the attention given Mr. Haig's dramatic announcement on Thursday to a House subcommittee that evidence of outside interference in El Salvador could be seen in the capture of ''a Nicaraguan military man'' helping to direct the insurgency. Their concern was that the attention given the one Nicaraguan would detract from what the Administration regards as very compelling evidence, a view shared by both intelligence committees in Congress, that Nicaraguans and Cubans are deeply involved in the Salvadoran insurgency. Reports from Mexico, confirmed late in the day by the State Department, said a Nicaraguan was inside the Mexican Embassy in San Salvador, having either eluded the Salvadoran police or having escaped from them.

Tubby Clinton left his steel-toed boots in the kitchen, padded over to the front room and handed his wife the little slip of paper. ''Here it is,'' he said. ''Here's the big one.'' Mrs. Clinton read the paper. It said ''Notice of Layoff'' and informed Donald C. Clinton, time-card No. 80421, that he would be laid off at the end of his shift today, March 5, 1982. Signed L.W. Alley for Whitehead & Kales Company.

The chairman of the House Budget Committee said today that the Democrats needed a signal that President Reagan would compromise on the already enacted tax cuts before they could really work on a bipartisan budget alternative. Without such a concession, the chairman, Representative James R. Jones, said, ''I'm very concerned about a stalemate, because it could send the wrong signal to the financial community that we cannot get hold of our fiscal policy, and that could unravel economic recovery very quickly.'' The Oklahoma Democrat said any budget alternative should include some tax increases and cuts in the growth of military spending, both of which the President has strongly opposed. He also said reductions in the automatic inflation increases in aid programs, including Social Security, were needed and some restoration of funds for education and job training. Mr. Jones, for the first time, said that his budget analysts had produced proposals to cut $42 billion over three years from the military spending increases proposed by the President.

As layoffs continued in the nation's heavy industries, the rate of unemployment in February climbed threetenths of a percentage point to 8.8 percent. In January the rate dropped to 8.5 percent of the labor force, which analysts attributed to a statistical quirk and severe winter weather. The rise last month returned the rate to the 8.8 percent it reached in December, the second highest since the beginning of World War II. The highest jobless rate since the start of the war was 9 percent, reached in May 1975.