January 9, 1993

Employers' payrolls grew by a modest 64,000 jobs in December as the nation's unemployment rate remained at 7.3 percent, the Labor Department said today in a report that underscores how slowly the job market is reacting to economic expansion. The figures were somewhat disappointing in light of recent drops in first-time claims for jobless benefits and other indications that the economy is slowly recovering from the recession.

The latest painful labor battle at The Daily News is a sign of the decline of the power of unions in the New York City newspaper industry, highlighting deep and, some say, permanent divisions between New York unions that once derived their power from unity. It showed how weak newspaper unions have become in an age when technology has made it possible for publishers to put out newspapers without union members, and thus is a watershed in the labor movement and in the news industry.

Television and radio listings, normally found at the end of the second section, appear today on pages 18-19.

The unthinkable has happened in Japan, and it has touched a nerve in the ranks of the nation's middle managers. A well-known maker of audio and video equipment, Pioneer Electronic, conceded today that it was essentially firing 35 middle managers, a candid admission that Japanese companies have begun to violate their long-cherished policies of lifetime employment.

Serbian nationalist troops besieging Sarajevo shot and killed a top official of the Bosnian Government today after halting a United Nations armored vehicle that was carrying him from Sarajevo airport into the city. Members of a hard-line faction in the Government immediately announced that they would not return to peace talks with their Serbian nationalist opponents until they were given convincing assurances that the Serbs were genuinely seeking peace.