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1) The Current Employment Statistics (CES) program, conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, collects data on employment (number of jobs), hours of work, and hourly and weekly earnings from a sample of about 390,000 establishments each month. Data are first released in The Employment Situation and are later published in more detail in Employment and Earnings. Estimates are made for the total nonfarm economy and over 500 detailed industries. The reference period is the payroll period that includes the 12th of the month.
Estimates of employment from the CES survey are lower than those
from the CPS because of differences in coverage. While CPS employment
includes all persons age 16 years and older in the civilian noninstitutional
population who worked during the reference week, the CES count
is a total of the number of persons on payrolls of nonagricultural
establishments (persons on more than one payroll are counted multiple
times). CES employment counts are limited to wage and salary workers
on the payrolls of those establishments. By contrast, the CPS
includes agricultural employment, and self-employed, private household
and unpaid family workers. Both the CPS and the CES exclude military
personnel. More information on the CES is available from the Division
of Monthly Industry Employment Statistics at (202)-606-6555.
2)
Unemployment Insurance (UI) Claims Statistics are prepared by the Employment and Training Administration (ETA)
of the Department of Labor and are based on data supplied by State
Employment Security Agencies (SESA's). This program provides estimates
of the total number of eligible persons filing claims for benefits
as well as the number of people making their initial claims for
benefits. Excluded from the UI claims estimate are a) persons
who exhausted their benefits, b) workers who do not have benefit
rights (such as persons let go for cause and unemployed reentrants
to the labor force), and c) eligible workers not filing claims.
About 90 % of U.S. workers participate in the UI program Major
groups of workers excluded from UI coverage include all members
of the Armed Forces and unpaid family workers, as well as elected
officials in most states, and some railroad employees, domestic
service workers, workers attending schools, and employees of certain
small nonprofit organizations and religious organizations. While
not covered by the UI program, if these workers (exc. members
of the armed forces) were to become unemployed--that is, they
were both available for and seeking work--they would be included
in the CPS unemployment figures. Unemployment insurance claims
questions can be directed to ETA at 202-219-6871.
3)
The National Longitudinal Surveys (NLS),
sponsored by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of
Labor, are a set of surveys that have gathered information at
multiple points in time on a variety of socioeconomic items including
the labor market experiences of five groups of American men and
women. The sample of each survey was selected to be representative
of all Americans born during a given time period such that conclusions
drawn about the sample group would be generalizable, when weighted,
to the experiences of the larger population of like Americans.
Sample selection procedures insured that the labor market dilemmas
of non-whites, youth, women, and the economically disadvantaged
could be examined. Specific areas of inquiry related to the labor
market have included: school-to-work transitions, retirement trends,
lifetime work experience, employer training, and occupational
choices. The NLS also provides information on socioeconomic variables
that are not as directly related to labor market experience. For
information, contact Michael Pergamit at (202) 606-7386.
4)
The Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) is a household survey of about 8,000 housing units per
month conducted by the Census Bureau. The SIPP is used to examine
income sources of individuals and families, participation in entitlement
programs such as Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC),
and the correlations between these items and individual attachments
to the job market over time. While the CPS measures labor force
status at a single point in time, the SIPP interviews determine
persons' work experiences week-by-week over the previous 4 months.
Also, definitions of employment and the labor force are slightly
different in the two surveys; as a result, SIPP tends to pick
up fewer employed and more unemployed persons than the CPS. For
information, contact Judy Eargle at (301) 457-3230.
5)The
Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID)is a longitudinal, nationwide survey administered by the Institute
for Social Research of the University of Michigan. Based on a
representative sample of individuals and the families in which
they reside, the PSID began in 1968 with approximately 4,800 white
and black households. Members formed additional families over
the years, so that by 1990, the sample had expanded to 7,300 households.
The sample was further augmented by the addition of 2,043 Latino
(Mexican, Cuban, and Puerto Rican) households in 1990.
The PSID provides a variety of economic and demographic information
concerning year-to-year changes in sources and levels of income,
marital status, and family composition. In addition, the PSID
data is used to derived detailed information on changes in individuals'
work activities and labor force status throughout the past year.
When used for cross-sectional analysis, much of the PSID data
is similar to that in the Current Population Survey (CPS). For
additional information, see The Panel Study of Income Dynamics,
A User's Guide, by Martha S. Hill, SAGE Publications, Inc., Newbury
Park, California, 1992. The co-directors of the PSID are Sandra
Hofferth and Frank Stafford (313-763-5166).
6) The
Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) survey provides occupational employment statistics by industry.
These data are collected annually by the State Employment Security
Agencies (SESA's), then processed and published by the Bureau
of Labor Statistics. The OES survey covers wage and salary workers
in approximately 725,000 nonfarm establishments in 400 detailed
industries. The survey runs on a 3-year survey cycle with manufacturing
industries surveyed in the first year and nonmanufacturing industries
surveyed during the second and third years. The 50 states, the
District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, and American Samoa participate
in the survey. Occupational employment estimates by industry are
available at the national, state, and area levels.
The OES survey differs from the CPS both in methodology and classification.
And, the OES survey is an establishment survey which counts the
total number of jobs in a given occupation, whereas the CPS is
a survey of households that measures the number persons employed
by occupation. Persons holding 2 jobs (or more) would be counted
twice (or more) in the OES data, but only once (the job in which
one works the most hours) in the CPS. The industry and occupational
classification systems used by the two surveys also differ.
7) The
Covered Employment and Wages Program,
commonly referred to as the ES-202 program, is a cooperative program
involving the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) of the U.S. Department
of Labor and the State Employment Security Agencies (SESAs). The
ES-202 program produces a comprehensive tabulation of employment
and wage information for workers covered by State unemployment
insurance laws and is a virtual census of payroll employment.
Available data include estimates of the number of establishments,
monthly employment, and quarterly wages by industry (at the 4-digit
Standard Industrial Classification level). This information is
tabulated for the United States as a whole and by county and ownership
sector.
A main difference between this employment program and the CPS
is that the ES-202 program is establishment based and provides
information with about a one-year lag, whereas the CPS is household
based and provides data about 3 weeks after collection. For more
information on the ES-202 program, call (202) 606-6567.
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