The Dynamic Composition of the Wyoming Workforce: A Study of Origins
by: Gayle C. Edlin, Economist
" ... native Wyomingites tend to stay in the Wyoming workforce longer while Out-of-Staters are more likely to enter and leave within a relatively short period of time."
How many of Wyoming’s workers originally came from outside the state? Over time, who is more likely to remain part of the Wyoming workforce: native Wyomingites or Out-of-Staters? This analysis suggests that native Wyomingites are more attached to the Wyoming labor market and tend to remain in it longer than Out-of-Staters.
The first three digits of a Social Security Number (SSN) indicate the state shown in the mailing address of an individual’s original SSN application(1). For example, if your SSN begins with 520, you received your SSN while a resident of the state of Wyoming. The widespread use of SSN’s for tax and identification purposes has resulted in assignment of numbers earlier and earlier in an individual’s life. In the past, the most likely time for an individual to apply for a Social Security Number (SSN) was when s/he was seeking her/his first job. Now, with tax deductions requiring dependent’s SSN’s, it is becoming the norm for children to receive their SSN’s at birth or very shortly thereafter. For the purposes of this article, we use each SSN as a proxy for an individual’s native state (state of origin). Thus, we can begin to see the dynamics of the Wyoming workforce’s changing composition over time by examining the information available from Unemployment Insurance (UI) wage records(2).
Native Wyomingites, for the sake of this discussion, are those individuals whose SSN begins with 520. Unique three-digit codes distinguish Out-of-Staters as well (e.g., native South Dakotans have SSN’s beginning with 503 or 504). Research
& Planning’s UI wage record file contains information about Wyoming work history by SSN beginning in 1992, and is currently final(3) through 1997. This study compared 1996 wage record data with the base year of 1992, and 1997 wage record data with the base year of 1993. The two four-year study periods were selected based on available data.
The cohorts (common groups of individuals) under study in this case included those individuals who worked at any time during 1992 (1992 cohort) and those individuals who worked at any time during 1993 (1993 cohort). Individuals were identified by their unique SSN’s. A total of 267,453 SSN’s were present in the 1992 cohort (see Table 1) and 271,622 in the 1993 cohort (see Table 2). Native Wyomingites comprised the largest single group among individuals present in both cohorts. Native Coloradans and Californians came in a distant second and third in both cohorts.
Tables 1 and 2 show how the Wyoming workforce changed during the 1992-96 and 1993-97 time periods. Over one-third of the cohorts did not appear in the Wyoming workforce after four years (39.1% of the 1992 cohort were absent from the 1996 Wyoming workforce and 38.5% of the 1993 cohort were absent from the 1997 Wyoming workforce). Even the number of native Wyomingites decreased dramatically, down 28.3 percent from 1992-96 and down 27.2 percent from 1993-97. In fact, natives of only one other state, South Dakota, declined at a lesser rate (-36.2% from 1992-96 and -35.2% from 1993-97) than did the cohorts in general. In other words, only native Wyomingites and South Dakotans were more likely than average to still be working in Wyoming after four years.
Figures 1 and 2 present an interesting distinction between native Wyomingites and Out-of-Staters. The pie charts show that as time progressed, native Wyomingites represented a greater proportion of Wyoming UI wage records than Out-of-Staters in both the 1992 and 1993 cohorts. To rephrase, the number of native Wyomingites who remained in the Wyoming workforce after four years was greater than the number of Out-of-Staters who did the same.
In general, it would appear that native Wyomingites are more attached to the Wyoming labor market than Out-of-Staters. While the overall composition of the Wyoming workforce remains fairly steady with native Wyomingites comprising 45.5 to 47.1 percent of those individuals included in UI wage records(4), this research indicates that native Wyomingites tend to stay in the Wyoming workforce longer while Out-of-Staters are more likely to enter and leave within a relatively short period of time. It will be interesting to see if these patterns hold in the future, and over longer time periods.
1 Social Security: Your Number, SSA Publication No. 05-10002, February 1998 (http://www.ssa.gov/pubs/10002.html).
2 Wayne M. Gosar, "Wyoming Unemployment Insurance Wage Record Summary Statistics: A New Way to Look at Wyoming," Wyoming Labor Force Trends, May 1995, pp. 4-5.
3 Wage records are updated for six quarters before becoming finalized. The last quarter of 1997 (fourth quarter; October, November and December 1997) will undergo one more update before it is complete. However, preliminary records for the last quarter of 1998 were already available as of April 1999.
4 Quarterly UI wage record data from first quarter 1992 to fourth quarter 1997 show that native Wyomingites made up a low of 45.5 percent of the total number of individuals in third quarter 1995 and a high of 47.1 percent in first quarter 1997.
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