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Wyoming Department of Workforce Services

Research & Planning
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"Labor Market Information (LMI) is an applied science; it is the systematic collection and analysis of data which describes and predicts the relationship between labor demand and supply." The States' Labor Market Information Review, ICESA, 1995, p. 7.

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Wyoming Labor Force Trends

June 2024 | Volume 61, No. 6


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New Wyoming Residents: Where They Came From and Where They Are Working

Article | Tables and Figures | Methodology


by: Matthew Halama, Senior Economist


The Research & Planning (R&P) section of the Wyoming Department of Workfoce Services collects and maintains quarterly wage record data through the Unemployment Insurance (UI) system from 1992 to present, which includes approximately 92% of Wyoming jobs.  The variables used from the wage record database are social security number (ssn), year, quarter (qtr), quarterly wages, sex, minimum year (labeled minyear), minimum age (labeled minage), minimum year annual wages (labeled minyear_annualwages), minimum naics (labeled minnaics), maximum age (labeled maxage), maximum year annual wages (labeled maxyear_annualwages), maximum naics (labeled maxnaics), age in 2023 (labeled agein2023), and age group (labeled agegroup).  The quarterly wages variable was summed and grouped by ssn and year to create a yearly wages variable for each individual in the database.  The age bracket variable groups individuals between the ages of 15-19, 20-24, 25-34, 35-44, 45-54, 55-64, and 65+ when their license was surrendered in 2023.    

The driver’s license database from the Wyoming Department of Transportation utilized the variables ssn, date of birth of the license holder (dob), issue date of the license, expiration date of the license, the former state of residence i.e. surrendering state (labeled surrstate), the date the individual surrendered their former driver’s license (labeled surrdate), operator number (operon), operator class (operclass), sex, and age. The variable age was calculated by taking the variable year and subtracting the dob of each individual record.  While the wage records database has an age variable, not all individuals in the Driver’s License database have employment in Wyoming.  Using the age variable from the Wyoming Driver’s License database provides ages for those who moved here who have yet or do not plan on finding employment while claiming Wyoming Residency.  This process is needed to join the driver’s license to the wage record database by ssn and year.

Twenty three individuals had conflicting data where the driver’s license data and wage records data would have both F and M values under the variable sex.  Since the wage records database relies on demographic information from the driver’s license database, R&P referred to the birth name of the individuals and updated the datum in question.  Two individuals had duplicated records with the exception of the document change date which is the date recorded when an individual had an interaction with the Wyoming Department of Transportation.  The earliest document change date was removed.  Six individuals had differing birth years, two of the birth years were corrected by observing that when they first had wage records data it would have been illegal for them to work at the time.  The other four birth years were corrected by seeing how long the change was in place for in the driver’s license data.  The change with lowest cumulative yearly timeframe between updates led to that birth year being dropped.

The combined file displays year, ssn, sex, age in 2023, age bracket, yearly wages, DLRegistrationRenewal (driver’s license registration renewal), surrstate, surryear, minage, minyear, minyear_annualwages, minnaics, maxage, maxyear, maxyear_annualwages, and maxnaics.