Benchmarking Historical Data in the Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS) Program

The twelve month 1993 benchmark was not completed until March of this year. In fact, each month’s labor force, employment, unemployment, and unemployment rate statistics are subject to four data revisions. Current data are preliminary, then revised the following month and published in Trends. After publication the data is subjected to three benchmarked revisions at later dates. Each year we publish the most recent three benchmarked calendar years.

The Table represents the benchmarked product for 1991, 1992, and 1993. This three year benchmarking supersedes preliminary and revised data previously published in Trends for the same time frame.

While there is no doubt that redoing data for the same month four times after initial publication can be confusing to the data user, there is a method to our madness. The nature and collection process of economic data dictates that it is not always available on a timely basis. If we waited until all input data was finalized before running the monthly LAUS program, we would have historical data only. Current LAUS estimates are therefore revised until all data is final.

The most recent LAUS benchmarking exercise included 1990 decennial census updates, recently available even though the census was conducted over four years ago. Besides census data used in benchmarking LAUS numbers, statewide LAUS annual averages come directly from the Current Population Survey (CPS).

The CPS, a monthly household survey, contacts around 60,000 households around the nation with about 825 of these in Wyoming. The results of the household survey are published by the BLS in monthly national publications like The Employment Situation and State and Metropolitan Area Employment and Unemployment. Other statistical inputs, ratios, and formulas in benchmarking are based on non-census data accumulations and are updated annually.

On a county level, Research & Planning counts of employees covered by Wyoming State Unemployment Insurance are not available in time for use in preliminary estimates. Estimates of county covered employment are made for the preliminary and revised LAUS estimates. The actual covered employment counts, which are tabulated six months after the fact, are then used in the LAUS benchmarking process. This is the most important employment update on the county level.

Because of space limitations, employment numbers are not normally published in Trends. The civilian labor force table includes the labor force, number of unemployed, and unemployment rate. However, readers can subtract the unemployment count from the labor force and get the number of employed.

The LAUS program, which provides the current labor force, employment, unemployment, and unemployment rate estimates, is prepared by Research & Planning (R&P) in cooperation with the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The benchmarking of this program represents the inclusion of more accurate and timely data. It does not represent the correction of errors.

Readers are often confused about definitions and concepts of employment statistics. The LAUS labor force, or civilian labor force, is the sum of employed and unemployed persons. Those not classified as employed or unemployed are not in the labor force. As a rule of thumb, around half the total population are not members of the labor force. Those not in the labor force are people under 16 years of age, retirees, the institutionalized, students, and others who choose not to work or seek employment. People are classified as unemployed if they are at least 16+ years of age and are actively seeking work. Contrary to popular belief, most of the unemployed are not collecting unemployment insurance benefits. A USA Today article of April 5th, 1991, indicated that on a national average only 37 percent of the unemployed are collecting benefits, while in Wyoming it was 25 percent. While this information may be dated, historically Wyoming has had a low percentage of unemployed collecting unemployment benefits compared to other states.

The concept of employment, in LAUS statistics, is one that many people find confusing. Research & Planning publishes three different series of employment statistics, each one having a different definition of employment. The three series are LAUS employment, Current Employment Statistics (CES) employment, and (ES-202) Unemployment Insurance program employment.

LAUS measures people by place of residence; both the CES and ES-202 programs measure jobs by the place of work. LAUS counts people only once, while a person who works two jobs under the CES or ES-202 definition is counted twice. Besides the double counting there are also different groups of people covered and not covered by each program. For a more detailed discussion of the three employment series, please refer to the October 1993 issue of  Trends.

As a result of different definitions, if you compare LAUS, CES, and ES-202 employment series numbers for the same area and time frame, they will be different. For example, the annual average LAUS Employment for 1992 was 225,000 people. This compared to 205,600 jobs for CES Total Non-Agricultural Wage and Salary, and 197,900 jobs for ES-202 Covered Employment. They are not the same because of different definitions of employment, residency and place of work.

In closing, the LAUS benchmarking process does not represent the correction of errors. Benchmarking, confusing as it can be to the reader, represents the inclusion of more accurate and timely data to better serve data users.

Definitions like labor force and employment are also confusing to the reader. However, each definition is used to measure the labor force in a slightly different way. They are an attempt to explain changes in the labor force--not to confuse the reader.

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