Aligning Survey Estimates of Employment in Expanding and Contracting Establishments with Population Counts: Preliminary Issues and Methods

• Activity Number: 300
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Tuesday, August 3, 2010 : 8:30 AM to 10:20 AM
• Sponsor: Business and Economic Statistics Section
• Author(s): Michael Roosma*+ and Kenneth W. Robertson and James Spletzer
• Companies: Bureau of Labor Statistics and Bureau of Labor Statistics and Bureau of Labor Statistics
• Keywords: benchmarking ; Bureau of Labor Statistics ; business employment dynamics ; Current Employment ; establishment survey

Abstract

The Current Employment Statistics (CES) survey, conducted by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, is a large monthly survey of businesses that estimates employment, hours, and earnings by industry and geographic area. Previous research has shown that these data can also be used to produce estimates of employment change in expanding and contracting businesses, providing current information on business employment dynamics. One issue raised in the earlier research was the need to develop a method to align the survey estimates with population counts on a periodic basis. This paper describes issues associated with this periodic realignment, and one method developed to accomplish it.