Job-to-Job (J2J) Flows: New Labor Market Statistics from Linked Employer-Employee Data

• Activity Number: 150
• Type: Invited
• Date/Time: Monday, August 4, 2014 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: Business and Economic Statistics Section
• Author(s): Erika Mcentarfer*+ and Henry Richard Hyatt and Stephen Tibbets
• Companies: U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Census Bureau
• Keywords: hires ; separations ; job-to-job flows ; employment ; wages ; employer-employee data

Abstract

Flows of workers across jobs are a principal mechanism by which labor markets allocate workers to optimize productivity. While these job flows are both large and economically important, they represent a significant gap in available economic statistics. A soon to be released data product from the U.S. Census Bureau will fill this gap. The Job-to-Job (J2J) flow statistics provide estimates of worker flows across jobs, across different geographic labor markets, by worker and firm characteristics, including direct job-to-job flows as well as job changes with intervening nonemployment. In this paper, we describe the creation of the public-use data product on job-to-job flows. The data underlying the statistics are the matched employer-employee data from the U.S. Census Bureau's Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics program. We describe definitional issues and the identification strategy for tracing worker movements between employers in administrative data. We then compare our data with related series and discuss similarities and differences. Lastly, we describe disclosure avoidance techniques for the public use file, and our methodology for estimating national statistics when there is partially missing geography.