Nebraska Enhanced Wage Records Nebraska’s Experience so Far or Be Careful What You Ask For !?#%

Background History of using administrative records Motor Vehicles & Wage Record matches College graduate outcomes Push for job titles to be added to wage records Workforce Data Quality Initiative (WDQI) grant Development of data warehouse Expansion of internal data Additional external data Renewed push for expanded wage records Nebraska has been enhancing our wage records for over 10 years with DMV data. We have used the DMV data to develop industry profiles and workforce profiles. We have used a process for several years in creating postsecondary graduate out comes LMI has been pushing adding an hours paid or worked with or without occupation titles for many years WDQI Nebraska received a round 2 and round 4 WDQI grant which was used to develop a data warehouse that can interface with Education’s longitudinal database’ A big part of this development was to bring in more than just Wage records, we added Benefit data and E & T data which is Wagner Peyser and WIOA. Education’s system is only K – 12 at this point so we developed data sharing agreements We also developed agreements with Corrections, Veterans, Apprenticeships All of this activity helped keep the occupations and hours in discussions

Barriers to Wage Record Expansion Cost Internal pressure (no desire, inflexible systems, etc.) Employer burden (real or imagined) Not UI related Common themes that we all hear.

New Fields – Research & Discussion Workforce Information Council (WIC/WIAC) Administrative Wage Record Enhancement Study Group report Review of other states Unemployment Insurance related Focus on unmet data needs (hours worked, pay rates, staffing) Discussion of additional fields needed Items that are helping to bring the discussion for the need to add some items to the wage records. Important to remember that UI has mandates that they have to follow for using UI funding on the wage record file. Try to keep focus on a couple of items and show what you could provide if you had those data elements – Turn negative can’t do to could do if UI’s focus is not on what additional types of information they can provide with their data, it is on collecting money and paying it out. What could help them do that better?

Tipping point Data-friendly administration Unmet data needs Incentive program review (full- & part-time, pay at incentivized companies) Short-time compensation program Graduates and other education data linkages Timing (other file & system changes being done) The previous Commissioner had started pushing UI to add hours and occupations to the wage records New Commissioner was the Agency Legal Council and had been in on previous discussions. Perfect Storm; Both Commissioners I think got tired of hearing me explain why we could not provide certain data because of the limitations of the wage records in hours and occupations Legislative Audit Office was mandated to do audits of bills that incentivized business to grow and/or locate in Nebraska with tax credits. State Revenue could not provide much data due to their confidentiality laws so wage records became the fall back and LMI was assigned to assist in the audit. Difficult to prove if the jobs were high paying with out hours and if they were quality jobs without occupations. The Incentive bill is due to sunset in a couple of years and so new legislation was being developed and LMI was brought the table because of our work on the audit. So Labor provided a process where employers could get a UI sub-account number and report their new employees under this and include hours paid and occupation title quarterly on the wage records to meet one of the requirements for the incentives. New Commissioner informed UI they would be adding it and set a data for the fields to be active so if the legislation passed the Wage Records would be ready.

Data Elements Added Fields added in the “filler” space of fixed width file layout Optional new fields Hours Paid Job Title Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) this not seen on UI entry screen Internal use only Data systems clearly label new fields as voluntary Required in certain instances (participation in tax incentive programs, short-time compensation plan) Wage Record file we were able to use the filler space to add the additional fields One requirement by the Commissioner was that the columns be clearly labeled as voluntary. This way if you are a business that would be required to complete this field they would be informed to use the two optional columns - we don’t expect the employer to add the SOC just the job title We also had another piece of legislation that could require the use of these fields it was for businesses that need to temporarily cut back on staff due to economy, Employers and keep employees on reduced hours and employees can draw UI for non-work hours.

Nebraska’s Wage Records Mainframe system (New tax system planned start date 2019) Fixed-width file format “Filler” space within the file Majority paid online Electronic loads Bulk filed (payroll providers) UI Connect A little over 90% of the employers are collected through online system. We were able to use the filler space to add the new fields

Reported Data – 1st Quarter 2018 Job Titles (total) 5,119 Employers 81,839 Employees Hours Paid (total) 2,344 Employers 80,661 Employees Both Job titles & Hours 1,658 Employers 41,454 Employees Job Titles 3,461 Employers 40,385 Employees Both 1,658 Employers 41,454 Employees Hours Paid 686 Employers 39,207 Employees The employer count is the number of firms in 20181 and number of jobs Nebraska started collecting hours paid and occupations in 1st QTR 2017. We are slowly adding new employers each quarter. We do not market this nor at this time do we have any legislation/rules that requires any group of employers to submit this data. It is interesting to see how the data is reported. Here you can see that some employers are reporting just job titles or hours paid and both. I would have thought the number of employers would be higher for hours than occupations. So if we want to look at job titles we find over 5,000 employers providing them and if we look at hours paid we have over 2,000 employers reporting Disclaimers: The system defaults to “0” hours paid, so the only way to look is for records greater than 0. It could be possible that some wages are actually for zero hours paid (back pay, settlements, commissions, or other situations) This is only rows that contain the data. An employer could have reported one employee’s job title or hours and be counted in the above numbers, but might actually have many more employees that were not included. 59,885 employer, 1,101,885 Jobs

Projects Reviewing the data to understand the issues with it Create an Enhanced Wage Record File that includes DMV, hours paid, and occupations. Compare Graduate data to Wage Record file to compare CIP to SOC job Develop processes for handling the data Compare OES businesses to Wage Record respondents We need to develop a process for coding the occupations and then getting that data loaded back to the Wage records or at least to the wage record longitudinal database in our warehouse. Continue to track OES respondent and non-respondent data against data obtained in the wage record file

Recommendations Identify some specific uses for the added data What would the addition of Hours allow you to do What would the addition of Occupations allow you to do Identify Customers that would use the data/information Why would it help them? Have a rough plan for how you will handle the data if these fields are added Don’t expect UI to deal with the data, it is not their responsibility If you are looking at adding or starting the discussion here are some thoughts: .

Recommendations* Plan for and add extra fields all at once (even if they are still just a block of filler text for now) One-time burden for employers to edit reports instead of multiple changes Once the word is on the street you are collecting this data you will get questions Be open to doing it on a voluntary basis

Nebraska Department of Labor – Office of Labor Market Information More Labor Market Information visit our Web Site Neworks.Nebraska.gov Click Labor Market Analysis Presented by: Phillip A. Baker Email phil.baker@nebraska.gov Phone 402-471-9964 May 22, 2018