Doing More with Less - Eliminating Long Forms in the OES Survey Carrie K. Jones Branch Chief, Survey Operations and Analysis Occupational Employment Survey US Bureau of Labor Statistics JSM 2018, Vancouver, BC July 30, 2018 The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) survey is an establishment survey that collects occupational employment and wage data. Survey 360,000 businesses every year. The objective being to produce occupational employment and wage estimates for the US, each state, and metropolitan statistical areas as well each industry. OES data is a federal survey but is collected by each state government office.

Analysis Approach Previous Research Data collection practices influence response rates Larger establishments prefer sending in electronically Success using letter asking for an electronic payroll file Analysis Inputs Microdata responses Administrative records Paradata Printing logs and receipts Postage receipts OES has a short write-in forms for small establishments but has long paper forms with 16-32 pages for medium to large sized establishments. They are very expensive to print and mail. We mail out a lot of them. How many of them are actually filled out and returned by respondents? Postage and printing costs keep going up and our budget keeps going down. How do we compensate?

Percentage of Units That Were Sent a Long Paper Form but Responded Electronically Many units that received a long paper form respond electronically. So why not ask them for an electronic response to begin with? We looked at how many long forms were sent out and what mode respondents used to submit their data. 55,000 units received long forms 16,000 returned them – 29% 14,500 sent in electronic form – without being asked

Unit Response Rates by Solicitation Method Establishment microdata classified and grouped by what particular treatment it received: Long form, Letter, or 4-Page Write-in form Solicitation method alone does not explain differences in response rates, but shows differences in response trends. Units in size classes 7–9 have the higher response rate when sent a letter asking for an electronic response. Analysis of the long form vs letter: differences in response rates are not statistically significant. These are the response rates by type of survey instrument. The long paper forms is in red, the letter asking for an electronic file is in light blue. The response rates are very similar for both – there are small differences but they are not statistical significant.

Cost Per Unit Across Size Classes Cost per unit for long paper forms is substantially higher than for the letters and write-in forms. Here we see the cost per unit for each of the establishment size classes Costs for the letter and write-in form are fairly consistent Costs for the long forms are substantially more and go up as the size of the establishment goes up.

Cost and Response Data Long forms are 39% of printing and postage costs, but make up only 13% of the responses. Based on the analysis we retired the long survey forms Transitioned to using letters requesting electronic payroll files for all establishments > 100 employees Reduced our average per unit cost from $4.57 to $3.89 $324,000 savings the next fiscal year Response rates were a little lower than expected but improved for certain groups of employers including some groups where we needed it the most Response rates decreased for size classes 1 - 3 Response rates increased for size classes 6 – 8 Stayed the same for 4, 5, 9

Come see me at the Poster presentation! Station #23 Carrie K. Jones Branch Chief, Survey Operations and Analysis Occupational Employment Survey www.bls.gov/oes 202-691-6474 jones.carrie@bls.gov