Data Collection in the U.S. BLS’ CES Survey New Frontiers for Data Collection October 31 – November 2, 2012 Geneva, Switzerland Ken Robertson, Assistant Commissioner Bureau of Labor Statistics

Outline Current Employment Statistics (CES) Survey Background A History of Data Collection in CES Current CES Data Collection

CES Background Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) CES survey is also known as the payroll or the establishment survey. Each month the CES program surveys approximately 141,000 businesses representing 486,000 individual worksites. Collection days before first release of the data varies each month, ranging from days. About 25% of the non-certainty businesses are rotated out-of-sample each year

Major Uses of CES Data Economic indicator – one of the earliest available each month These data are used to publish 4 news releases each month: 2 national, and 2 sub- national  Publish employment, hours, and earnings by industry and geography Input to other economic series

History of CES Data Collection 1915 – 1983  Data were collected almost exclusively by Mail in a decentralized environment  Collection rates were typically between 40%-50% for 1 st release of the data, 90% for the final A mail shuttle form was utilized

Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing 1984: CES CATI – testing started 1987: Large-scale CATI test, involved 11 States, lasted 7 years, and ended with a test size of 5,500 cases 1995: Collecting about 10,000 cases per month via CATI

Touchtone Data Entry 1987: CES began to experiment with TDE as a way to lower collection costs compared to CATI – but to retain a higher response rate than achieved by mail

Voice Recognition 1989 – CES briefly explored voice recognition as a data collection alternative

Electronic Data Interchange 1995 – the BLS began to hear from larger employers, who were participating in multiple BLS surveys, that they wanted some way to reduce their cost of participation Developed the EDI Center to work with these large multi-site businesses

FAX 1995: BLS developed FAX collection for medium size firms. Used for collection where CATI is too burdensome, but business is not large enough for EDI

One Point TDE 1996: BLS developed the One-Point TDE system to take over the TDE responsibility for two states. Up to this point each state had independently maintained their own TDE system and helpdesk. By 2004 all states transferred their TDE operations to the One Point TDE

Web 1996: tested Web-based collection system 1998: decided to support Web collection CES started using the Internet Data Collection Facility (IDCF), a centralized service utilized for multiple BLS surveys WEB-LITE 2004: CES decided to try a streamlined version of Web-based collection.

& Web-FTP 2006 – tested collection; utilized embedded HTML that allowed respondent to access BLS website Problems encountered because of different HTML rendering standards employed by different clients Web-FTP 2007: BLS began utilizing a spreadsheet data collection form that the State of West Virginia had developed for medium sized firms Offered to respondents who have at least 5 worksites but less than 100

A New Form 2011: Started a field test of a major redesign to the form, which had not changed significantly from the 1-page grid design since 1939 New form is a 4-page form, printed on 11” X 17”, folded to produce four 8½” X 11” pages

Collection Form:

New Form - Outside Front-introduction Back-Thank You

New Form - Inside Left -Instructions Right-Data

History of major innovations in CES data collection  1915 – 1983: Mail  1984: CATI  1987: Touchtone Data Entry (TDE)  1989: Voice-Recognition  1995: EDI, FAX  1996: One-Point TDE, WEB  2004: Web-Lite, IDCF  2006:  2007: WebFTP  2011: New Form

Current CES Data Collection Current Methods Costs Collection Rates

CES Methods: Data Collection Current CES sample is collected through a variety of methods: CATI, Fax, TDE, Web, EDI, WebFTP CATI yields highest response rates but is the most expensive Providing options helps sustain response rates in a voluntary survey Collection modes have evolved; away from mail to automated methods

CES Collection Environment Challenging, especially for 1 st preliminary: CES has days for collection Reference period is the pay period including the 12 th Collection begins as early as the 13 th of the reference month, continues until 6:00 pm Monday, for the Employment Situation release, typically the first Friday of the month  some firms do not have payroll available until after 1 st preliminary cut-off

AE Collection Rates: 1 st and 3 rd Closings, January 2003 to Present

CES Collection Over Time Collection Mode Mail100%86%3%0% CATI TDE08274 EDI FAX00145 WEB00125 Other0253 Table 1. Distribution of CES sample by collection mode over time

CES Collection Over Time Mode Collection rates at first release On-going collection cost, per unit CATI90.8%$10.38 TDE84.6%$2.88 EDI59.2%$0.50 FAX85.8%$5.86 WEB78.5%$2.40 OtherVaries Table 2. Collection rates and costs by mode, 2011 Average

Concluding Remarks CES data collection is a very large monthly operation with critical deadlines leading to multiple news releases each month Operations are managed centrally, and conducted in 4 Data Collection Centers, and an Electronic Data Interchange Center Data from about 141,000 businesses representing 486,000 establishments are collected each month using various modes of collection Transition from decentralized operations in over 50 states has resulted in substantial efficiencies

Concluding Remarks Managing multi-modal operations is very challenging  must have highly qualified and motivated professional staff to pay attention to all the moving parts  must fix problems quickly  Must monitor distribution among modes closely to maximize response with available funding Must continue to innovate and take advantage of new technologies – where it makes sense  To maintain high collection rates  To take advantage of new efficiencies

Contact Information Ken Robertson Assistant Commissioner Industry Employment Statistics