Labor Market Information Glossary
This glossary is designed to help you better understand Labor Market Information terms and other statistical information.
Average Entry-level Wage: Average of the lower 1/3 of wages paid in each occupation.
Average Experience Wage: Average of the highest 2/3 of wages paid in each occupation.
Average Quarterly Employment: The sum of the three months of employment divided by three. Used in Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages program.
Average Quarterly Wages: Derived from the division of gross quarterly wages by the average monthly employment in the quarter.
Average Weekly Wages (AWW): Derived from the division of average quarterly wages by thirteen (the average number of weeks in each quarter).
Benchmark: Economic data are generally based upon incomplete information. The revision of data based upon more complete information is called benchmarking and the resulting data are considered to be benchmarked. Benchmarking is an annual statistical audit of data, replacing and or recalculating results using the most up-to-date information to correct for estimating or reporting errors. Both the Current Employment Statistics and Local Area Unemployment Statistics time series data are benchmarked.
Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS): Part of the U.S. Department of Labor. The BLS functions as the principal data-gathering agency of the federal government in the field of labor economics. BLS collects, processes, analyzes and disseminates data relating to employment, unemployment, the labor force, productivity, prices, family expenditures, wages, industrial relations and occupational safety and health.
Civilian Labor Force: The total number of age 16+, non-institutionalized civilians who are working or are actively seeking work and are available for employment. Mathematically, the sum of employed plus unemployed.
Confidential Information Protection and Statistical Efficiency Act (CIPSEA): CIPSEA’s primary purposes are to protect information collected for statistical purposes from improper disclosure and to ensure that the information is not used for nonstatistical purposes.
Consumer Price Indexes (CPI): An index measuring changes over time in the retail price of a representative market basket of goods and services. The CPI data are released monthly at the national level and semi-annually for the Denver/Boulder/Greeley combined Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Covered Employer: an employer covered under statutes relating to the payment of unemployment insurance taxes due to the following:
1. Employ at least one worker at any time.
2. Acquire all or a substantial portion of a covered employer.
3. Is subject to Federal Unemployment Tax Act.
4. Is a non-profit organization and has four or more employees for at least 20 weeks during the calendar year.
5. Is a state agency, state operated hospital or school of higher education, or a political subdivision of the state.
6. Is an employer of agricultural labor and pays $20,000 or more in any one quarter of a calendar year or employs 10 workers for 20 weeks during the year.
7. Pays cash wages of $1,000 or more in any calendar year for domestic help in your private home.
The following are specific exclusions from the coverage:
1. Agriculture employment not defined above.
2. Sole proprietors.
3. Railroad workers.
4. Children under 21 in the employ of a parent.
5. Elected officials.
6. Students or inmate workers.
7. Commissioned real estate, insurance and direct seller salespeople.
8. Church employees.
9. Work relief program participants.
All covered employers are included in QCEW data.
Current Employment Statistics (CES): A monthly survey of the number of nonfarm wage and salary workers. Monthly estimates of employment and hours and earnings are calculated for some industries based upon place of employment, at the state and Metropolitan Statistical Area levels.
CES Employment: Employment is the total number of persons on establishment payrolls employed full or part time who received pay for any part of the pay period that includes the 12th day of the month. Temporary and intermittent employees are included, as are any workers who are on paid sick leave, on paid holiday, or who work during only part of the specified pay period. A striking worker who only works a small portion of the survey period, and is paid, would be included as employed under the CES definitions. Persons on the payroll of more than one establishment are counted in each establishment. Data exclude proprietors, unincorporated self-employed, unpaid family or volunteer workers, farm workers, and domestic workers. Persons on layoff the entire pay period, on leave without pay, on strike for the entire period or who have not yet reported for work are not counted as employed. Government employment covers only civilian workers.
Data Suppressed: Publication of employment and wage data is withheld for any subsector which consists of fewer than three reporting units or in which a single establishment accounts for 80 percent or more of an industry's employment. In the event that only one subsector is restricted, the next smallest subsector (by number of establishments) also is restricted to allow disclosure of total industry information.
Enterprise: An enterprise is the employer and legal entity of the Unemployment Insurance tax account. An enterprise may consist of one or more units.
ES202 (QCEW): The ES202 is a statistical report summarizing employment, total wage, taxable wage and contribution information for employers subject to state unemployment insurance laws under the Colorado Employment Security Act.
Gross Wages: As reported on the Unemployment Insurance Tax Report, gross wages are the total amount of compensation paid by the employer during the quarter.
Industry: Industry is the primary type of activity at a person’s place of work. Industry employmentrefers to all the occupations in a firm or industry group. Each industry employs a variety of occupations. For example, occupations in the manufacturing industry could include machine operators and tenders, systems analysts, sales agents, administrators and office workers, and cafeteria workers.
Labor Market Information (LMI): LMI is a body of knowledge that describes the nature, characteristics and operation of those mechanisms, institutions and participants involved in the matching of labor supply with demand. LMI is made up of a variety of economic, social and demographic information. The information describes past and current conditions, as well as forecasts future conditions. LMI is comprised of population data, labor force data, occupational data, general economic trends and career data. LMI has many planning uses. The information can be used to determine policy and program needs, to allocate resources and to establish program performance standards.
Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS): Monthly estimates of resident employment and unemployment for all states, metropolitan areas, small labor market areas, counties, cities of 25,000 or more, and certain other areas.
Labor Force: See Civilian Labor Force.
LAUS Employment: Employed persons consist of all persons 16 years of age or older who did any work for pay or profit during the survey reference week; persons who did at least 15 hours of unpaid work in a family-operated enterprise; and persons who were temporarily absent from their regular jobs because of illness, vacation, bad weather, industrial dispute or various personal reasons.
Local Employment Dynamics (LED): A voluntary partnership between state labor market information agencies and the U.S. Census Bureau to develop new information about local labor market conditions. Data includes employment and wage information by demographic, geographic and industry bases.
Location Quotient: A measure of industry employment concentration of one area relative to another. A location quotient of 1 or more indicates higher industry employment concentration in an area relative to a base area. Industries with location quotients greater than 1.2 draw in significant employment from outside the area.
Mass Layoff Statistics (MLS):Monthly reports on all mass layoffs and quarterly reports on layoffs lasting more than 30 days.
Mean: The sum of all values of a given list divided by the number of items in the list. Frequently referred to as the average.
Median: The middle value of a distribution of numbers; half the values are above the median and half are below the median.
Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA): Geographic entities defined by the
U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for use by Federal statistical agencies in collecting, tabulating, and publishing Federal statistics. The general concept of a metropolitan statistical area is that of a core area containing a substantial population nucleus of at least 50,000 people, together with adjacent communities having a high degree of economic and social integration with that core.
North American Industry Classification System (NAICS): A six-digit industrial classification system used to describe the nature of a business.
Occupation: The kind of work a person does to make a living. Occupations are specific jobs usually found in several industries. For example, cafeteria worker is a service occupation found in many different industry sectors, including services (schools, hospitals, businesses), the trade sector (eating establishments, department stores), or in manufacturing industries.
Occupational Employment Statistics (OES): Data on employment and wages for over 800 occupations and for about 400 nonfarm industries in the nation, plus occupational data for states and metropolitan areas.
Presumed Noncovered (PNC): Residual estimate used in the Current Employment Statistics program to capture employment in industries partially covered or exempt from mandatory Unemployment Insurance coverage, accounting for approximately 2.5 percent of total nonfarm employment. Affected industries include: class I railroads, insurance and real estate, educational services (student workers), religious organizations and state & local government (elected officials).
Producer Price Indexes (PPI): A monthly index measuring changes in the selling prices received by domestic producers of goods and services.
Projections: Employment forecasts at the industry and occupational levels done in 2-year and 10-year increments.
Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW): Comprehensive employment and wage data by industry and geographic area, derived from quarterly unemployment insurance tax returns filed by employers.
QCEW Employment: The number of workers covered under unemployment insurance who earned wages during the pay period that includes the 12th of the month. Workers on the payroll of more than one firm during the period are counted each time they are reported. Formerly known as ES202.
Quarterly Wages: See Average Quarterly Wages.
Seasonal Adjustment: A statistical technique applied to monthly data to eliminate changes that normally occur during the year due to seasonal events such as changes in the weather, major holidays, shifts in production schedules, harvest times and the opening and closing of schools.
Standard Industrial Classification (SIC): Each business is assigned a 4 digit SIC code that describes the nature of the business in accordance with the Standard Industrial Classification Manual, 1987. This industry classification system was replaced by NAICS in the first quarter of 2001.
Standard Occupational Classification (SOC): A system for classifying all occupations in the economy, including private, public and military, based on work performed and required skills, education, training and credentials.
Time Series Data: A sequence of numbers collected at regular intervals over a period of time. Time series data are useful for long-term trend analysis.
Training and Outreach (TAO): The group within LMI dedicated to making labor market data and concepts accessible to a wide-ranging audience through trainings, presentations, products and communication.
Unemployment: Persons 16 years of age or older are classified as unemployed if they do not have a job, have actively looked for work in the prior 4 weeks and are currently available for work. Persons who were not working and were waiting to be recalled to a job from which they had been temporarily laid off are also considered unemployed. The unemployment rate represents the number unemployed as a percent of the labor force.
Unit: A unit is an establishment, generally at a single physical location, where business is conducted or where services or industrial operations are performed.
Wagner-Peyser Act: Established in 1933, the Act created a nationwide system of public employment offices known as the Employment Service. The Act was amended in 1998 to make the Employment Service part of the One-Stop services delivery system. The One-Stop delivery system provides universal access to an integrated array of labor exchange services so that workers, job seekers and businesses can find the services they need in one stop and frequently under one roof in easy-to-find locations.
Weekly Wages: See Average Weekly Wages.
Workforce Investment Act (WIA): The Workforce Investment Act of 1998 provides the framework for a unique national workforce development system designed to meet the needs of both the nation’s businesses and the needs of job seekers or those who want to further their careers. Colorado has 19 Local Workforce Investment Areas (LWIA). The Act requires that each local workforce investment area establish a One-Stop Delivery System including at least one full-service or comprehensive one-stop career center. The full-service one-stop career center must have universal access, including a host of mandatory human services, employment related programs and partnerships, inclusive of each mandatory program that exists in the local community.
