1. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Presented by: Paul LaPorte
Office of Economic Analysis & Information, Chicago
Purdue University Economics Club
February 6, 2017

2. Agenda
General overview of the Bureau (who we are/our mission) Role of the BLS national office in D.C. and the regional offices My job with BLS Chicago Office of Economic Analysis and Information Industrial Price data collection National Compensation Survey data collection Employment opportunities in BLS and the Federal Government   

3. Who is the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)?
Principal fact-finding agency for the Federal Government in the broad field of labor economics and statistics.
A politically independent agency within the U.S. Department of Labor.
Part of the Federal statistical system that includes the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) and the Census Bureau.

4. What does the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics do?
Our mission is to collect, process, analyze, and disseminate essential economic information to support public and private decision-making.
Impartial-neutral-independent

5. Yes, you have heard about us…
Retail Price Inflation (Consumer Price Index)
Payroll Employment
U.S. Unemployment Rate
Local Area Unemployment Rates
Labor Costs
Producer Price Index
Import/Export Price Indexes
Employment Projections
Job Openings and Labor Turnover
Business Employment Dynamics
Workplace Injuries, Illnesses, & Fatalities
Consumer Expenditures
Union Membership
Minimum Wage Workers

6. Why we do it
Provide factual and reliable information, not opinions, for use in decision-making.
Provide policy-makers with accurate data.
Provide information to researchers.
Provide information to job seekers and businesses.
Provide information to the media.

7. How is the Bureau organized?
BLS is broadly organized with program and support offices
Employment and Unemployment
Prices and Living Conditions
Compensation and Working Conditions
Productivity and Technology
Survey Methods Research
Technology and Survey Processing
Office of Publications
Field Operations

8. How is the Bureau organized?
BLS Headquarters are in Washington, D.C.

9. How is the Bureau organized?
There are 6 Regional offices:
Atlanta Dallas/Kansas City
Boston/New York Philadelphia
Chicago San Francisco
Plus ‘area offices’ in other metropolitan areas

10. Work at the BLS: the big picture

11. Role of the BLS Regional Offices
Collect data
Businesses
Households
Work with State Workforce Agencies
Federal/State Cooperative Programs
Analyze local labor conditions
Office of Economic Analysis and Information

12. Role of the EA&I Offices
Make products and services available to regional customers
Work with the media
Assist data users (phone calls, s)
Maintain regional office web sites
Actively Support Voluntary Cooperation
Educate field staff
Promote BLS at conferences and meetings
Increase BLS Visibility
Conduct educational and outreach programs for professional organizations
Develop relationships with other regional federal statistical agencies
Primary goals of the regional EA&I offices are:
Make Products and services available to regional customers
Each office works with the local media in promoting regional and national news releases and data products.
All regional news releases and local data products are available on the regional office web sites. The EA&I’s maintain their own regional office web sites
Actively Support Voluntary Cooperation
EA&I offices typically have field staff from various programs spend some time in the EA&I unit. EA&I has a training module that provides background information on many programs of the Bureau. On-line reading assignments, web navigation, and quizzes are part of the module.
EA&I offices exhibit at local conferences. Typically, conferences that are targeted by EA&I are those whose attendees are BLS users and/or current or potential respondents. Conferences hosting safety, human resource, and purchasing managers are targeted.
Flyers and pamphlets are also developed by EA&I units to be used at these conferences and by data collectors as well. How to navigate the BLS Web site, Industry specific flyers, and made-to-order flyers are examples of what they create.
Increase BLS visibility
EA&I offices conduct a number of presentations throughout the country. They are asked to give presentations at national or local chapters of safety, human resource, and purchasing manager conferences; college and career outlook conferences, and media outlets.
EA&Is work with other federal agencies like ETA and OSHA in addition to the Federal reserve.

13. Role of the EA&I Offices
Produce High Quality Analytical Products
Local and regional news releases
Regional reports and MLR articles
Collaborate with BLS National Program Offices
Work on National Office teams
Produce High Quality Analytical Products
Local and regional news releases are produced by each regional EA&I office
Regional reports and MLR articles are prepared as well. Recent articles include high tech employment and the expanding role of the temporary help service industry
Collaborate with BLS national Program Offices
EA&I staff are typically on teams composed of regional and national office staff. Teams they have worked on include the latest web redesign, customer information system, and many that were ‘outreach’ related.

14. Economist positions typically found in BLS Regional Offices
Data collection (surveys are voluntary)
Consumer Price Index
Producer Price Index
Import-Export Price Index
National Compensation Survey
Pay and benefits

15. Economist positions typically found in BLS Regional Offices
Industrial Price
NCS
National Compensation Survey
ECI (Employment Cost Index)
EBS (Employee Benefits Survey)
ORS (Occupational Requirements Survey)

16. Collecting Producer Price index and Import/Export Data…

17. PPI Sampling Sample Universe Frame UI Files
Alternative Frame Sources (i.e. chain store guide)
Two-Stage Sampling
Washington Office - Industry Sample (6 Digit NAICS Code)
Identify Profit Maximizing Centers
Regional Offices - Revenue Disaggregation
Probability Proportional to Size Sampling
Employment
Revenue

18. PPI Collection – Field Processes
Sample Units Identified and Distributed to the Field
20-25 Industries Per Sample
Sample Refinement
Plurality of Revenue Classification
Correct Sampling Errors and Identify Records Center
Contact Respondent
Gain Cooperation With Company Officials
Personal Visit
Disaggregate Revenues to Identify Specific Lines of Products/Services
Collect Pricing Data for 4 – 12 Products/Services

19. PPI Collection – Sample Unit Data
Weighting Data
First Stage: Employment
Alternative Measures (i.e. # of Hotel Rooms, # of Cable Subscribers)
Second Stage: 12 Months Gross Sales
2nd Stage of Sampling: Disaggregation to Unique Items
(Probability Proportionate to Size)
By Industry (Primary vs. Secondary)
By Product Type
By Customer Type
By Quantity Ordered
….By All Price Determining Characteristics

20. PPI Collection – Disaggregation Example
Spring Manufacturing (NAICS )
PRODUCT CATEGORY
CHECKLIST CODE
DEFINITION / EXAMPLE
Hot formed steel springs, except wire
Checklist A Group 01:
All types of hot formed steel springs, including leaf springs.
Cold formed steel springs, except wire
Checklist A Group 01: 007
All types of cold formed steel springs (except wire).
Precision mechanical extension- and torsion-type wire springs
Checklist B Group 01:
Any spring which absorbs and stores energy by offering resistance to a pulling force or any spring whose ends are rotated in angular deflection and offers resistance to externally applied torque.
Precision mechanical compression-type wire springs
Checklist B Group 01:
Any open-coil helical spring that offers resistance to a compressive force applied axially.
Other wire springs, including spring units for box springs, innerspring mattresses, etc.
Checklist B Group 01:
All other wire springs
Other (including secondary and/or misc. receipts)
Any secondary products and/or miscellaneous receipts.

21. PPI Collection – Types of Prices
PPI price is the net revenue received by a producer, including discounts and surcharges, excluding taxes and delivery charges, for a specific product or service
Service Industries
Net Transaction Price For a Specific Level of Service
Retail/Wholesale Industries
Average Gross Margin of a Product Line
Gross Margin on an Individual Product
Manufacturing Industries
Net Transaction Price
Estimated Transaction Price

22. PPI Price Updates/Reporting
Respondents Update Pricing and Product Data
Online, Mail, or Fax Update Form Completed Monthly
Reported Price is the From the Tuesday Of the Week Containing the 13th in the Current Month
Hold ALL Price Determining Characteristics Constant
Replace Product if Discontinued/No Longer Offered
Sample Continues for 5-7 Years
Washington Office Monitors Updates
Analyzes For Any Errors/Anomalies
Aggregates and Weights Each Quote
Quality Adjustments For Any Change in Product/Transaction Terms

23. IPP/MXP Program
Sample universe is provided by US Customs & Border Protection
For each trade code, a list of companies and trade volumes are provided
Washington office selects companies and trade codes for the sample
Field offices identify appropriate records centers and company contacts; confirm trade codes are still in use
Use Probability-Proportional-to-Size Disaggregation process to select items to be tracked
Gather all price-determining information
Repricing requests are sent out second business day each month

24. Collecting National Compensation Survey Data…

25. NCS -- Scope Included: Establishments employing 1 or more
Private industry, State and local governments
Excluded:
Federal government, agriculture
Self employed, private households
So… what’s included in the ECI – what comprises or makes up our sample?
Included: just read the slide
Excluded: federal govt agencies
Self-employed = not an employee of someone else.

26. NCS collection process
Establishments identified
Economist sets up appointment (cooperation/voluntary)
List of establishment’s jobs obtained
Random sample of jobs identified
First, ESTABLISHMENTS ARE IDENTIFIED: We don’t collect data from every business establishment in the Chicago area or the United States. First of all, that wouldn’t be feasible from our standpoint and secondly, we don’t need to do that to accurately measure and publish compensation changes in our economy. Rather, we have a group in Washington DC called the Statistical Methods Group – or SMG – as you can see, we like acronyms! – and they sample a selected number of business establishments that represent all industries.
Now, we could get into the “math” of specifically how this is done, but for our purposes here today, suffice it to say that we use a statistical methodology that allows BLS to fairly and equitably include all industries that comprise the economy – healthcare, construction, retail, manufacturing, etc. – into our ECI sample so that the data that we publish can be looked at as a statistically valid representation of employers in all industries and types of businesses AND allows us to confidently publish data that is both accurate and credible.
Three points I want to make about this:
BLS does not pick and choose which companies make up our sample. Now if you’re a major employer with multiple locations across the country, the chances of being included in our sample increase – there are more chances to be selected. But we don’t – and we never have – discriminately chosen which companies are in and which companies are out of this index. It is truly a random sample…
Our sample is a robust one. I may look to Paul for confirmation on this, but I believe the current national sample for the ECI is approximately 11,000 establishments. I point this out so you can get a better idea of how large this sample is and how the sheer size of this sample ensures that we are, in fact, capturing and measuring the true economic changes that are occurring on a national and regional level. And in some cases, large metropolitan areas such as Chicago as well.
We are not asking for, nor do we want, any personally identifiable information. This is a statistical request only. And we do not list ANYWHERE which companies are in our sample. That’s not what we do. All data that we collect is confidential and protected by law to remain so. That’s an important assurance to the private sector so that they can be confident that providing data to the BLS for the ECI will not identify them as being a participant.
ECONOMIST SETS UP APPT: So.. How do we go about collecting this information, this data? It’s not complicated… In most cases, we pick up the phone, make a call, find the appropriate person or persons who can supply the data and make an appointment. Now you notice on the slide there in parentheses that it says “Cooperation/Voluntary”… The NCS program is not a mandatory program that companies are required to participate in. Most do. Most understand the importance of this data, and, on our end, we do everything we can to make this as easy as possible for our data providers.
LAST TWO BULLETS: some exclusions: Owner, volunteers, contractors, temp help ees…
The larger the company, the more jobs that are selected for the index: ees = maximum of 4 jobs = maximum of 6 jobs = max of 8 jobs

27. Information collected
Once the specific job title is identified, we ask for specifics:
Full/part-time
Union/nonunion
Wage Payment
Time
Incentive
Here are some of the basic, specific of info we ask for: read the slide
FT / PT
union / non-union
jobs that have an incentive component (usually commissions). For example, sales jobs that have both a base salary and a commission component attached. It wouldn’t be an accurate – or credible – index if we just collected the base pay for jobs that have both base pay and commissions as part of their earnings. It certainly wouldn’t represent or capture what the index is designed to do. Which is measure the change in labor costs.

28. Wage data collected Straight-time hourly wage (or converted to)
Job classification (legal, health care, sales…)
Leveling (Point-factor)
Knowledge
Complexity
Contacts
Physical environment
Straight-time hourly wage… that’s the main way that you will see data published on our website. But we can collect it in a number of ways: hourly, weekly, bi-weekly, semi-monthly, monthly, annual salary…
Job classification based on the type of occupation that it is. Could be legal, health care, sales, professional, clerical/administrative, etc…
We also have a point factor leveling system. Four factors to be exact. They are KNOWLEDGE, COMPLEXITY, CONTACTS AND PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT.
Maybe one of our best kept secrets. For example, an entry level accountant fresh out of college would be performing their work at probably a different level than, say, a senior accountant that handles the more complex accounting duties and may require, say, 5-7 years experience. So our data separates this SAME occupation into different levels of complexity based on the overall skill level and duties performed.
How do we do this? Good old-fashioned interviewing primarily. We may also use a company job description as supplemental info to help us make the correct determination as to where this specific occupation should be placed or “leveled”, but a one-on-one conversation is the main way we accomplish the leveling aspect of the survey.
KNOWLEDGE: What’s required to do the job? HS diploma? HS diploma and one year experience? Some sort of vocational training? For some blue collar jobs, maybe an apprenticeship? Associates degree? Bachelors degree? Bachelors degree + 3 yrs experience?
COMPLEXITY: what is the job’s scope of responsibilities? What kind of responsibilities does the job entail? How closely are they supervised? How much autonomy does the job have? Does their work affect or impact others? Getting answers to these types of questions from our data providers allows us to make the appropriate choice as to where they should be leveled in our survey.
CONTACTS: who does this job contact and what is the nature of those contacts? Extreme examples: receptionist = typically lots of contacts with the public, but nature of contacts is to simply provide information. Let’s compare that with Accounting Manager whose contacts are to coordinate work or advise on collaborative work. Maybe the contacts made by the Accounting Mgr are to solve problems and include contacts with various depts.
And then there’s even another level of contacts, usually when you’re talking about protective service positions like police officers. They could be engaged in dealing with folks who may not be working toward a common goal , and they may have to diffuse or attempt to diffuse a volatile situation, etc…
Finally, PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT. Does the job sit all day? Do they stand or walk all day? Does the job require them to lift lbs. as part of their regular job duties? Does the job require the worker to wear protective gear or be around machinery that could cause injury? Extreme temperatures? Things like that.
Any questions about the leveling process?

29. Benefit data collected -access, usage, participation & rates-
Paid leave - vacations, holidays, personal, and sick leave
Insurance - life, health, short-term disability, and long-term disability insurance
Retirement - defined benefit (pensions) and defined contribution
Okay, so now let’s switch gears and talk about benefits. And let me be clear right off the bat about what we’re talking about : we’re talking about EMPLOYER-PROVIDED benefits that have an EMPLOYER COST. For example, if a company offers a 401k retirement plan, but the extent of the company’s involvement in this plan is to provide this plan to ees as a vehicle for them to save for retirement. This is NOT a benefit that we’re interested in. Why? Because we’re interested only in those benefits that have an EMPLOYER cost.

30. Benefit data collected -access, usage, and participation-
Legally required benefits - Social Security, federal unemployment insurance, state unemployment insurance, and workers' compensation
Supplemental pay - premium pay (overtime, weekend, or holiday pay), shift differentials, and nonproduction bonuses.  
4: Legally required – self-explanatory. There are a few exceptions, but generally these legally required benefits are… well, legally required. Example of an exception if asked: FUTA = not required for non-profits).
5: these supplemental benefits have an employer cost and are part of the index. Give a simple example of each.
Premium pay : a job may earn time-and-a-half for work over 40hrs or receive extra compensation for working a holiday
Shift differentials: a job may earn 50Cents more per hour when working 2nd shift or 75 cents more per hour when working 3rd shift
Non-production bonus: as the title implies, these are payments not associated with production. For example, a job may earn an end-of-the-year bonus or there may be a safety bonus (for all ees at a company or in a dept that has zero injuries over a certain period of time) or an attendance bonus for ees who go an entire year without calling in sick… these are cost to the employer and they are included in the Employment Cost Index…

31. Products of the NCS Employment Cost Index (ECI)
Employer Costs for Employee Compensation (ECEC)
Employee Benefits Survey (EBS)
Let’s dig a little deeper about these data products…

32. Economist positions typically found in BLS Regional Offices
BLS Survey specialists
Work in our Federal/State Programs
Occupational Employment Statistics Survey
Survey of Occupational Injuries/Illnesses
Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries
Local Area Unemployment Statistics
Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages
Current Establishment Survey
Work with/train state staff
Make sure states follow BLS procedures
Review work for accuracy

33. Working for the Federal Government

37. Career Path

38. Office of Economic Analysis & Information, Chicago
Paul LaPorte
Office of Economic Analysis & Information, Chicago
February 6, 2017