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The Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages is a census of employers on employment and wages. Data are available by industry, ownership type, states, regions, counties and minor civil divisions.
You will see some important changes in 2016 and 2017 in QCEW’s reporting of county and community employment levels. These changes result from new geo-coding files that are making our employer distribution by county and community more accurate than ever before.
All establishments covered under the Unemployment Insurance Program are required to report wage and employment statistics quarterly to the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development. Federal government establishments are also covered by the QCEW program. These data are edited and verified for research and analysis purposes.
Viewable tables, downloadable files
The Unemployment Insurance Program covers about 97% of Minnesota employment. Workers and jobs excluded from these statistics include proprietors and the self-employed, railroad workers, family farm workers, full-time students working for their school, elected government officials, insurance and real estate salespeople, and others who work only on a commission basis. Employment at federal government establishments is covered by the QCEW program.
Industries are categorized by the Standard Industry Classification (SIC) system for the years 1980-2000 and by the North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) for 2000-present.
QCEW has limitations as a time series due to non-economic code changes such as tribal employment moving from being classified as privately owned to local government in the first quarter of 2001. Also, the SIC to NAICS conversion makes 2001 industry data non-compatible with earlier data. For these and other reasons, use caution when using QCEW data as a time series.
Minnesota Business Employment Dynamics (BED) measures gross job gains and losses at Minnesota establishments and tracks changes in employment at the establishment level, including establishment openings, closings, expansions, and contractions.
BED statistics are available on a quarterly and annual basis by detailed industry at the state, regional, county, and city levels. These statistics provide information on the dynamics inherent in the Minnesota labor market.
The BED statistics are derived from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) program. The QCEW data include all establishments covered under the Minnesota Unemployment Insurance (UI) laws and all federal agencies covered under the Unemployment Compensation for Federal Employees program.
Employment levels reported in the QCEW represent the number of covered workers who were employed during the pay period including the 12th day of the calendar month.
The QCEW data are linked across quarters to give a longitudinal history for each establishment that allows for tracking employment changes over time at each establishment. Estimates of job flows represent changes in the third month employment between the current and previous quarters.
The BED statistics provide several measures on job flows by industry at the state, regional, county, and city levels from first quarter 2000 forward. These measures include gross job gains and gross job losses in total and at establishment births, openings and expansions and deaths, closings and contractions.
The definitions of annual BED statistics follow the same concepts as for quarterly BED statistics except for the time period used to compute employment changes.
While the quarterly BED data give employment flows over a given quarter, the annual BED data give employment flows over a given year. The annual BED statistics measure changes between December of the previous year and December of the current year.
The BED statistics measure job changes at the establishment level and capture establishment job flows. They are not measures of movements of workers, or worker flows, that are brought about by hires and separations.
For example, if during a given quarter a worker leaves an establishment and another worker is hired at the same establishment leaving the employment levels unchanged over the reference period, BED will show no job gain or job loss at this establishment.
The BED data can be used to compute quarterly net employment change. This is not the same as the monthly net employment change derived from the Current Employment Statistics (CES) program.
Moreover, constructing a quarterly net employment change from the CES will not match the BED quarterly net employment change because of differences in coverage and methodology between the MBED and the CES. A detailed comparison between BED, CES, and QCEW.
Visit the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics website.
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