by Nick Dobbins
March 2013
The mission of the Labor Market Information (LMI) Office of the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) is to collect and deliver high quality labor market information. Our work supports Minnesota's businesses, its workforce and economic development system, and the workers of today and tomorrow. We gather, analyze, and disseminate economic data on Minnesota's business community, workforce, and job market. We also provide key economic indicators, employment projections, and regional and statewide industry and workforce analysis, along with information aimed at helping individuals make informed career decisions. We believe that access to high quality, up-to-date labor market information has been instrumental in making Minnesota one of the strongest job markets in America and that it will continue to play an important role in our economic future.
So that we may continually improve the information and services we provide, we regularly summarize related information, including customer type, information requested, and satisfaction level. We share this information with you in the hopes that it may be helpful for you in using our information as it is for us in guiding how we can best supply it.
The information contained in the summary comes from several sources, including:
Information from our 2012 summary is included in this article along with updates on projects we have undertaken and services we have improved during the past year.
The LMI Office offers a number of delivery methods for the data and information we provide. These methods include, but are not limited to:
Table 1 provides a snapshot of customer contacts we made over the past year. Overall, the LMI Office had more than 371,000 customers and made about 550,000 contacts with these customers in 2012. The majority of these were Web customers, but a significant minority received LMI services through other means.
| LMI Customers by Information Delivery Method, 2012 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Type of Contact | Contacts in 2012 | Number of Customers |
| Website | 505,126 pageviews | 358,979 unique pageviews |
| Telephone, email, mail requests* | 1,825 Contacts | 1,825 Contacts |
| Presentations and trainings* | 139 presentations/trainings | 6,270 audience members |
| LMI Data and Publications email list | 32,944 newsletters sent | 2,059 subscribers |
| LMI Releases for News Media email list | 1,140 press notices sent | 114 subscribers |
| Publications subscribers | 8,504 publications sent | 2,096 subscribers |
| * Partially estimated because of incomplete records
Source: DEED LMI Office, various sources |
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In addition to counting the number of contacts we have with customers throughout the year, we also keep an eye on the type of organizations the users of our data represent. This allows us to understand the needs of our customers better so that we can better shape our information production efforts in the future. In 2012, as in previous years, a strong plurality of our information requests and contacts came from private businesses in the state. Other top customer groups included Minnesota state government employees, Workforce Service Area staff and council members, schools, local and county governments, and economic development agencies.
The LMI Office produces a range of data and informational products on a monthly, quarterly, and annual basis. These products include industry and occupational employment and wage data, unemployment data, job openings data, long-term employment projections, short-term employment forecasts, and articles and analysis on a wide range of labor market topics. The most common way for customers to access the products we provide is through our website. This section addresses the types of informational products our customers accessed there in 2012.
The top LMI web pages in 2012, based on number of pageviews, were our Current Economic Highlights page and our publications, Minnesota Employment Review and Minnesota Economic Trends. Those three products had a combined total of 122,526 pageviews. Our most popular tools last year were the Job Skills Transfer Assessment Tool (JobSTAT), which allows users to match their skills with existing job openings, and Occupational Employment Statistics (OES), also known as The Salary Survey, which provides statewide and regional wage data for specific occupations. Those tools combined for a total of 20,622 pageviews. Table 2 summarizes this information.
| Top 10 LMI Web Publications and Data Tools, 2012 | |
|---|---|
| LMI Product | Pageviews |
| Current Economic Highlights | 55,225 |
| Review | 36,624 |
| Trends | 30,677 |
| Green Jobs Page | 20,372 |
| MN Workforce Facts | 13,020 |
| Occupational Employment Statistics | 11,012 |
| Job Skills Transfer Assessment Tool (JobSTAT) | 9,610 |
| Occupations In Demand | 8,470 |
| Employment Outlook | 3,016 |
| Job Vacancy Survey | 2,779 |
| Source: Google Analytics data | |
In recent years we have moved away from print publications and toward providing our range of products on the Internet. The main driver for this approach is cost savings, but it also improves timeliness by allowing data and analysis to be made available almost instantly on our website. However, because we know that many of our customers want to be able to manipulate the data or print out articles to read at their leisure, we also try to make all material available for download either in Excel tables if it is purely data or in PDF format if it involves large amounts of text.
Each year we look closely at the results from DEED's Customer Satisfaction Survey. In past years a separate survey was given to two separate groups of customers — job seekers and employers. However, this year the questions related to LMI services were only asked of employers. Table 3 summarizes the questions and responses from employers who sought labor market information such as salary or wage statistics, industry statistics, or unemployment statistics from DEED.
| LMI and Career Information Customer Satisfaction Survey Results from Employers | ||
|---|---|---|
| Question | Employers' Response | |
| How satisfied are you that the information was presented in a clear and understandable manner? | 52% Very Satisfied
48% Satisfied |
0% Dissatisfied
0% Very Dissatisfied |
| How well did the information meet your needs? | 44% Very Well
54% Well |
2% Not Very Well
0% Not at all |
| How easy was it to find the labor market information you needed? | 38% Very Easy
43% Somewhat Easy |
15% Somewhat Difficult
4% Very Difficult |
| Did you get this information by telephone or email, through the internet, through a publication, or by another method? | 9% Phone
14% E-mail 54% Internet 13% Publication |
10% Other
0% Don't Know |
| How satisfied are you with the time it took to respond to your telephone call or email? | 85% Very Satisfied
15% Satisfied |
0% Dissatisfied
0% Very Dissatisfied |
| Note: Survey covers time period from April 2011 through March 2012.
Source: DEED Customer Satisfaction Survey |
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We have several noteworthy advances to report in 2012.
Online Updates: In 2010 the DEED website went through a complete overhaul. Access to older issues of Economic Trends and Employment Review were temporarily missing from the new site in 2011, but they have been restored and are currently available on our site. A searchable archive of publications has also recently been made available.
Workforce Assessments: 2012 also saw DEED taking part in a Workforce Assessment initiative in partnership with Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (MnSCU) and the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce. The assessments were based on a series of listening sessions with Minnesota businesses in a variety of industries, including Agriculture, Energy, Health Care, and Transportation, about their workforce needs. The goal of the assessments is to help MnSCU better align program offerings with the stated needs of employers in order to assure that our schools are producing the right number of graduates in the right fields, armed with necessary skills to succeed in the labor market.
Skills Gap Survey: In 2012 we conducted the first round of our Skills Gap survey, which gathers information on current vacancies within occupations that have been identified as potentially facing a shortage of skilled workers. The study aims to discover how common hiring difficulties are in the state, the reasons for hiring difficulties that are present, and what kind of problems they might pose for our labor market. Occupations included in the initial round include registered nurses, industrial engineers, and machinists. The study Hiring Difficulties in Minnesota is available on our website.
A second round of interviews on computer occupations is currently under way.
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