Total Error and Variability Measures for the Quarterly Workforce Indicators and LEHD Origin-Destination Employment Statistics in OnTheMap
Kevin L. McKinney, Andrew S. Green, Lars Vilhuber, John M., Abowd

TL;DR
This paper evaluates the accuracy and variability of key employment indicators in the U.S. Census Bureau's LEHD program, providing guidelines on their reliability based on job count thresholds and error sources.
Contribution
It presents the first comprehensive quality assessment of five major employment indicators in the LEHD Quarterly Workforce Indicators and LODES data, addressing error sources and data reliability.
Findings
Indicators are highly accurate for cells with at least 10 jobs.
Cells with 3-9 jobs require caution due to variability.
Cells with 1-2 jobs have high variability but can estimate larger aggregates.
Abstract
We report results from the first comprehensive total quality evaluation of five major indicators in the U.S. Census Bureau's Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics (LEHD) Program Quarterly Workforce Indicators (QWI): total flow-employment, beginning-of-quarter employment, full-quarter employment, average monthly earnings of full-quarter employees, and total quarterly payroll. Beginning-of-quarter employment is also the main tabulation variable in the LEHD Origin-Destination Employment Statistics (LODES) workplace reports as displayed in OnTheMap (OTM), including OnTheMap for Emergency Management. We account for errors due to coverage; record-level non-response; edit and imputation of item missing data; and statistical disclosure limitation. The analysis reveals that the five publication variables under study are estimated very accurately for tabulations involving at least 10 jobs.…
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Taxonomy
TopicsUrban, Neighborhood, and Segregation Studies · Health disparities and outcomes · Homelessness and Social Issues
