Special Industries for Employment Data

INTRODUCTION

There are several sectors that are not covered by the CEW data that require different data points and additional techniques to capture.

These special Sectors include the following:

• Farm Industries
• Construction Industries
• Government sectors

FARM INDUSTRIES

Output

The primary data sources for state-level agricultural output by sector are the NASS Value of Production and ERS Annual Cash Receipts data sets, both from the USDA.  The county-level data from these sources are not consistent enough for our use; thus, we use data from the latest Census of Agriculture to estimate county-level farm sector output.  Census of Agriculture data is also used to estimate state-level values not disclosed by NASS or ERS. More details can be found in the article Farm Data Procedures.

Employment & Income

BLS CEW does have estimates of wage and salary employment for farms with about 90% coverage. However, the CEW data for farm sectors are particularly difficult to integrate because BLS CEW data establishments are not reclassiffied year to year, while farmer commodity production is. For example, a given farmer will plant either corn or soybeans (2 separate IMPLAN sectors) based on that year's prices and/or how late in the year they are able to plant their crops. Also, the CEW data does not include proprietors.

The BEA's Regional Economic Accounts (REA) program estimates county-level employment and income data, including proprietors, but these are farm totals that are not broken down by type of agricultural commodity. Therefore, we have developed procedures to generate first estimates of employment and income by commodity and county based on annual output values (described above) and various ratios from the Census of Agriculture and state-level data. These first estimates are controlled to the total farm employment value given by the REA data, as well as to higher geographic levels. 

Some of the state and county farm sectors are subject to large adjustments when controlled to the national totals. This is a result of inconsistencies between sources. Our benchmark dataset is the published ERS data for output. Since the agriculture data is, to a large extent, derived, analysts with local agriculture data are encouraged to use it when building their IMPLAN models. More details can be found in the article Farm Data Procedures.

CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRIES

IMPLAN construction Industries are not NAICS-based, but rather are defined by the Census Bureau’s types of construction.  There are 10 new construction and 3 maintenance and repair construction sectors in IMPLAN's current sectoring scheme.

Output

National output values for the new construction sectors come from BEA NIPA tables 5.4.5-Private Fixed Investment in Structures by Type and 5.9.5. Gross Government Fixed Investment by Type. National output for the maintenance and repair construction sectors are based on the ratio of maintenance and repair to new construction from the BEA's Annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by Industry series.  These values already contain "redefined" construction activity and thus do not require any redefinition procedures on our part. These national values are distributed to states and counties based on employment and income. 

Employment & Income

The BLS' CEW data and the BEA's REA data provide construction employment and income values at the national, state, and county level for a single aggregate construction sector.  These values are split amongst IMPLAN's 13 construction Industries using various ratios from the latest BEA Benchmark I-O tables.  "In-house" construction activity performed by non-construction industries is "re-defined" into the appropriate construction sectors, following BEA Benchmark conventions. All estimates are then controlled to higher geographic levels.

GOVERNMENT

Administrative Government versus Government Enterprises

IMPLAN data includes several types of government activity. "Administrative" or "general" government is considered an Institution in IMPLAN. There are payroll-only sectors that are purchased exclusively by administrative government spending patterns. In contrast, government enterprises are sectors that have profiles similar to those of industries. The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) defines government enterprises as "Government agencies that cover a substantial portion of their operating costs by selling goods and services to the public and that maintain their own separate accounts." The BEA Benchmark I-O tables treat government enterprises as industries and IMPLAN follows this convention. IMPLAN has 8 government enterprise sectors. All remaining government agencies are part of "general" or "administrative" government.

Assigning NAICS-based Establishments to IMPLAN Codes

Most data sources other than the BEA Benchmark table do not distinguish government enterprises from administrative government establishments. The BLS' CEW program, for example, reports employment and wages for government establishments by NAICS code and by ownership type (federal, state, or local). We assign government establishments to enterprise or administrative payroll sectors according to the BEA Benchmark table. If a government enterprise makes a particular commodity, then any government establishment that fits the NAICS code of that commodity is classified as a government enterprise. For example, in the latest (2012) BEA Benchmark table, "Electric power generation, transmission, and distribution," which corresponds to NAICS 2211, is made by private industries in the electrical sectors but also by "State and local government electric utilities." Accordingly, any government establishment owned by state or local government under NAICS 2211 is classified in IMPLAN sector 530 or 533, respectively. If the BEA Benchmark table does not show a government enterprise sector making a commodity, then any government establishment in that commodity's corresponding NAICS code is classified as administrative government. Tables 1 through 3 show IMPLAN sector assignments for establishments by ownership type and NAICS code. Note that military employment is not covered by any of our NAICS-based sources and is estimated from military employment data reported by the BEA.

Table 1: Federal Government 

Table 2: State Government 

Table 3: Local Government 

Estimating Employment and Wages 

The BEA REA data are our controls; however, while the BEA REA data break out State Government from Local Government, they don't have the necessary industry breakout (Education vs. Hospitals and Health Services vs. Other Services).  Thus, we use the government-level BLS CEW data to split the disclosed and projected BEA REA State and Local Government data into the associated IMPLAN industries (Education, Hospitals and Health Services, and Other Services).

Updated December 17, 2020