When creating our data, we use Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Covered Employment and Wages data (also known as CEW, QCEW and ES202) as our benchmark as it is widely accepted and provides a broad spectrum of coverage for all wage and salary employment. It is also a means of capturing the most current data available for our employment and wage and salary income estimations. However, the data are inherently incomplete and must be supplemented in order to get a "full picture" of an economic region.
Like most government data, CEW data are subject to non-disclosure rules. To estimate non-disclosured values, we use County Business Patterns (CBP) data from the U.S. Census Bureau to get an idea of the overall size of the industry (based on the CBP's firm count by size class information).
Unfortunately, the data between the two are not always consistent, as demonstrated by Ralls County, Missouri. This county has come into question in the past and provides an excellent demonstration of the problem. The issues are illustrated in the table below.
Note that CBP reports 11 establishments, 483 jobs, and $19.1 million in wage and salary income in manufacturing in 2006 for this county. In contrast, the BLS reports 19 establishments, 1,242 jobs, and $42.6 million in wages and salary income in manufacturing in 2006 for the same county. IMPLAN datasets will only have those industries that exist in BLS data sets; thus, all the blank cells in the BLS column will be missing from the IMPLAN datasets.
|
Ralls County, Missouri 2006 |
Census Bureau CBP |
Bureau of Labor Statistics CEW |
|
|
Industry Code |
Industry Code Description |
Establishments |
Establishments |
|
31-33 |
Manufacturing |
11 |
19 |
|
311222 |
Soybean processing |
|
1 |
|
311611 |
Animal (except Poultry) Slaughtering |
1 |
|
|
321113 |
Sawmills |
|
1 |
|
321214 |
Truss Manufacturing |
1 |
1 |
|
321999 |
All Other Miscellaneous Wood Product Manufacturing |
1 |
|
|
325510 |
Paint and Coating Manufacturing |
1 |
1 |
|
326220 |
Rubber and plastics hose and belting mfg. |
|
1 |
|
326291 |
Rubber product mfg. for mechanical use |
|
1 |
|
327310 |
Cement Manufacturing |
1 |
1 |
|
327320 |
Ready-mix concrete manufacturing |
|
1 |
|
327390 |
Other concrete product manufacturing |
|
1 |
|
331521 |
Aluminum Die-Casting Foundries |
1 |
|
|
332211 |
Cutlery and Flatware (except Precious) Manufacturing |
1 |
|
|
332710 |
Machine Shops |
1 |
2 |
|
332811 |
Metal Heat Treating |
1 |
1 |
|
332813 |
Electroplating, anodizing, and coloring metal |
|
1 |
|
333511 |
Industrial mold manufacturing |
|
1 |
|
333514 |
Special Die and Tool, Die Set, Jig, and Fixture Manufacturing |
1 |
1 |
|
333994 |
Industrial process furnace and oven mfg. |
|
1 |
|
335929 |
Other communication and energy wire mfg. |
|
2 |
|
339950 |
Sign Manufacturing |
1 |
1 |
Annual Survey of Manufactures Data
CBP and the Annual Survey of Manufacturing (ASM), for concurrent years, have a high degree of correspondence (about 90%). However, ASM is also inconsistent with BLS. The following two NAICS codes provide the most stark examples of these discrepancies at the US level.
- NAICS code 334113: BLS reports 15,376 jobs and $1.6 billion in wages. ASM reports 1,138 jobs and $61 million in wages. (CBP reported 926 jobs). This is approximately 6-7% of BLS.
At the other end of the spectrum.
- NAICS 322114: BLS reports 6,826 jobs and $321 million in wages, ASM reports 18,182 jobs and $790 million in wages. (CBP reported 18,401 jobs). This is approximately 2.6 times BLS.
In these instances, IMPLAN data will reflect BLS values.