Adjusting Agricultural Employment

Hello Ashley, Thank you for your forum post. In what state are you attempting to find agricultural employment values? Thank you, IMPLAN Staff

This is for Arkansas. I've tried comparing the sources used by IMPLAN to calculate the employment values (i.e. Census of Ag, QCEW, BEA REA, Census Business Patterns, etc.) and can't seem to make sense of it all, but I'll keep working on it. I was really just wondering if anyone from other states had found a decent source for employment values, in hopes of finding a similar source for us. On a related note, is there a resource somewhere that offers an in-depth description of the types employees included under each IMPLAN sector? For instance, we were informed that sector 13 - poultry and egg production might include not only farmers and farm labor, but also corporate office employees and those involved in transporting their products. Is this the case? Or would those workers be found in other sectors such as sector 19 - support activities for agriculture and forestry, or transportation sectors? Thanks!

Hi Ashley Here is an article about agriculture employment sources and methods: http://www.implan.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=279:279-transferred&catid=224:224#agriculture Generally, we prefer our own estimates of employment to QCEW, BEA, and the Census of Agriculture for a variety of reasons. Among those reasons: QCEW does not cover proprietors, which compose a significant share of farm employment; QCEW misses some wage & salary employment; BEA has employment data only at the “farm” level of detail, though it includes proprietor employment; the Census of Agriculture releases employment data only every 5 years and measures employment differently (number of people who work there over the course of a year rather than a headcount-based measure, which would be more consistent with our customary definition of employment). Our data attempt to correct for these omissions and inconsistencies. We encourage User's to use their own agriculture sources only when they have such sources, e.g., from a local survey. Lacking such local data, we encourage using IMPLAN’s estimates. As an additional note, if you are using the 2013 data, we suggest updating to the 3rd revision before using agricultural employment data. If this is something you want to look into, we can assist with this. Regarding employment, IMPLAN does have an Occupational x Industry Matrix, that will have data on employment in farm sectors. However the underlying data distinguishes only two types of farms: crop and livestock. So, vegetable farming will have the same occupational profile as grain farming. Occupations like corporate officers are included in farm occupational profiles due to the existence of corporate farms Thanks!

Ok, great. But just to be clear, the basic sector definitions for agriculture can be mapped back to the NAICS codes, correct?

Hi Ashley! You can map IMPLAN's Ag Sectors back to NAICS codes. You can do this in either the Sector Search in the Software or I can send you an IMPLAN to NAICS bridge. Hopefully this addressed your question! Thanks IMPLAN Staff

I appreciate your help. I was able to find the IMPLAN to NAICS bridge. I was also able to obtain an answer to my question regarding corporate employment, but I'm still stuck on trying to find a way to validate the Arkansas state-level data. I trust that IMPLAN is using the most relevant and accurate methods for compiling these data and have read the information explaining how agricultural output, employment and income values are derived, but I still I don't feel like I'm currently able to explain to stakeholders why, for instance, IMPLAN employment values for oilseed farming have decreased by 75% since 2012, while output (as reported by ERS cash receipts) has only decreased by around 25%, with QCEW showing an increase in employment during this time. I know that several methodological changes occurred between 2012 and 2013, but even the 2014 numbers aren't making sense in comparison to 2013's values and public data. I would honestly love to just let it go and run with the given values but my bosses have put our report on hold until we can get this figured out, so I really need your help. Here are some specific areas I'm having trouble with: [b][u]Output[/u][/b] - It's stated that ERS's annual cash receipts are the primary source for state-level agricultural output but I'm not seeing this connection for some of the sectors (see attached file). The sectors I'm primarily curious about are grain farming(2), fruit farming(4), and greenhouse, nursery and floriculture(6). For grain farming, ERS reports $2,303,036,000 (food grains + feed crops minus hay) but IMPLAN's values are 25% lower at $1,849,943,481. Could this reduction be caused by adjustments made for on-farm usage? For fruit farming, the sum of cash receipts for grapes, peaches and blueberries totals $3,146,000 however the IMPLAN output value for this sector is $12,871,202. Where is the additional $9,725,203 coming from? Where are you getting the value for greenhouse, nursery and floriculture? This used to be listed under "All other crops" in the cash receipt data but is no longer being reported. In 2012, the IMPLAN value was very close to what was reported in the cash receipts ($44,429,062 vs $42,120,000) but at $96,536,514, the value for 2014 is now higher than ERS's entire "All other crops" sector. I tried looking through the census of ag's market values but couldn't find anything even remotely close to that number. [b][u]Employment[/u][/b] - I understand that the QCEW doesn't account for all employees in agriculture, but when negating the actual values and examining only the changes occurring between years, IMPLAN's values don't seem to match up (see attached file). For example, between 2012 and 2014, CEW shows an increase in employment for sectors 1 and 2, but during this time, IMPLAN shows decreases in employment of around 70% per sector. I know the methodology has changed since 2012 and IMPLAN's data isn't made to be used between years, but this is a pretty drastic change! Even when negating the 2012 value, CEW still shows an increase in employment for sectors 1 and 2 between 2013 and 2014 with IMPLAN showing decreases of 14 and 19 percent, respectively. How can this be? On the other side, sectors 4 and 5 show a decrease in QCEW employment, with IMPLAN values for these sectors increasing over the same period of time. There's also some crazy things going on with sectors 6, 10, 11, and 13... Outside of the CEW comparison, I'm wondering: If employment values are controlled to the REA farm employment values, why are they lower? Granted, it's not by much, 51,825 (2013 REA since it's lagged one year) vs 49,386 (sum of IMPLAN employment for sectors 1-16) but still. Shouldn't they be at least as high? I also noticed that the IMPLAN employment values for the sum of sectors 15-19 are lower than the REA value for Forestry, fishing, and related activities. Why is this? I've looked at the census of ag and benchmark I-O tables but still can't make much sense of any of the employment values. I'm going to look at this a bit more as it appears that employment is primarily derived from those sources, in combination with the output values. Either way, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think it makes much sense if these employment derivations fail to follow the general QCEW patterns. Again, I apologize for hassling you about these details but I can't move forward without a better understanding of where these values come from. I appreciate any input or advice you could offer. Thanks!

Hi Ashley! Thank you for your response. Our team is compiling the answers to your question and we will be able to provide you with an response tomorrow. Thanks!! IMPLAN Staff!