Technical Notes Tables

Table 2-A. Summary of methods for computing industry statistics on employment, hours, and earnings estimates

Table 2-B. Net Birth/Death Estimates, Post-Benchmark 2011

Table 2-Ca. Employment benchmarks and approximate coverage of BLS employment and payrolls sample, March 2011

Table 2-Cb. Total private employment by size of UI, March 2010 UI universe employment

Table 2-Cc. Total private CES sample employment by UI size, March 2010

Table 2-D. Errors of preliminary employment estimates

Traditionally the variance tables have displayed the standard error and relative standard error for all employees and the hours and earnings of production employees. The tables were expanded for the 2010 benchmark to include the new all employee hours and earnings series, as well as production employees and women employees. The tables are now listed on three separate pages, one each for all employees and their associated hours and earnings, production employees and their hours and earnings, and women employees. The tables on each page include the relative standard error (formerly Table 2-E) at first and second closing and standard errors for 1-, 3-, and 12-month level changes (formerly Table 2-F) at first and second closing. These new pages are accessible using the links below.

All Employee Standard Error Tables

Production Employee Standard Error Tables

Women Employee Standard Error Tables

Table 2-A. Summary of methods for computing industry statistics on employment, hours, and earnings estimates
Employment, hours, and earnings Basic estimating cell (industry, 6-digit published level) Aggregate industry level (super sector and, where stratified, industry) Annual average data

All employees

 All employee estimate for previous month multiplied by weighted ratio of all employees in current month to all employees in previous month, for sample establishments that reported for both months, plus net birth/death model estimate. Sum of all employee estimates for component cells. Sum of monthly estimates divided by 12.

Average weekly hours of all employees

 All employee hours divided by number of all employees. Average, weighted by all employees, of the average weekly hours for component cells. Annual total of aggregate hours (all employees multiplied by average weekly hours) divided by annual sum of all employees.

Average weekly overtime hours of all employees

 All employee overtime hours divided by number of all employees. Average, weighted by all employees, of the average weekly overtime hours for component cells. Annual total of aggregate overtime hours (all employees multiplied by average weekly overtime hours) divided by annual sum of all employees.

Average hourly earnings of all employees

 All employee payroll divided by all employee hours. Average, weighted by aggregate hours, of the average hourly earnings for component cells. Annual total of aggregate payrolls (all employees multiplied by weekly hours and hourly earnings) divided by annual aggregate hours.

Average weekly earnings of all employees

 Product of all employee average weekly hours and all employee average hourly earnings. Product of all employee average weekly hours and all employee average hourly earnings. Sum of monthly all employee aggregate payrolls divided by the sum of monthly all employees.

Production or nonsupervisory employees, women employees

 All employee estimate for current month multiplied by (1) weighted ratio of production or nonsupervisory employees to all employees in sample establishments for current month, or (2) weighted ratio of women employees to all employees. Sum of estimates of (1) production or nonsupervisory employees, or (2) women employees, for component cells. Sum of monthly estimates divided by 12.

Average weekly hours of production or nonsupervisory employees

 Production or nonsupervisory employee hours divided by number of production or nonsupervisory employees. Average, weighted by production or nonsupervisory employment, of the average weekly hours for component cells. Annual total of aggregate hours (production or nonsupervisory employment multiplied by average weekly hours) divided by annual sum of production employment .

Average weekly overtime hours of production or nonsupervisory employees

 Production employee overtime hours divided by number of production employees. Average, weighted by production employment, of the average weekly overtime hours for component cells. Annual total of aggregate overtime hours (production employment multiplied by average weekly overtime hours) divided by annual sum of production employment.

Average hourly earnings of production or nonsupervisory employees

 Total production or nonsupervisory employee payroll divided by total production or nonsupervisory employee hours. Average, weighted by aggregate hours, of the average hourly earnings for component cells. Annual total of aggregate payrolls (production or nonsupervisory employment multiplied by weekly hours and hourly earnings) divided by annual aggregate hours.

Average weekly earnings of production or nonsupervisory employees

 Product of production employee average weekly hours and production employee average hourly earnings. Product of production employee average weekly hours and production employee average hourly earnings. Sum of monthly aggregate payrolls divided by the sum of monthly production employees.

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Table 2-B. Net Birth/Death Estimates, Post-Benchmark 2011 (in thousands)
Month Mining & Logging Construction Manufacturing Trade, Transportation, & Utilities Information Financial Activities Professional & Business Services Education & Health Services Leisure & Hospitality Other Services Monthly Amount Contributed

2011

 April 1 24 -6 5 2 -7 58 16 72 7 172

May 2 37 7 25 4 8 26 18 76 8 211

June 2 22 4 12 1 5 20 -7 77 5 141

July 2 -6 -8 -12 -2 -6 2 4 38 -7 5

August 2 7 4 13 4 2 20 15 19 3 89

September 1 3 0 8 1 -3 -8 12 -38 -2 -26

October 2 2 -2 27 3 14 52 49 -35 4 116

November 0 -16 0 1 2 1 0 4 -21 -1 -30

December 0 -22 0 4 2 9 -1 0 6 1 -1

Cumulative Total

 12 51 -1 83 17 23 169 111 194 18 677

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Table 2-Ca. Employment benchmarks and approximate coverage of BLS employment and payrolls sample, March 2011
Industry Employment Benchmarks (in thousands) Sample coverage
Unemployment Insurance counts (UI)1 Number of establishments Employees
Number (in thousands)2 Percent of benchmark employment level

Total

 130,061 107,823 415,140 39,380 30

Mining and Logging

 741 845 2,041 153 21

Construction

 5,158 7,572 9,476 521 10

Manufacturing

 11,588 7,572 14,783 2,891 25

Trade, Transportation, and Utilities

 24,600 15,9873 119,5213 6,502 26

Information

 2,667 2,108 13,597 663 25

Financial Activities

 7,641 5,443 51,549 1,727 23

Professional and Business Services

 16,994 15,450 42,908 3,015 18

Education and Health Services

 19,891 12,901 42,738 5,783 29

Leisure and Hospitality

 12,881 13,137 52,912 2,401 19

Other Services

 5,305 4,416 12,987 354 7

Government

 22,595 23,840 52,643 15,371 68

(1)Counts reflect active sample reports. Because not all establishments report payroll and hours information, hours and earnings estimates are based on a smaller sample than are the employment estimates.

(2) Employment of reported values for March 2011.

(3) The Surface Transportation Board provides a complete count of employment for Class I railroads plus Amtrak. A small sample is used to estimate hours and earnings data.

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Table 2-Cb. Total private universe employment by size of UI, March 2010
Size class Percent of all UIs Percent of employment

1 (0-9 employees)

 70.7 10.4

2 (10-19 employees)

 13.9 8.0

3 (20-49 employees)

 9.2 12.3

4 (50-99 employees)

 3.2 9.9

5 (100-249 employees)

 1.9 13.4

6 (250-499 employees)

 .6 9.6

7 (500-999 employees

 .3 8.9

8 (1000+ employees)

 .2 27.5

Total

 100 100

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Table 2-Cc. Total private CES sample employment by size of UI, March 2010
Size class Percent of all sample UIs Percent of sample employment

1 (0-9 employees)

 29.6 0.4

2 (10-19 employees)

 14.5 .7

3 (20-49 employees)

 17.6 2.0

4 (50-99 employees)

 11.2 2.9

5 (100-249 employees)

 11.3 6.6

6 (250-499 employees)

 5.5 7.6

7 (500-999 employees)

 4.7 13.5

8 (1000+ employees)

 5.6 66.3

Total

 100 100

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Table 2-D. Errors of preliminary employment estimates
Industry Root-mean-square error of monthly level(1) Mean percent revision
Actual Absolute

Total nonfarm

 75,800 0.0 0.0

Total private

 42,300 .0 .0

Government

 48,200 .0 .2

Federal

 8,700 .0 .2

Federal, except U.S. Postal Service

 8,100 .0 .2

U.S. Postal Service

 4,000 -.1 .1

State government

 21,100 .1 .3

State government education

 19,800 .2 .6

State government, excluding education

 7,000 .0 .2

Local government

 37,200 .0 .2

Local government education

 36,700 .0 .3

Local government, excluding education

 7,700 .0 .1

(1)The root-mean-square error is the square root of the mean squared error. The mean squared error is the square of the difference between the final and preliminary estimates averaged across a series of monthly observations.

NOTE: Errors are based on differences from January 2007 through October 2011.

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Last Modified Date: February 3, 2012