Impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on The Employment Situation for July 2021

The material below addresses some questions about the effect of the pandemic on The Employment Situation for July 2021, which presents national-level estimates from the establishment (Current Employment Statistics, or CES) and household (Current Population Survey, or CPS) surveys.

The July estimates are also discussed in the BLS Commissioner’s statement on The Employment Situation. Also see prior assessments of the pandemic’s impact on The Employment Situation and historical data from the establishment survey and the household survey (including the unemployment rate).

Additional detail at the state and local area level will be available in forthcoming releases with data from the CES State and Metro Area and the Local Area Unemployment Statistics programs.

Establishment survey: Was there an impact on data collection in the establishment survey?
Household survey: What was the impact on data collection in the household survey?
Household survey: What would the unemployment rate be if the misclassified workers were included among the unemployed?

Additional Questions

1. Establishment survey: Was there an impact on data collection in the establishment survey?

Yes. Data collection for the establishment survey was affected by the pandemic. Approximately one-fifth of the establishments are assigned to four regional data collection centers for collection. Although these centers were closed during the collection period, interviewers at these centers worked remotely to collect data by telephone. Additionally, BLS encouraged businesses to report their data electronically. About one-quarter of the data that are typically collected by the data collection centers were instead collected by web this month. As a result, web collection represented 26 percent of July data, and Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI) represented 11 percent.

Table A. Establishment survey data by collection method at first preliminary release, July 2021 and recent months (percent distribution)
Month	All methods	Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI)	Web	Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)	Touchtone Data Entry (TDE)	Fax	Other
Average for the 12 months ending in February 2020	100	26	20	47	2	1	3
July 2020	100	9	30	52	2	1	7
August 2020	100	9	29	52	2	1	7
September 2020	100	16	28	47	2	1	7
October 2020	100	15	26	50	2	1	7
November 2020	100	14	26	49	2	1	8
December 2020	100	16	26	49	2	1	7
January 2021	100	13	27	52	2	1	6
February 2021	100	13	27	50	2	1	8
March 2021	100	12	29	49	2	<1	8
April 2021	100	13	27	50	2	1	8
May 2021	100	12	29	49	2	<1	8
June 2021	100	11	28	53	2	<1	5
July 2021	100	11	26	53	2	<1	8
Note: Data may not sum to 100 due to rounding.

The collection rate for the establishment survey was 72 percent in July. This is lower than the average of 75 percent for the 12 months ending in February 2020, before data collection was affected by the pandemic, and higher than in June 2021 (64 percent). Collection rates may have been affected slightly by pandemic-related issues. As in the past, a larger influence on the establishment survey collection rates is the length of the collection period, which can range between 10 and 16 days. The July collection period had 15 days. Additional information and a full time series are available in the establishment survey collection rate documentation.

When compared with the average for the 12 months ending in February 2020, the July collection rates for manufacturing, other services, and state government were between 10 to 20 percentage points lower than average. The collection rate for financial activities was more than 30 percentage points lower than average. The collection rate for federal government was between 10 to 20 percentage points higher than average. The collection rates for all other major industries were within 10 percentage points of the average.

The second preliminary collection rate for June and the final collection rate for May were in the typical range.

2. Household survey: What was the impact on data collection in the household survey?

The household survey is conducted by the Census Bureau and normally includes both in-person and telephone interviews, with the majority of interviews collected by telephone. Interviewing for the household survey began on July 18, 2021.

Households are in the survey’s sample for a total of 8 months, meaning that interviewers attempt to interview someone in the household each of those 8 months. Generally, households entering the sample for their first month are interviewed through a personal visit, and households in their fifth month also often receive a personal visit. Interviews for other months are generally conducted by telephone.

For the safety of both interviewers and respondents, in-person interviews were suspended on March 20, 2020. Starting in July 2020, interviewers resumed conducting some in-person interviews on a limited basis in certain areas of the country. In July 2021, interviewers in most areas of the country conducted in-person interviews, though only after first attempting to reach households by telephone. Also, a relatively small number of telephone interviews were conducted through two call centers in July 2021. These call centers, which generally assist with telephone interviewing, resumed activity on a limited basis in July 2020.

The response rate for the household survey was 77 percent in July 2021. While the rate was lower than the average before the pandemic of 83 percent for the 12 months ending in February 2020, it was considerably higher than the low of 65 percent in June 2020. (See table B.)

In July 2021, the response rate for households entering the sample for their first month, which has a direct impact on response rates in successive months, remained lower than average. The response rate for these households, which normally are interviewed in person, was 7 percentage points lower than the average for the 12 months ending in February 2020. However, this was a considerable improvement over the initial months of the pandemic.

Table B. Household survey response rates by month in sample, July 2021 and recent months (percent)
Measure and period	Total	Month in sample interview
Measure and period	Total	First	Second	Third	Fourth	Fifth	Sixth	Seventh	Eighth
Response rate
Average for the 12 months ending in February 2020	82.5	80.1	83.1	83.7	83.8	80.7	82.4	82.7	83.6
March 2020	73.0	56.8	74.2	77.3	77.5	68.6	75.2	76.0	78.6
April 2020	69.9	46.7	63.5	75.7	78.2	68.6	72.7	76.2	78.1
May 2020	67.4	47.8	56.4	67.7	76.5	68.3	71.4	73.7	77.7
June 2020	64.9	48.4	55.8	60.7	68.9	68.4	70.9	72.0	74.3
July 2020	67.2	54.2	61.0	64.3	66.6	70.4	72.4	73.7	75.1
August 2020	70.2	60.0	65.0	67.5	69.1	72.9	74.8	75.7	76.9
September 2020	79.0	73.4	77.3	77.8	79.2	78.8	81.5	81.4	82.6
October 2020	80.3	75.6	78.1	80.0	80.1	79.8	81.5	83.3	83.6
November 2020	79.3	73.3	77.4	78.8	80.0	78.2	80.7	81.7	84.2
December 2020	76.7	68.7	74.7	77.5	77.6	74.3	78.4	80.0	82.0
January 2021	78.2	72.7	75.9	77.7	78.8	78.6	79.0	80.4	82.5
February 2021	78.0	72.5	77.1	78.2	77.7	76.7	80.8	80.4	80.9
March 2021	76.2	70.9	75.1	76.0	76.9	73.4	77.1	80.0	79.8
April 2021	78.8	75.3	77.6	78.2	79.0	78.5	78.4	79.8	83.3
May 2021	78.4	74.2	78.2	78.4	79.1	76.7	80.2	79.0	81.5
June 2021	76.3	71.6	76.0	76.8	77.5	74.4	76.9	78.5	79.2
July 2021	76.6	72.8	75.8	76.7	77.5	76.0	76.8	77.4	80.1
Percentage point difference from average for the 12 months ending in February 2020
March 2020	-9.5	-23.3	-8.9	-6.4	-6.3	-12.1	-7.2	-6.7	-5.0
April 2020	-12.6	-33.4	-19.6	-8.0	-5.6	-12.1	-9.7	-6.5	-5.5
May 2020	-15.1	-32.3	-26.7	-16.0	-7.3	-12.4	-11.0	-9.0	-5.9
June 2020	-17.6	-31.7	-27.3	-23.0	-14.9	-12.3	-11.5	-10.7	-9.3
July 2020	-15.3	-25.9	-22.1	-19.4	-17.2	-10.3	-10.0	-9.0	-8.5
August 2020	-12.3	-20.1	-18.1	-16.2	-14.7	-7.8	-7.6	-7.0	-6.7
September 2020	-3.5	-6.7	-5.8	-5.9	-4.6	-1.9	-0.9	-1.3	-1.0
October 2020	-2.2	-4.5	-5.0	-3.7	-3.7	-0.9	-0.9	0.6	0.0
November 2020	-3.2	-6.8	-5.7	-4.9	-3.8	-2.5	-1.7	-1.0	0.6
December 2020	-5.8	-11.4	-8.4	-6.2	-6.2	-6.4	-4.0	-2.7	-1.6
January 2021	-4.3	-7.4	-7.2	-6.0	-5.0	-2.1	-3.4	-2.3	-1.1
February 2021	-4.5	-7.6	-6.0	-5.5	-6.1	-4.0	-1.6	-2.3	-2.7
March 2021	-6.3	-9.2	-8.0	-7.7	-6.9	-7.3	-5.3	-2.7	-3.8
April 2021	-3.7	-4.8	-5.5	-5.5	-4.8	-2.2	-4.0	-2.9	-0.3
May 2021	-4.1	-5.9	-4.9	-5.3	-4.7	-4.0	-2.2	-3.7	-2.1
June 2021	-6.2	-8.5	-7.1	-6.9	-6.3	-6.3	-5.5	-4.2	-4.4
July 2021	-5.9	-7.3	-7.3	-7.0	-6.3	-4.7	-5.6	-5.3	-3.5
Note: In the household survey, interviewers attempt to interview each household for 8 months total. The first month is generally an in-person interview; the fifth month is often an in-person interview.

3. Household survey: What would the unemployment rate be if the misclassified workers were included among the unemployed?

Since March 2020, household survey interviewers have been instructed to classify employed people absent from work due to temporary, pandemic-related business closures or cutbacks as unemployed on temporary layoff. As in earlier months, some workers affected by the pandemic who should have been classified as unemployed on temporary layoff were instead misclassified as employed but not at work. However, the share of responses that may have been misclassified was highest in the early months of the pandemic and has been considerably lower in recent months.

If the misclassified workers who were recorded as employed but not at work for the entire survey reference week had been classified as “unemployed on temporary layoff,” the unemployment rate would have been higher than reported. This kind of exercise requires some assumptions. For example, first one needs to determine how many workers might be misclassified. (Learn more about the misclassification issue.)

Because the exact extent of the misclassification is unknown, we had to make assumptions to construct these estimates. Specifically, we assumed that all of the increase in the number of employed people who were not at work for other reasons compared with the average for recent years was due solely to misclassification. We also assumed that all of these people expected to be recalled and were available to return to work.

Following this approach, there were 1.6 million workers with a job but not at work who were included in the “other reasons” category in July 2021, 420,000 higher than the average of 1.2 million for July before the pandemic (2016–2019).

If we assume that this 420,000 increase was entirely due to misclassification and that all of these misclassified workers expected to be recalled and were available for work, the number of unemployed people in July (on a not seasonally adjusted basis) would increase from 9.2 million to 9.6 million. The number of people in the labor force would remain at 162.8 million (not seasonally adjusted) as people move from employed to unemployed but stay in the labor force. The resulting unemployment rate would be 5.9 percent (not seasonally adjusted), compared with the official estimate of 5.7 percent (not seasonally adjusted). Estimates of people with a job but not at work are not available on a seasonally adjusted basis, so seasonally adjusted data, such as the unemployment rate mentioned in The Employment Situation news release, are not used in this exercise. (Repeating this exercise, but combining the not seasonally adjusted data on additional people with a job but not at work in the “other reasons” category with the seasonally adjusted estimates reported in The Employment Situation news release yields an unemployment rate of 5.7 percent, compared with the official seasonally adjusted rate of 5.4 percent.) Comparable calculations were previously published for each month since March 2020.

These broad assumptions represent the upper bound of our estimate of misclassification—the largest estimate of unemployment and correspondingly the highest unemployment rate. However, these assumptions probably overstate the size of the misclassification error. (Learn more about the limitations of this exercise and why BLS does not adjust the unemployment rate to account for the misclassification.)

Regardless of the assumptions made as to the degree of misclassification, the trend in the unemployment rate over the period in question is the same—that is, the rate increased in March and April of 2020 and has eased significantly since then.

BLS is continuing to evaluate the misclassification issue and will publish a detailed description of the findings in a forthcoming article.