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Handbook of Methods Current Employment Statistics - State and Metro Area Presentation

Current Employment Statistics - State and Metro Area: Presentation

The Current Employment Statistics-State and Area (CES-SA) data series are published monthly, usually on the 5th Friday after the 12th of each month. Metropolitan Area Employment and Unemployment Summary release is typically published two Wednesdays later. Beginning with the March release, benchmarked data is included in the data series. The survey provides employment, hours, and earnings estimates based on payroll records of business establishments.

Major publications

CES-SA data are released in multiple news releases including State Employment and Unemployment, Metropolitan Area Employment and Unemployment, the CES-SA annual benchmark article, and supplemental material on the BLS website including sortable tables, supplemental maps, and 3-month moving average and annual average tables.

Source of data

The CES program is a federal–state cooperative program. The CES survey is based on approximately 131,000 businesses and government agencies representing approximately 670,000 worksites throughout the United States.

Uses of the data

CES-SA data on employment, hours, and earnings are among the timeliest indicators of economic trends at the state and area level released each month, and they are used to assess the health of state and local labor markets.

CES-SA data are used in forecasting tax revenue for states and localities, and the data are used in the private sector to determine the employment base of states and areas for bond ratings.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia uses statewide nonfarm employment and manufacturing average weekly hours of production workers in manufacturing series from CES-SA as inputs to the state coincident indexes.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis uses CES-SA series in creating preliminary estimates of personal income by state.

CES-SA data are used as inputs to statistical series produced by other BLS programs.

• The Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS) program uses CES-SA employment series to model labor force statistics.
• The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) uses CES-SA data as a monthly benchmark of employment for estimating state level job openings, hires, and separations.
• The Labor Productivity and Costs program uses CES-SA employment and hours data in estimating state productivity.

How to access the data

The CES-SA data series can be accessed at https://www.bls.gov/sae/home.htm. By clicking on the SAE databases tab and then choosing the multi-screen data search option, users can specify the exact data that is needed.  Users will also find news releases, tables, and other publications on the website.  Text-based files can be downloaded at https://download.bls.gov/pub/time.series/sm/. In addition, discontinued data sets can be found in a link below the multi-screen data search option.

Confidentiality

The data collected for the CES-SA data series comply with the confidentiality requirements enforced by the BLS that prohibit the disclosure of identifying information. These data that are collected from the CES survey are used only for statistical purposes. This strict confidentiality policy ensures that the survey sample composition, lists of reporters, and names of respondents will be kept confidential. In addition, the policy assures respondents that published figures will not reveal the identity of any specific respondent and will not allow the data of any specific respondent to be identified.

Once a year, each published series is reviewed to ensure that it meets these confidentiality requirements. If a series fails to meet the standard for confidentiality established by CES-SA it will be modeled or removed from publication. Currently, no series are suppressed because of failing confidentiality requirements.  

Data correction

If an error is discovered in published CES-SA data, it is corrected in the public database and all related products (news release, data tables, etc.). Corrected products will clearly note that a correction was made, typically with a footnote. A record of the error is added to the list of BLS errata and a notice describing the error is posted on the CES-SA website.