An official website of the United States government
United States Department of Labor
United States Department of Labor
The .gov means it's official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information,
make sure you're on a federal government site.
The site is secure.
The
https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any
information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.
Office of Survey Methods Research
SHARE ON:
More Information
Published Year: 2017
Survey/Program(s): Occupational Employment Statistics (OES)
Catalog: Statistical Survey Paper
Download PDF
An Optimization Approach to Reconciling Sample Allocations
Abstract
As part of a larger project, a research team at the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) created an alternative sample design for the Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) survey. There are three sample allocations for the new sample design, each geared towards improving the estimator in different ways. There is an efficient allocation that aims to lower the sampling error of the OES estimates, and two minimum allocations that set a lower sample size threshold for area and industry domains. Each of the three sample allocations are stratified designs, however they use different strata definitions. This paper describes how we reconcile the the three allocations using an optimization approach.