Submission for OMB Review: Comment Request, 20177-20180 [05-7689]
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20177
Federal Register / Vol. 70, No. 73 / Monday, April 18, 2005 / Notices
Total Annualized capital/startup
costs: $0.
Total Annual Costs (operating/
maintaining systems or purchasing
services): $0.
Description: The collection of prices
directly from retail establishments is
essential for the timely and accurate
calculation of the commodities and
services component of the Consumer
Price Index. Respondents include retail
establishments throughout the country.
Ira L. Mills,
Departmental Clearance Officer.
[FR Doc. 05–7688 Filed 4–15–05; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4510–24–M
DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
Office of the Secretary
Submission for OMB Review:
Comment Request
April 8, 2005.
The Department of Labor (DOL) has
submitted the following public
information collection request (ICR) to
the Office of Management and Budget
(OMB) for review and approval in
accordance with the Paperwork
Reduction Act of 1995 (Pub. L. 104–13,
44 U.S.C. chapter 35). A copy of this
ICR, with applicable supporting
documentation, may be obtained by
contacting Darrin King on 202–693–
4129 (this is not a toll-free number) or
e-mail: king.darrin@dol.gov.
Comments should be sent to Office of
Information and Regulatory Affairs,
Attn: OMB Desk Officer for the Bureau
of Labor Statistics (BLS), Office of
Management and Budget, Room 10235,
Washington, DC 20503, 202–395–7316
(this is not a toll-free number), within
30 days from the date of this publication
in the Federal Register.
The OMB is particularly interested in
comments which:
• Evaluate whether the proposed
collection of information is necessary
for the proper performance of the
functions of the agency, including
whether the information will have
practical utility;
• Evaluate the accuracy of the
agency’s estimate of the burden of the
Number of
respondents
Form
Minutes per
report
BLS–790A—Natural Resources and Mining ..........................
BLS–790B—Construction .......................................................
BLS–790C—Manufacturing ....................................................
BLS–790E—Service Providing Industries ..............................
BLS–790G—Public Administration .........................................
BLS–790S—Education ...........................................................
BLS–790F1, F2, F3 (Fax Forms) ...........................................
1,400
12,800
18,000
153,300
56,700
4,000
36,400
10
10
10
10
5
5
10
Total ................................................................................
282,600
........................
Total Annualized capital/startup
costs: $0.
Total Annual Costs (operating/
maintaining systems or purchasing
services): $0.
Description: The Current Employment
Statistics program provides current
monthly statistics on employment,
hours, and earnings, by industry. CES
data on employment, hours, and earning
by industry are among the most visible
and widely-used Principal Federal
Economic Indicators (PFEIs). CES data
are also the timeliest of all PFEIs, with
their release by BLS in the Employment
Situation on the first Friday of most
months. The statistics are fundamental
inputs in economic decision processes
at all levels of government, private
enterprise, and organized labor.
Proposed Changes to the Current
Employment Statistics Survey: The
Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is
planning several changes to the Current
Employment Statistics (CES) survey to
improve its relevance to the needs of
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primary data users, as well as its value
as an input to other key economic
statistics. To implement the needed
changes while maintaining the viability
of the CES program as a high volume,
quick turnaround, voluntary survey,
BLS carefully reviewed the public’s use
of CES data to determine if reductions
could be made in some series as a
tradeoff for significant data
improvements. The reductions help to
maintain the viability of the CES survey
by keeping the survey form at one-page
in length and the number of data items
requested of employers to a minimum.
Planned Changes
The planned improvements to the
CES are:
New data on the hours and regular
earnings of all employees.
New data on total earnings—both
regular and irregular pay—for all
employees.
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proposed collection of information,
including the validity of the
methodology and assumptions used;
• Enhance the quality, utility, and
clarity of the information to be
collected; and
• Minimize the burden of the
collection of information on those who
are to respond, including through the
use of appropriate automated,
electronic, mechanical, or other
technological collection techniques or
other forms of information technology,
e.g., permitting electronic submission of
responses.
Agency: Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Type of Review: Revision of a
currently approved collection.
Title: Report on Current Employment
Statistics.
OMB Number: 1220–0011.
Form Number: BLS–790 Series.
Type of Response: Reporting.
Affected Public: Business or other forprofit; Not-for-profit institutions;
Federal Government; and State, local, or
tribal government.
Frequency of
response
Monthly
Monthly
Monthly
Monthly
Monthly
Monthly
Monthly
Annual
responses
Annual burden
hours
.......
.......
.......
........
.......
........
.......
16,800
153,600
216,000
1,839,600
680,400
48,000
436,800
2,800
25,600
36,000
306,600
56,700
4,000
72,800
.....................
3,391,200
504,500
The CES series that BLS proposes to
discontinue to accommodate the above
improvements are:
Women worker employment series.
Production or nonsupervisory worker
hours and earnings series.
A brief discussion of the benefits of
the planned improvements and the
reasons for discontinuing the CES
women and production and
nonsupervisory workers series follows.
Discontinuation of CES women
workers series—The CES plans to
discontinue the collection and
publication of data on women workers
with the release of May 2005 data
scheduled for publication in July 2005.
The Bureau has three reasons for
proposing to drop the CES women
workers series.
The first is that the series imposes a
significant reporting burden on survey
respondents because payroll records do
not typically include gender
identification. BLS relies upon the
voluntary cooperation of approximately
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Federal Register / Vol. 70, No. 73 / Monday, April 18, 2005 / Notices
155,000 businesses each month
(representing about 400,000 individual
worksites) in providing information
from their payroll records on the
employment, hours, and earnings of
their workers. In an increasingly
difficult data-collection environment,
survey response burden is a crucial
factor in survey design.
Second, the CES women workers
series are little used. Recent BLS
analysis of information from its public
use website found that while there was
an average of 130,000 requests per
month for CES national estimates, only
about one-half of one percent of those
requests were for the women worker
employment series. Additionally, an
informal internet literature search by
BLS found almost no usage of CES
women worker series. Articles which
addressed women’s employment and
earnings issues nearly all used data from
the BLS Current Population Survey
(CPS) as their source.
Third, BLS will continue to provide
extensive labor market information on
women, primarily from the CPS, a
monthly survey of about 60,000
households. From the CPS, users have
access to data on women’s employment,
unemployment, and earnings by
industry, occupation, education, age,
marital status, and other characteristics.
BLS routinely publishes information
in various formats on women in the
workplace. CPS data on women, for
instance, are summarized in two
recurring publications:
Women in the Labor Force: A Databook
https://www.bls.gov/cps/wlfdatabook.pdf.
Highlights of Women’s Earnings
https://www.bls.gov/cps/
cpswom2003.pdf.
Examples of regularly-issued CPSbased news releases that include data on
women are:
Usual Weekly Earnings of Wage and
Salary Workers
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/
wkyeng.pdf.
Employment Characteristics of Families
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/
famee.pdf.
College Enrollment and Work Activities
of High School Graduates
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/
hsgec.pdf.
Beginning with the release of January
2005 data, Current Population Survey
data on employed women by industry is
available monthly in Table A–23 of the
BLS periodical Employment and
Earnings. The new table is available on
the BLS Web site at ftp://ftp.bls.gov/
pub/suppl/empsit.cpseea23.txt, and
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shows essentially the same industry
detail as that shown in Table B–13, the
table that currently provides the
establishment data on women. Table A–
23 will be available on the BLS Web site
each month coincident with the
publication of the Employment
Situation news release.
New data on all employee hours and
earnings series—The CES program
currently publishes series on the
average hours and earnings of
production workers in the goodsproducing industries and nonsupervisory workers in the serviceproviding industries. Production and
non-supervisory workers account for
about 80 percent of all employment
measured by the CES survey. The new
all employee hours and earnings series
will cover all workers and therefore
provide more comprehensive
information than the present series for
analyzing economic trends. They will
also provide improved input for other
major economic indicators, including
series on nonfarm productivity and
personal income. BLS has tested the
collection of all employee hours and
earnings data with CES respondents and
found the data to be available from the
payroll records of most employers. The
CES survey will begin collecting all
employee payroll and hours data in
mid-2005. Publication of the first all
employee hours and earnings series, on
an experimental basis, is scheduled for
mid-2006. Publication of official
published series is scheduled for early
2007.
New data on gross monthly
earnings—This series will have a
broader scope than the base CES
earnings data. The current CES average
hourly and weekly earnings series for
production and non-supervisory
workers, as well as the new series
planned for all employees are designed
to measure the regular earnings of
workers; they exclude bonuses and
other irregular payments received by
employees from their employers. The
gross monthly earnings series will
include these irregular payments
providing an additional and more
comprehensive measure of earnings.
The base average hourly earnings series
will continue to provide a measure of
underlying wage trends exclusive of
irregular payments. The gross monthly
earnings series is expected to be
particularly valuable for improving the
accuracy of preliminary estimates of
personal income in the national income
accounts. Pilot tests with CES survey
respondents indicate that most will be
able to readily provide this information
from their payroll records. The CES
survey will begin collecting gross
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monthly earnings data in mid-2005.
Publication of the first gross monthly
earnings, on an experimental basis, is
scheduled for mid-2006. Publication of
official published series is scheduled for
early 2007.
Discontinuation of production/nonsupervisory worker hours and earnings
series—These series will be phased out
after the new all employee hours and
earnings series are well established. The
production/non-supervisory worker
series limited scope makes them of
limited value in analyzing economic
trends. Just as important to this
decision, the production and nonsupervisory worker hours and payroll
data have become increasingly difficult
to collect, because these categorizations
are not meaningful to survey
respondents. Many survey respondents
report that it is not possible to tabulate
their payroll records based on the
production/non-supervisory definitions.
Discontinuation of the production/nonsupervisory worker hours and earnings
series is scheduled for early 2010.
Public Comment
In accordance with the requirements
of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995,
BLS posted a notice describing these
planned changes in the Federal Register
on December 22, 2004 [https://
a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/
06jun20041800/edocket.access.gpo.gov/
2004/E4–3731.htm]. The 60-day public
comment period for this Federal
Register notice ended on February 22,
2005.
Comments Received Following the First
Federal Register Notice and BLS
Response
Extensive comments were received as
a result of the pre-clearance
consultation Federal Register notice,
Volume 69, Number 245, published on
December 22, 2004.
1. A few commenters supported the
BLS plan for Current Employment
Statistics (CES) program changes,
including former BLS Commissioner
Katharine Abraham and the Bureau of
Economic Analysis. Supporters of the
plan voiced a common opinion, as
expressed by Dr. Abraham: ‘‘The
positive reason for dropping the women
worker question is to make room on the
CES survey instrument for the new allemployee questions the BLS has
proposed. The lack of timely
information on all-employee earnings
has been a long-standing problem for
the Bureau of Economic Analysis in its
construction of the national income and
product accounts and the lack of
information on all employee hours is a
potential source of bias in BLS estimates
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Federal Register / Vol. 70, No. 73 / Monday, April 18, 2005 / Notices
of the rate of growth in productivity.
Because the survey sample is so large
and because responses must be
collected within a very short timeframe,
it is not feasible to collect more than a
small number of elements on the CES
survey.’’
2. A small number of the comments
received expressed concern about the
loss of production worker hours and
earnings series, believing it should
continue to be published in addition to
the proposed all employee hours and
earnings data. BLS is planning a multiyear overlap period (July 2006–
December 2009) when both all
employee and production worker hours
and earnings series will be published.
We will reassess our plans to drop the
production worker hours and earnings
series about a year before the planned
discontinuation date, drawing on the
experience of data users and survey
respondents during the overlap period
before making a final decision.
3. The majority of comments objected
to the planned discontinuation of the
women worker employment series, but
many appeared to be based on a
misunderstanding of the CES data. They
referenced the presumed loss of data on
women’s earnings, occupations, or other
information that have in fact never been
available from the CES program. In all
likelihood, the commenters were
confusing the CES with the Current
Population Survey (CPS) or household
survey. The household survey does
provide data on earnings, occupations,
and other labor force characteristics by
gender. Collection of all this data
through the CPS will continue.
Following are additional specific
comments regarding the planned
discontinuation of CES women worker
series. The comments are grouped by
the three reasons BLS has cited for
proposing to discontinue the series.
Use of CES Women Worker Series
4. A number of commenters indicated
that CES women worker data were
widely used by researchers. BLS
reviewed all of the articles cited by
commenters as well as conducting our
own informal internet search for
research on women’s employment
issues. Of the scores of articles on this
topic, only 6 articles (covering a 20-year
span) were found that contained any
CES women worker data; these papers
all used additional data sources in
conjunction with the CES information.
5. A number of comments indicated
that the CES data on women workers
were necessary to formulate public
policy for working women and to track
women’s progress in the workplace.
However, without information on
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occupation, hours, or earnings by
gender, the CES provides relatively little
information for these purposes. The CPS
provides much more information on the
employment and labor force
characteristics of women and thus is
more useful for formulating policy or
evaluating women’s progress.
CPS Data on Women as a Substitute for
CES Data on Women
(Note the italicized comments included
below are drawn verbatim from a form letter
used by the majority of commenters.)
6. With a gender breakdown, the
payroll survey is capable of painting a
reliable picture of where women are
working across industries and business
cycles. Without a gender breakdown,
that picture becomes far more difficult
to obtain. While the CPS is valuable for
other types of information, its smaller
sampling size produces a greater margin
for error than the CES survey. It is true
that CPS data are subject to larger
sampling error than the CES estimates
owing to the smaller sample size of the
CPS. However, because the CPS
provides many more characteristics for
women workers, it is an overall richer
source of data for women workers than
the CES. In addition, while we have
publicly stated that the CES is superior
to the CPS for analyzing month-tomonth trends, we believe that such
short term measures are not appropriate
for most assessments of the changing
status of women (or any demographic
group) in the labor market. When
examining longer term trends, the
advantage the CES has in sample size
declines in importance. The two surveys
have displayed similar trends for
women’s employment growth over the
past several years.
7. The CPS’ reliance on household
interviews introduces the possibility of
subjective reporting bias that does not
exist with the payroll survey. All
surveys are potentially subject to nonsampling errors or biases of various
types. While we have no quantitative
measures of the degree of non-sampling
error in the household versus the
payroll survey, it is likely that the
payroll survey provides better industry
coding than the household survey
because the codes originate from
businesses.
8. The CPS historical time series of
employment by industry is not
seasonally adjusted and not as long as
the CES employment by industry time
series. The CPS North American
Industry Classification System (NAICS)based time series begins in 2000. The
CES NAICS-based time series begins in
1964. As part of the conversion to
NAICS, CPS industry data for 2000
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20179
through 2002 were re-coded using the
new industry classification system. BLS
provided this re-coded information to
the public via microdata files and its
website. This information could be used
by researchers to reconstruct the CPS
series for earlier time periods.
Additionally, the large amount of
research on women’s issues that uses
the CPS data suggests that the lack of
seasonal adjustment of the CPS industry
series is not a major liability.
The Respondent Burden of CES Women
Workers Data
9. Some commenters indicated that
reporting employment data for women
is not an added burden for businesses,
because they are already subject to EEO
reporting requirements. While it is true
that most large firms are required to
comply with EEO by submitting an
employer information report (EEO–1),
this is a once-a-year report while the
CES is a monthly report. Additionally,
the individuals who complete the CES
report often indicate that gender
information is not present on their
standard payroll records and that they
do not have ready access to the data. As
evidence of respondent burden, out of
every six employers who provide total
employment counts, one does not
provide the additional data on female
employment.
10. Some respondents indicated that
hours and earnings for women along
with other demographic information
should be added to the CES survey.
Others questioned whether the BLS
rationale of eliminating women worker
collection to make room for other data
items of more interest was necessary.
The CES is a large survey (400,000
worksites) which operates under very
tight time constraints (data are
published each month, only three weeks
after the reference period); it relies on
voluntary self-reporting from most of its
sample members. Because of this
demanding production environment,
BLS believes that it is important to
minimize the number of data items
collected and to request data that are
readily available on payroll records.
These measures help minimize
respondent burden and therefore
maximize the number of surveyed
businesses that are willing and able to
supply data. Maximizing the number of
survey responses is important to
ensuring reliable estimates. The CES
estimates of nonfarm employment
which appear in the BLS Employment
Situation news release are among the
nation’s most visible and sensitive
economic indicators. BLS needs to
ensure that the reliability of these
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estimates is not jeopardized by
overloading the survey.
11. Some commenters indicated that
the CES survey was mandatory, thus
there should be no problem in collecting
any type of data. Others suggested that
because the survey was voluntary, it did
not generate a respondent burden,
because businesses were free to refuse.
The CES survey is mandatory by State
law in five States (California, Oregon,
North Carolina, South Carolina, and
Washington). In all other States the CES
survey is voluntary. It is precisely
because of the largely voluntary nature
of the survey that BLS must minimize
the reporting burden to businesses. If
the survey is perceived as too time
consuming or burdensome, a high
refusal rate may result, which would
decrease the accuracy of the published
estimates.
Ira L. Mills,
Departmental Clearance Officer.
[FR Doc. 05–7689 Filed 4–15–05; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4510–24–P
DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
Office of the Secretary
Submission for OMB Review:
Comment Request
April 11, 2005.
The Department of Labor (DOL) has
submitted the following public
information collection request (ICR) to
the Office of Management and Budget
(OMB) for review and approval in
accordance with the Paperwork
Reduction Act of 1995 (Pub. L. 104–13,
44 U.S.C. chapter 35). A copy of this
ICR, with applicable supporting
documentation, may be obtained by
contacting Darrin King on 202–693–
4129 (this is not a toll-free number) or
e-mail: king.darrin@dol.gov.
Comments should be sent to Office of
Information and Regulatory Affairs,
Attn: OMB Desk Officer for the
Occupational Safety and Health
Administration (OSHA), Office of
Management and Budget, Room 10235,
Washington, DC 20503, 202–395–7316
(this is not a toll-free number), within
30 days from the date of this publication
in the Federal Register.
The OMB is particularly interested in
comments which:
• Evaluate whether the proposed
collection of information is necessary
for the proper performance of the
functions of the agency, including
whether the information will have
practical utility;
• Evaluate the accuracy of the
agency’s estimate of the burden of the
VerDate jul<14>2003
16:08 Apr 15, 2005
Jkt 205001
proposed collection of information,
including the validity of the
methodology and assumptions used;
• Enhance the quality, utility, and
clarity of the information to be
collected; and
• Minimize the burden of the
collection of information on those who
are to respond, including through the
use of appropriate automated,
electronic, mechanical, or other
technological collection techniques or
other forms of information technology,
e.g., permitting electronic submission of
responses.
Agency: Occupational Safety and
Health Administration.
Type of Review: Extension of
currently approved collection.
Title: Powered Industrial Trucks (29
CFR 1910.178).
OMB Number: 1218–0242.
Frequency: On occasion; Initially;
Annually; and Triennially.
Type of Response: Recordkeeping and
Third party disclosure.
Affected Public: Business or other forprofit; Federal Government; and State,
local, or tribal government.
Number of Respondents: 999,000.
Number of Annual Responses:
2,181,839.
Estimated Time Per Response: Ranges
from 2 minutes to mark an approved
truck to 6.50 hours to train new truck
operators.
Total Burden Hours: 773,205.
Total Annualized capital/startup
costs: $0.
Total Annual Costs (operating/
maintaining systems or purchasing
services): $209,790.
Description: Paragraph (a)(4) of
1910.178 requires that employers obtain
the manufacturer’s written approval
before modifying a powered industrial
truck in a manner that affects its
capacity and safe operation; if the
manufacturer grants such approval, the
employer must revise capacity,
operation, and maintenance instruction
plates, tags, and decals accordingly. For
front-end attachments not installed by
the manufacturer, paragraph (a)(5)
mandates that employers provide a label
(marking) on the truck that identifies the
attachment, as well as the weight of
both the truck and the attachment when
the attachment is at maximum elevation
with a laterally centered load. Paragraph
(a)(6) specifies that employers must
ensure that the markers required by
paragraphs (a)(3) through (a)(5) remain
affixed to the truck and are legible.
Paragraphs (l)(1) through (l)(6) of the
Standard contain the paperwork
requirements necessary to certify the
training provided to powered industrial
truck operators. Accordingly, these
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paragraphs specify the following
requirements for employers:
Paragraph (l)(1)—Ensure that trainees
successfully complete the training and
evaluation requirements of paragraph (l)
prior to operating a truck without direct
supervision.
Paragraph (l)(2)—Allow trainees to
operate a truck only under the direct
supervision of an individual with the
knowledge, training, and experience to
train operators and to evaluate their
performance, and under conditions that
do not endanger other employees. The
training program must consist of formal
instruction, practical training, and
evaluation of the trainee’s performance
in the workplace.
Paragraph (l)(3)—Provide the trainees
with initial training on each of 22
specified topics, except on topics that
the employer demonstrates do not apply
to the safe operation of the truck(s) in
the employer’s workplace.
Paragraphs (l)(4)(i) and (l)(4)(ii)—
Administer refresher training and
evaluation on relevant topics to
operators found by observation or
formal evaluation to operate a truck
unsafely, involved in an accident or
near-miss incident, or assigned to
operate another type of truck, or if the
employer identifies a workplace
condition that could affect safe truck
operation.
Paragraph (l)(4)(iii)—Evaluate each
operator’s performance at least once
every three years.
Paragraph (l)(5)—Train rehires only in
specific topics that they performed
unsuccessfully during an evaluation and
that are appropriate to the employer’s
truck(s) and workplace conditions.
Paragraph (l)(6)—Certify that each
operator meets the training and
evaluation requirements specified by
paragraph (l). This certification must
include the operator’s name, the
training date, the evaluation date, and
the identity of the individual(s) who
performed the training and evaluation.
Requiring markers notifies employees
of the conditions under which they can
safely operate powered industrial
trucks, thereby preventing such hazards
as fires and explosions caused by poorly
designed electrical systems, rollovers/
tipovers that result from exceeding a
truck’s stability characteristics, and
falling loads that occur when loads
exceed the lifting capacities of
attachments. Certification of training
and evaluation provides a means of
informing employers that their
employees received the training, and
demonstrated the performance
necessary to operate a truck within its
capacity and control limitations.
Therefore, by ensuring that employees
E:\FR\FM\18APN1.SGM
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]]>Agencies
[Federal Register Volume 70, Number 73 (Monday, April 18, 2005)]
[Notices]
[Pages 20177-20180]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 05-7689]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
Office of the Secretary
Submission for OMB Review: Comment Request
April 8, 2005.
The Department of Labor (DOL) has submitted the following public
information collection request (ICR) to the Office of Management and
Budget (OMB) for review and approval in accordance with the Paperwork
Reduction Act of 1995 (Pub. L. 104-13, 44 U.S.C. chapter 35). A copy of
this ICR, with applicable supporting documentation, may be obtained by
contacting Darrin King on 202-693-4129 (this is not a toll-free number)
or e-mail: king.darrin@dol.gov.
Comments should be sent to Office of Information and Regulatory
Affairs, Attn: OMB Desk Officer for the Bureau of Labor Statistics
(BLS), Office of Management and Budget, Room 10235, Washington, DC
20503, 202-395-7316 (this is not a toll-free number), within 30 days
from the date of this publication in the Federal Register.
The OMB is particularly interested in comments which:
Evaluate whether the proposed collection of information is
necessary for the proper performance of the functions of the agency,
including whether the information will have practical utility;
Evaluate the accuracy of the agency's estimate of the
burden of the proposed collection of information, including the
validity of the methodology and assumptions used;
Enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of the
information to be collected; and
Minimize the burden of the collection of information on
those who are to respond, including through the use of appropriate
automated, electronic, mechanical, or other technological collection
techniques or other forms of information technology, e.g., permitting
electronic submission of responses.
Agency: Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Type of Review: Revision of a currently approved collection.
Title: Report on Current Employment Statistics.
OMB Number: 1220-0011.
Form Number: BLS-790 Series.
Type of Response: Reporting.
Affected Public: Business or other for-profit; Not-for-profit
institutions; Federal Government; and State, local, or tribal
government.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Number of Minutes per Frequency of Annual Annual burden
Form respondents report response responses hours
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BLS-790A--Natural Resources 1,400 10 Monthly.......... 16,800 2,800
and Mining.
BLS-790B--Construction....... 12,800 10 Monthly.......... 153,600 25,600
BLS-790C--Manufacturing...... 18,000 10 Monthly.......... 216,000 36,000
BLS-790E--Service Providing 153,300 10 Monthly.......... 1,839,600 306,600
Industries.
BLS-790G--Public 56,700 5 Monthly.......... 680,400 56,700
Administration.
BLS-790S--Education.......... 4,000 5 Monthly.......... 48,000 4,000
BLS-790F1, F2, F3 (Fax Forms) 36,400 10 Monthly.......... 436,800 72,800
-----------------
Total.................... 282,600 .............. ................. 3,391,200 504,500
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total Annualized capital/startup costs: $0.
Total Annual Costs (operating/maintaining systems or purchasing
services): $0.
Description: The Current Employment Statistics program provides
current monthly statistics on employment, hours, and earnings, by
industry. CES data on employment, hours, and earning by industry are
among the most visible and widely-used Principal Federal Economic
Indicators (PFEIs). CES data are also the timeliest of all PFEIs, with
their release by BLS in the Employment Situation on the first Friday of
most months. The statistics are fundamental inputs in economic decision
processes at all levels of government, private enterprise, and
organized labor.
Proposed Changes to the Current Employment Statistics Survey: The
Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is planning several changes to the
Current Employment Statistics (CES) survey to improve its relevance to
the needs of primary data users, as well as its value as an input to
other key economic statistics. To implement the needed changes while
maintaining the viability of the CES program as a high volume, quick
turnaround, voluntary survey, BLS carefully reviewed the public's use
of CES data to determine if reductions could be made in some series as
a tradeoff for significant data improvements. The reductions help to
maintain the viability of the CES survey by keeping the survey form at
one-page in length and the number of data items requested of employers
to a minimum.
Planned Changes
The planned improvements to the CES are:
New data on the hours and regular earnings of all employees.
New data on total earnings--both regular and irregular pay--for all
employees.
The CES series that BLS proposes to discontinue to accommodate the
above improvements are:
Women worker employment series.
Production or nonsupervisory worker hours and earnings series.
A brief discussion of the benefits of the planned improvements and
the reasons for discontinuing the CES women and production and
nonsupervisory workers series follows.
Discontinuation of CES women workers series--The CES plans to
discontinue the collection and publication of data on women workers
with the release of May 2005 data scheduled for publication in July
2005. The Bureau has three reasons for proposing to drop the CES women
workers series.
The first is that the series imposes a significant reporting burden
on survey respondents because payroll records do not typically include
gender identification. BLS relies upon the voluntary cooperation of
approximately
[[Page 20178]]
155,000 businesses each month (representing about 400,000 individual
worksites) in providing information from their payroll records on the
employment, hours, and earnings of their workers. In an increasingly
difficult data-collection environment, survey response burden is a
crucial factor in survey design.
Second, the CES women workers series are little used. Recent BLS
analysis of information from its public use website found that while
there was an average of 130,000 requests per month for CES national
estimates, only about one-half of one percent of those requests were
for the women worker employment series. Additionally, an informal
internet literature search by BLS found almost no usage of CES women
worker series. Articles which addressed women's employment and earnings
issues nearly all used data from the BLS Current Population Survey
(CPS) as their source.
Third, BLS will continue to provide extensive labor market
information on women, primarily from the CPS, a monthly survey of about
60,000 households. From the CPS, users have access to data on women's
employment, unemployment, and earnings by industry, occupation,
education, age, marital status, and other characteristics.
BLS routinely publishes information in various formats on women in
the workplace. CPS data on women, for instance, are summarized in two
recurring publications:
Women in the Labor Force: A Databook
https://www.bls.gov/cps/wlf-databook.pdf.
Highlights of Women's Earnings
https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswom2003.pdf.
Examples of regularly-issued CPS-based news releases that include
data on women are:
Usual Weekly Earnings of Wage and Salary Workers
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/wkyeng.pdf.
Employment Characteristics of Families
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/famee.pdf.
College Enrollment and Work Activities of High School Graduates
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/hsgec.pdf.
Beginning with the release of January 2005 data, Current Population
Survey data on employed women by industry is available monthly in Table
A-23 of the BLS periodical Employment and Earnings. The new table is
available on the BLS Web site at ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/suppl/
empsit.cpseea23.txt, and shows essentially the same industry detail as
that shown in Table B-13, the table that currently provides the
establishment data on women. Table A-23 will be available on the BLS
Web site each month coincident with the publication of the Employment
Situation news release.
New data on all employee hours and earnings series--The CES program
currently publishes series on the average hours and earnings of
production workers in the goods-producing industries and non-
supervisory workers in the service-providing industries. Production and
non-supervisory workers account for about 80 percent of all employment
measured by the CES survey. The new all employee hours and earnings
series will cover all workers and therefore provide more comprehensive
information than the present series for analyzing economic trends. They
will also provide improved input for other major economic indicators,
including series on nonfarm productivity and personal income. BLS has
tested the collection of all employee hours and earnings data with CES
respondents and found the data to be available from the payroll records
of most employers. The CES survey will begin collecting all employee
payroll and hours data in mid-2005. Publication of the first all
employee hours and earnings series, on an experimental basis, is
scheduled for mid-2006. Publication of official published series is
scheduled for early 2007.
New data on gross monthly earnings--This series will have a broader
scope than the base CES earnings data. The current CES average hourly
and weekly earnings series for production and non-supervisory workers,
as well as the new series planned for all employees are designed to
measure the regular earnings of workers; they exclude bonuses and other
irregular payments received by employees from their employers. The
gross monthly earnings series will include these irregular payments
providing an additional and more comprehensive measure of earnings. The
base average hourly earnings series will continue to provide a measure
of underlying wage trends exclusive of irregular payments. The gross
monthly earnings series is expected to be particularly valuable for
improving the accuracy of preliminary estimates of personal income in
the national income accounts. Pilot tests with CES survey respondents
indicate that most will be able to readily provide this information
from their payroll records. The CES survey will begin collecting gross
monthly earnings data in mid-2005. Publication of the first gross
monthly earnings, on an experimental basis, is scheduled for mid-2006.
Publication of official published series is scheduled for early 2007.
Discontinuation of production/non-supervisory worker hours and
earnings series--These series will be phased out after the new all
employee hours and earnings series are well established. The
production/non-supervisory worker series limited scope makes them of
limited value in analyzing economic trends. Just as important to this
decision, the production and non-supervisory worker hours and payroll
data have become increasingly difficult to collect, because these
categorizations are not meaningful to survey respondents. Many survey
respondents report that it is not possible to tabulate their payroll
records based on the production/non-supervisory definitions.
Discontinuation of the production/non-supervisory worker hours and
earnings series is scheduled for early 2010.
Public Comment
In accordance with the requirements of the Paperwork Reduction Act
of 1995, BLS posted a notice describing these planned changes in the
Federal Register on December 22, 2004 [https://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/
257/2422/06jun20041800/edocket.access.gpo.gov/2004/E4-3731.htm]. The
60-day public comment period for this Federal Register notice ended on
February 22, 2005.
Comments Received Following the First Federal Register Notice and BLS
Response
Extensive comments were received as a result of the pre-clearance
consultation Federal Register notice, Volume 69, Number 245, published
on December 22, 2004.
1. A few commenters supported the BLS plan for Current Employment
Statistics (CES) program changes, including former BLS Commissioner
Katharine Abraham and the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Supporters of
the plan voiced a common opinion, as expressed by Dr. Abraham: ``The
positive reason for dropping the women worker question is to make room
on the CES survey instrument for the new all-employee questions the BLS
has proposed. The lack of timely information on all-employee earnings
has been a long-standing problem for the Bureau of Economic Analysis in
its construction of the national income and product accounts and the
lack of information on all employee hours is a potential source of bias
in BLS estimates
[[Page 20179]]
of the rate of growth in productivity. Because the survey sample is so
large and because responses must be collected within a very short
timeframe, it is not feasible to collect more than a small number of
elements on the CES survey.''
2. A small number of the comments received expressed concern about
the loss of production worker hours and earnings series, believing it
should continue to be published in addition to the proposed all
employee hours and earnings data. BLS is planning a multi-year overlap
period (July 2006-December 2009) when both all employee and production
worker hours and earnings series will be published. We will reassess
our plans to drop the production worker hours and earnings series about
a year before the planned discontinuation date, drawing on the
experience of data users and survey respondents during the overlap
period before making a final decision.
3. The majority of comments objected to the planned discontinuation
of the women worker employment series, but many appeared to be based on
a misunderstanding of the CES data. They referenced the presumed loss
of data on women's earnings, occupations, or other information that
have in fact never been available from the CES program. In all
likelihood, the commenters were confusing the CES with the Current
Population Survey (CPS) or household survey. The household survey does
provide data on earnings, occupations, and other labor force
characteristics by gender. Collection of all this data through the CPS
will continue.
Following are additional specific comments regarding the planned
discontinuation of CES women worker series. The comments are grouped by
the three reasons BLS has cited for proposing to discontinue the
series.
Use of CES Women Worker Series
4. A number of commenters indicated that CES women worker data were
widely used by researchers. BLS reviewed all of the articles cited by
commenters as well as conducting our own informal internet search for
research on women's employment issues. Of the scores of articles on
this topic, only 6 articles (covering a 20-year span) were found that
contained any CES women worker data; these papers all used additional
data sources in conjunction with the CES information.
5. A number of comments indicated that the CES data on women
workers were necessary to formulate public policy for working women and
to track women's progress in the workplace. However, without
information on occupation, hours, or earnings by gender, the CES
provides relatively little information for these purposes. The CPS
provides much more information on the employment and labor force
characteristics of women and thus is more useful for formulating policy
or evaluating women's progress.
CPS Data on Women as a Substitute for CES Data on Women
(Note the italicized comments included below are drawn verbatim from
a form letter used by the majority of commenters.)
6. With a gender breakdown, the payroll survey is capable of
painting a reliable picture of where women are working across
industries and business cycles. Without a gender breakdown, that
picture becomes far more difficult to obtain. While the CPS is valuable
for other types of information, its smaller sampling size produces a
greater margin for error than the CES survey. It is true that CPS data
are subject to larger sampling error than the CES estimates owing to
the smaller sample size of the CPS. However, because the CPS provides
many more characteristics for women workers, it is an overall richer
source of data for women workers than the CES. In addition, while we
have publicly stated that the CES is superior to the CPS for analyzing
month-to-month trends, we believe that such short term measures are not
appropriate for most assessments of the changing status of women (or
any demographic group) in the labor market. When examining longer term
trends, the advantage the CES has in sample size declines in
importance. The two surveys have displayed similar trends for women's
employment growth over the past several years.
7. The CPS' reliance on household interviews introduces the
possibility of subjective reporting bias that does not exist with the
payroll survey. All surveys are potentially subject to non-sampling
errors or biases of various types. While we have no quantitative
measures of the degree of non-sampling error in the household versus
the payroll survey, it is likely that the payroll survey provides
better industry coding than the household survey because the codes
originate from businesses.
8. The CPS historical time series of employment by industry is not
seasonally adjusted and not as long as the CES employment by industry
time series. The CPS North American Industry Classification System
(NAICS)-based time series begins in 2000. The CES NAICS-based time
series begins in 1964. As part of the conversion to NAICS, CPS industry
data for 2000 through 2002 were re-coded using the new industry
classification system. BLS provided this re-coded information to the
public via microdata files and its website. This information could be
used by researchers to reconstruct the CPS series for earlier time
periods. Additionally, the large amount of research on women's issues
that uses the CPS data suggests that the lack of seasonal adjustment of
the CPS industry series is not a major liability.
The Respondent Burden of CES Women Workers Data
9. Some commenters indicated that reporting employment data for
women is not an added burden for businesses, because they are already
subject to EEO reporting requirements. While it is true that most large
firms are required to comply with EEO by submitting an employer
information report (EEO-1), this is a once-a-year report while the CES
is a monthly report. Additionally, the individuals who complete the CES
report often indicate that gender information is not present on their
standard payroll records and that they do not have ready access to the
data. As evidence of respondent burden, out of every six employers who
provide total employment counts, one does not provide the additional
data on female employment.
10. Some respondents indicated that hours and earnings for women
along with other demographic information should be added to the CES
survey. Others questioned whether the BLS rationale of eliminating
women worker collection to make room for other data items of more
interest was necessary.
The CES is a large survey (400,000 worksites) which operates under
very tight time constraints (data are published each month, only three
weeks after the reference period); it relies on voluntary self-
reporting from most of its sample members. Because of this demanding
production environment, BLS believes that it is important to minimize
the number of data items collected and to request data that are readily
available on payroll records. These measures help minimize respondent
burden and therefore maximize the number of surveyed businesses that
are willing and able to supply data. Maximizing the number of survey
responses is important to ensuring reliable estimates. The CES
estimates of nonfarm employment which appear in the BLS Employment
Situation news release are among the nation's most visible and
sensitive economic indicators. BLS needs to ensure that the reliability
of these
[[Page 20180]]
estimates is not jeopardized by overloading the survey.
11. Some commenters indicated that the CES survey was mandatory,
thus there should be no problem in collecting any type of data. Others
suggested that because the survey was voluntary, it did not generate a
respondent burden, because businesses were free to refuse.
The CES survey is mandatory by State law in five States
(California, Oregon, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Washington).
In all other States the CES survey is voluntary. It is precisely
because of the largely voluntary nature of the survey that BLS must
minimize the reporting burden to businesses. If the survey is perceived
as too time consuming or burdensome, a high refusal rate may result,
which would decrease the accuracy of the published estimates.
Ira L. Mills,
Departmental Clearance Officer.
[FR Doc. 05-7689 Filed 4-15-05; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4510-24-P
