Agency Information Collection Activities; Submission to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for Review and Approval; Comment Request; Supplemental Questions to the Annual Business Survey (0607-1004) To Capture a Baseline of Work From Home Options of Businesses In 2019, 55822-55823 [2020-19989]

Agencies

• Census Bureau
• DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

[Federal Register Volume 85, Number 176 (Thursday, September 10, 2020)]
[Notices]
[Pages 55822-55823]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2020-19989]


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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

Census Bureau


Agency Information Collection Activities; Submission to the 
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for Review and Approval; Comment 
Request; Supplemental Questions to the Annual Business Survey (0607-
1004) To Capture a Baseline of Work From Home Options of Businesses In 
2019

    The Department of Commerce will submit the following information 
collection request to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for 
review and clearance in accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 
1995, on or after the date of publication of this notice. We invite the 
general public and other Federal agencies to comment on proposed, and 
continuing information collections, which helps us assess the impact of 
our information collection requirements and minimize the public's 
reporting burden. Public comments were previously requested via the 
Federal Register on July 6, 2020 during a 60-day comment period. This 
notice allows for an additional 30 days for public comments.
    Agency: U.S. Census Bureau.
    Title: Supplemental questions to the Annual Business Survey (0607-
1004) to capture a baseline of work from home options of businesses in 
2019.
    OMB Control Number: 0607-1015.
    Form Number(s): None.
    Type of Request: Regular submission, Regular Submission. Request 
for an Extension, without Change, of a Currently Approved Collection.
    Number of Respondents: 300,000.
    Average Hours per Response: 3 minutes.
    Burden Hours: 15,000.
    Needs and Uses: The U.S. Census Bureau requests an extension to the 
approved request for clearance of the adding supplemental questions to 
the Annual Business Survey (0607-1004) to capture a baseline of remote 
work options at businesses in 2019. The OMB

[[Page 55823]]

number for the supplemental questions is 0607-1015. The supplemental 
questions were approved by OMB under an emergency clearance through 
November 30, 2020. This extension is needed due to the necessity to 
keep the 2020 ABS in the field through December 31, 2020. We seek 
approval for this extension by November 30, 2020.
    The additional questions are designed to measure work from home 
operations of businesses in 2019 to capture a baseline. If deemed 
warranted, next year's ABS would propose adding the same or similar 
questions to understand work from home operations of businesses during 
the Coronavirus pandemic in 2020. ABS is designed to allow for 
incorporating new content each survey year based on topics of 
relevance. The ABS includes all nonfarm employer businesses filing 
Internal Revenue Service (IRS) tax forms as individual proprietorships, 
partnerships, or any other type of corporations, with receipts of 
$1,000 or more.
    The questions are part of Section A--Company Information. The 
questions are designed to measure three concepts, specifically for 2019 
(prior to the Coronavirus pandemic):
    (1) Does the firm allow work from home?
    (2) To what degree are employees of the firm engaging in work from 
home?
    (3) What are the limiting factors for work from home?
    The supplemental questions are being collected in the ABS is to 
establish a baseline for the status of work from home prior to the 
coronavirus pandemic. These data are not available from any other 
source. The ABS is uniquely positioned to create these estimates, and 
we may want to ask these questions again in the future to see if the 
coronavirus pandemic has an immediate effect (in 2020) or longer run 
effect (in 2021) on businesses offering work at home options to their 
employees. The goal of adding work from home content would be to:
     Create estimates of the number of businesses that provide 
work from home options for their employees by business characteristics 
(for example: Size, age, geography, industry)
     Create percent of workers who are working from home by 
business characteristics (for example: Size, age, geography, industry)
     Determine if businesses ability/willingness to offer 
expanded work from home options to employees changed during the 
pandemic and if those options were temporary or appear to be more 
permanent conditions of employment within those businesses.
    Affected Public: Business or other for-profit organizations.
    Frequency: Annually.
    Respondent's Obligation: Mandatory.
    Legal Authority: Title 13 United States Code, Sections 8(b), 131, 
and 182; Title 42 United States Code, Section 1861-76 (National Science 
Foundation Act of 1950, as amended); and Section 505 within the America 
COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010 authorize this collection. 
Sections 224 and 225 of Title 13 United States Code require response 
from sampled firms.
    This information collection request may be viewed at 
www.reginfo.gov. Follow the instructions to view the Department of 
Commerce collections currently under review by OMB.
    Written comments and recommendations for the proposed information 
collection should be submitted within 30 days of the publication of 
this notice on the following website www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAMain. 
Find this particular information collection by selecting ``Currently 
under 30-day Review--Open for Public Comments'' or by using the search 
function and entering either the title of the collection or the OMB 
Control Number 0607-1015.

Sheleen Dumas,
Department PRA Clearance Officer, Office of the Chief Information 
Officer, Commerce Department.
[FR Doc. 2020-19989 Filed 9-9-20; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510-07-P