Assessing the Timeliness of Business Births in BLS Establishment Statistics

摘要

This study looked at one possible contributor to the recent observed discrepancy in employment growth between the Current Employment Statistics (CES) or establishment survey and the Current Population Survey (CPS) or household survey. Both CPS and CES sample results are tied to independently derived controls; the CPS uses Census Bureau population estimates to derive current estimates of employment and unemployment while the CES uses universe counts of employment from the BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) program as an annual benchmark for employment data and as a critical input for modeling the birth-death component of monthly estimates. This study examined the QCEW universe count of employment to determine whether there was an emerging lag in capturing new business births.