LED. Oh no! Not another acronym from the Labor Market Information Center! As if QCEW, OES, LAUS, CES and CPS weren’t enough. Now there are LEHD, LED and QWI? This is merely speculation, but we’re guessing that is what some of our readers may be thinking when they see we are adding a few more handy little acronyms to our repertoire. However, we are fairly certain that once we justify ourselves for introducing these new data tools, all will be forgiven. Don’t worry, we’ll tackle this one at a time.

Let’s start with the granddaddy of them all, LEHD. This stands for Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics. LEHD is an innovative research program within the U.S. Census Bureau that uses modern statistical and computing techniques to combine federal and state administrative data on employers and employees. The LEHD program is centered on the creation and empirical analysis of confidential, longitudinally linked employer-household microdata. This integrated microdata is generated within the Census Bureau using data collected for federal and state administrative purposes as well as confidential Census Bureau surveys and censuses.

Now on to what we’ve all been waiting for … introducing … Local Employment Dynamics (LED). LED is a voluntary partnership between state labor market information agencies and the U.S. Census Bureau to develop new information about local labor market conditions at low cost, with no added respondent burden, and with the same confidentiality protections afforded census and survey data. This partnership between state labor market information agencies and the Census Bureau supplies new measures – the Quarterly Workforce Indicators (QWI) - on labor markets that:

• Are local, at the state, county and sub county level.
• Supply statistics on employment, job creation, turnover and earnings by industry, age and sex.

• Provides dynamic information on the rapidly changing economy.

South Dakota became the 46^th LED partner state on October 23, 2007. Presently, all historical and current data has been submitted to the Census Bureau and is being developed for a tentative release of June 2008. Because South Dakota data is not available yet we will look at Adams County, North Dakota data to demonstrate what information will be available for users. The website for LEHD is: http://lehd.did.census.gov/led/index.html.

The first part of LED that will be introduced is the QWI (Quarterly Workforce Indicators) data. Through the QWI, data by state, geographic grouping, industry, year and quarter, sex, age group and ownership is available. Below is a snapshot of the different variables for county reports that can be selected.

The following table is an example of the eight variables available for each geographic area as selected above. Notice the selected county data is in the second and third columns and North Dakota statewide data is always in the fourth and fifth columns. 

The  symbol is an information tool. By clicking on it an explanation of what the selected QWI category represents is shown. For example by clicking on the symbol next to total employment the following explanation box appears:

Topics	Information
Total Employment Net Job Flows Job Creation New Hires Separations Turnover Avg Monthly Earnings Avg New Hire Earnings	Total Employment (Emp) Beginning of Quarter Employment Total number of workers who were employed by the same employer in both the current and previous quarter Answers the questions: Who is filling what jobs? What industries are biggest employers? What industries employ the largest numbers of particular types of worker?

Another very useful tool in this application is the industry reports for QWI data. The information on these reports is for specific industries down to the four digit NAICS level. They are obtainable by the same variables that are available for the county reports. For the example below North Dakota statewide has been selected.

This table provides data for the industry and variables selected in columns two and three and data for all industry groups in columns four and five. Because of the four digit North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) detail available, smaller geographic areas such as counties may not have publishable data due to confidentiality restraints.

The second feature of LED we will introduce is the industry focus data. This dataset allows the user to choose up to eight different data sets to analyze. The user is also able to rank the data by one of the datasets chosen. Variables such as age, sex, geography, entity and industry level are also available to fine tune the data to the users specific needs.

The following example from the industry focus application is for North Dakota statewide. The datasets chosen were employment and growth in hiring (the information tool  is also available on this application); data was to be ranked by employment. Variables chosen were all ages for both male and female, industries for industry level, and 62-Health Care and Social Assistance for industry sector.

The data user has three different choices to acquire the data requested: view report to see the data on the application, download CSV or create pdf. Below is the table created by selecting the view report option. The NAICS industry sector 62 is highlighted because that is the sector chosen for the industry sector option. Clicking on a specific NAICS subsector in the industry column will produce a bar graph of workforce characteristics for the industry selected. 

Top 10 industries ranked on the greatest employment
State=North Dakota, Statewide, Sex=Male and Female, Age=14-99
Private Firms Only
(Report including Industry with Sector: 62 Health Care and Social Assistance)

Rank	Industry	Average Quarterly Employment (2006Q3,2006Q4, 2007Q1,2007Q2)	Hiring Growth (2006Q2,2007Q2)	Hiring Growth (%) (2006Q2,2007Q2)	Hiring (2007Q2)	Hiring (2006Q2)
	All NAICS Sectors	271,103	-1,154	-5.3 %	21,189	22,343
1	62 Health Care and Social Assistance	46,667	60	2.4 %	2,496	2,436
2	44-45 Retail Trade	42,353	-1,766	-46.3 %	2,930	4,696
3	72 Accommodation and Food Services	28,136	148	4.6 %	3,252	3,104
4	31-33 Manufacturing	25,679	143	8.5 %	1,745	1,602
5	42 Wholesale Trade	19,094	983	57.3 %	2,205	1,222
6	23 Construction	17,831	7	0.5 %	1,221	1,214
7	52 Finance and Insurance	15,406	96	12.2 %	834	738
8	56 Administrative and Support and Waste Management and Remediation Services	13,062	-191	-11.0 %	1,629	1,820
9	54 Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services	12,075	-109	-10.7 %	955	1,064
10	81 Other Services (except Public Administration)	11,043	43	5.0 %	875	832

Although your brain might be spinning with the thought of trying to keep one more dataset straight, in the long run LED will be a very useful tool for businesses, economic development agencies and government as a way to look at the most current employment, earnings and workforce trends for South Dakota. We are also working toward being part of an additional LED application called On The Map that will allow users to look at labor sheds, commute sheds and workforce indicators for very small geographic areas.

The Labor Market Information Center is very excited to bring this product to our data users. Tutorials for navigating the Web site are available on the LEHD home page http://lehd.did.census.gov/led/index.html under e-Learning Modules, or you may contact our office at 605-626-2314 for assistance.