EMSI data is about to take a huge leap forward. Up to this point, we’ve made our data available in Analyst in two formats: Covered and Complete. This has enabled us to serve customers who need the data to remain similar to state-issued numbers in the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (our Covered set) and those who want to see a comprehensive view of their economies (our Complete set).
One of the most valuable things that our data does is unsuppress the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) with a high degree of accuracy (in its raw form, QCEW hides firm-specific numbers for confidentiality reasons). But because of this unsuppression, our Covered set wasn’t exactly the same as the QCEW set. And our Complete set was and is comprehensive, but it has actually contained three other employment categories in addition to the Covered data. Wouldn’t it be nice to see these three other categories on their own? Wouldn’t it be nice to show numbers in the tool that match QCEW?
We thought so.
That’s why, in the next few months, we’re going to issue our industry data in four sets that you can mix and match. The fours sets are:
1. QCEW – this set will simply be QCEW unsuppressed. This means that any employment number that QCEW publishes will show up in our tool as the exact same number. Anyone who needs EMSI numbers to stick closely to Bureau of Labor Statistics QCEW numbers will have employment numbers that match exactly.
2. Non-QCEW Employees – this set will be other groups who are not captured by QCEW, but who still count as employees. This includes railroad, military, some non-QCEW federal government workers, unreported employees estimated by the BEA, and a few other miscellaneous categories. This is particularly helpful for evaluating those tricky military and government sectors that can dominate regional economies.
3. Self-Employed – this set will be self-employed workers who count their self-employed work as their primary source of income. This is an ever-growing sector and being able to include it along side our more traditional datasets will be very informative.
4. Extended Proprietors – this set will be workers who are counted as self-employed, but classify the income as peripheral to their primary employment. Again, a lot of people fall into this category (e.g., those who do freelance work on the side, like writers or musicians) and now you will be able to see who they are more clearly.
Now, how is this going to make a difference?
These categories mean that you can choose exactly what numbers you’re showing. Many of our users will choose just to use all four sets together. But others will be able to make the data much more transparent than it has been. Obviously, you can pare the data down to simply an unsuppressed QCEW set. You can remove all self-employed/proprietor workers from the set. You can look at only self-employed/proprietor workers.
Sometimes including self-employed workers overstates the workforce presence in an area. Sometimes you want to be able to show absolutely every resource available in your region.
EMSI is committed to making accurate, comprehensive data that serves your needs. This is just part of getting even better at doing that.
The following graphic gives even more detail on the changes for the nerds anyone interested.
Email Rob Sentz (rob@economicmodeling.com) with any questions. And follow EMSI on Twitter @DesktopEcon.
