United States - Manufacturing Employment

The Current Employment Statistics (CES) program, also known as the payroll survey or the establishment survey, is a monthly survey of approximately 140,000 businesses and government agencies representing approximately 440,000 worksites throughout the United States.  From the sample, CES produces and publishes employment, hours, and earnings estimates for the nation, states, and metropolitan areas at detailed industry levels. All national CES employment estimates exclude employees in Puerto Rico. However, the BLS cooperates with both Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands to collect data and publish employment estimates independent of national estimates.

Series covering all employees’ hours and earnings were officially added by CES on February 5, 2010, with estimates beginning in March 2006. Historically, CES hours and earnings series covered only production and nonsupervisory employees.

The Current Employment Statistics Program provides employment, hours of work, and earnings information on a national basis. The data include series for total employment, number of women employed, number of production or nonsupervisory workers, average hourly earnings, average weekly hours, average weekly overtime hours in manufacturing industries. The table below lists the prefixes of the available data series. In order to download a series, simply substitute the "E" in the mnemonics on the following pages with the appropriate prefix from the table below. Some series, even at the total employment level, are available only for states or MSAs. Employment of production workers, average weekly earnings, average weekly hours and average hourly earnings are available for the U.S., some states and some MSAs (the availability is the same as is denoted in the following pages). Series listed below that have an asterisk are available at the national level only.

The BLS' methodology can be found at http://www.bls.gov/bls/empsitquickguide.htm.

Industrial classification

The employment series currently cover the 2012 NAICS industrial classification.  All major industry sectors include only privately-owned establishments, except for 90-910000 federal government, 90-920000 state government, and 90-930000 local government. For information on what comprises particular industries, see the BLS site: http://www.bls.gov/iag/tgs/iag_index_alpha.htm.

Concepts

The CES employment series are estimates of nonfarm wage and salary jobs, not an estimate of employed persons; an individual with two jobs is counted twice by the payroll survey.  The CES employment series excludes employees in agriculture and private households and the self-employed.

For more information, see the Concepts section of Chapter 2 of the BLS Handbook of Methods: www.bls.gov/opub/hom/homch2_b.htm; this section includes definitions of the types of data available from the survey. 

Uses

A wide array of public and private policy makers use CES data because it is one of the earliest indicators of economic conditions each month. Major users of CES data include many government agencies and entities, financial markets in the United States and around the world, and other business and academic analysts, researchers, and forecasters

For more information, see the Uses section of Chapter 2 of the BLS Handbook of Methods: www.bls.gov/opub/hom/homch2_h.htm .

The Current Employment Statistics (CES) first preliminary estimates of employment, hours, and earnings are published each month approximately 3 weeks after the reference period. Estimates are then revised twice before being held constant until the annual benchmarking process. Second preliminary estimates for a given month are published the month following the initial release, and final sample-based estimates are published 2 months after the initial release.

Benchmark revisions are made annually. This happens in February for the U.S. and March for the States, and Metropolitan Areas.  Each year, the sample estimates from the CES are adjusted to universe counts of employment, known as benchmarks. Benchmarks are principally derived from a separate BLS program that aggregates the employment data reported on unemployment insurance (UI) tax reports that virtually all employers file each quarter with their state employment security agencies. With the benchmarks the BLS revises all seasonally adjusted series and introduces new seasonal factors to be used in ensuing months.  The revisions will extend back as far as 5 years.  

If the benchmark revisions include changes to geographic or industrial classifications the revision could impact the entire time series.

The BLS currently seasonally adjusts one digit national and state figures and Moody's Analytics adjusts the one-digit MSA figures.

While the Office of Management and Budget defines 342 MSAs (including PMSAs and NECMAs), the BLS only reports data for approximately 275 of these areas.

The BLS790 databank includes redefinitions of geographies and industries as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Data in this databank are not altered to reflect new geographic definitions beyond those changes made by the BLS. Data redefined, and fixed for breakpoints, are available to subscribers of the Industry Services Database.

The BLS methodology is at http://www.bls.gov/bls/empsitquickguide.htm.

Please refer to the BLS for a full listing of CES Published Series by NAICS industry

In addition, information on comparing the different BLS Employment Programs can be found in this article.