Program Overview
QCEW (Quarterly Census of Employment and
Wages) Methodology
The Quarterly
Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) program is a federal-state cooperative
effort between the North Carolina Department of Commerce, Labor and Economic
Analysis Division (LEAD) and the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor
Statistics (BLS). The QCEW program provides quarterly employment and wage
statistics by industry for the Nation, State, Metropolitan Statistical Areas
(MSA), 23 Workforce Development Board areas and counties. Information is
derived from employer quarterly Unemployment Insurance Tax and Wage reports, Multiple
Worksite reports and related data sources.
The QCEW
program produces quarterly employment and wage statistics that include the
number of establishments, monthly employment, average employment, total wages,
and average weekly wage. Data are available by several different industry
groupings utilizing the North American Industrial Classification System and by
ownership type (private, state government, local government, and federal
government). Employment and wage statistics are also available by establishment
size class. Establishment and wage statistics are available quarterly and
annually while employment data are available monthly and annually.
QCEW wage
data represents the total compensation paid during the calendar quarter,
regardless of when the services were performed. Monthly employment data
represents the number of covered workers who worked during, or received pay
for, the pay period that included the 12th day of the month. Covered employees
in the private-sector and in the state and local government include most
corporate officials, all executives, all supervisory personnel, all
professionals, all clerical workers, many farmworkers, all wage earners, all
piece workers, and all part-time workers. Workers on paid sick leave, paid
holiday or paid vacation are also included. Federal employment data are based
on reports of monthly employment and quarterly wages.
QCEW data are
derived from quarterly information provided by employers on their Unemployment
Insurance Quarterly Tax and Wage report. This includes information from private
sector employers, as well as from state and local governments covered under the
UI program. Federal government employers provide statistical reports via the
Report of Federal Employment and Wages; these reports contain only employment
and wages data, for each employer’s installations within each state. On
occasion, when data are missing or do not meet BLS quality standards they may
be imputed and some data may be prorated to handle multiple-establishment
employers where the top-level employment and wage data are known but
establishment level data are missing or unknown.
In addition
to the collection of administrative data from employer’s tax and wage reports
the QCEW program conducts two surveys. Approximately one-third of all private
sector establishments with more than three employees are contacted annually to
verify their main business activity and physical location address via the
Annual Refiling Survey (ARS). Additional employment and wage data from multiple-establishment
employers are collected via a Multiple Worksite Report (MWR).
The QCEW
program utilizes the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) to
classify employing establishments. If an employer has multiple establishments
and conducts different activities at the establishments, separate industrial
codes are assigned, to the extent possible, to each establishment.
Information utilized
and produced by the QCEW program is subject to strict confidentiality
requirements. These requirements are in place to protect the privacy of employer
information. As a result, information produced by the QCEW program is subject
to both primary and secondary suppression methods. Therefore, not all data
series are available for all geographies, industries, and size classes.
Additional
information regarding the QCEW program including data for the Nation and other
states can be accessed on the Bureau of Labor Statistics website at https://www.bls.gov/cew/