The Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) program produces employment and wage information about workers covered by state and federal unemployment programs. Publicly available files include data on monthly employment, quarterly wages, and the number of establishments by industry, county, and ownership sector for the entire United States. These data are aggregated to annual levels, higher industry levels, and higher geographic levels.
Data Specifications
- Area of Coverage: National (available for counties, states, and metropolitan statistical areas)
- Date(s) Available:1990 to 2010
- Format: Text, PDF
- Resolution/Scale:Industries classified using NAICS; national and state values by industry with real and current dollar values
Details
- Serves as a near census of monthly employment and quarterly wage information by six-digit North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) industry at the national, state, and county levels
- Publishes employment and wage data for nearly every NAICS industry at the national level and at the state level if disclosure restrictions are met
- Delineated by the Census Bureau, a metropolitan statistical area (MSA) is a geographical region with a relatively high population density at its core and close economic ties throughout the area; MSAs comprise one or more entire counties, except in New England, where cities and towns are the basic geographic units
- Employment data represent the number of workers who worked during, or received pay for, the pay period including the 12th of the month
- Excludes members of the armed forces, the self-employed, proprietors, domestic workers, unpaid family workers, and railroad workers covered by the railroad unemployment insurance system
- Wages represent total compensation paid during a period, regardless of when services were performed, and include pay for vacation and other paid leave, bonuses, stock options, tips, the cash value of meals and lodging, and in some states, contributions to deferred compensation plans (such as 401(k) plans)
- Provides partial information on agricultural industries and employees in private households
- Partners
- The Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages program is a cooperative program involving the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) of the U.S. Department of Labor and the State Employment Security Agencies.
Notes and Limitations: In accordance with BLS policy, data provided to the bureau in confidence are not published and are used only for specified statistical purposes. BLS withholds publication of employment and wage data when necessary to protect the identity of cooperating employers. Totals at the industry level for the states and the nation include data suppressed within the detailed tables. However, these totals may not have the ability to be used to reveal the suppressed data.
Support
Information about NAICS
Describes the use of the North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) in the calculation of gross domestic product by state
BLS Publications Related to QCEW Data
County Employment and Wages Press Release
Published quarterly by BLS about six months after the end of the quarter