Creating longitudinal analyses using linked education and workforce data

1. Creating longitudinal analyses using linked education and workforce data • 26th Annual MIS Conference • February 14, 2013 • Carol Jenner • Washington Education Research & Data Center

2. Overview Why connect education and workforce information? What questions can be answered? Workforce data sources How to get workforce data Using the data Putting it all together – P-20W examples

3. Why Connect Education and Workforce Information?

4. Employment is a key outcome Between 2010 and 2020, the share of jobs requiring postsecondary education or training will increase • Success in employment is a critical element in evaluating the effectiveness of education and training programs • Awareness of employment outcomes of specific programs can help guide education and career decisions, as demonstrated in Washington’s Career Bridge website at careerbridge.wa.gov. "Employment and Wages Online Annual Averages, 2010," Bureau of Labor Statistics. <www.bls.gov/cew/cewbultn10.htm>

5. What Questions can be Answered?

6. What questions? To examine employment as an outcome • Do graduates enter the workforce immediately after graduation or receipt of degree? • How many grads stay in your state to work? • What are the workforce outcomes for completers of a particular program? (CTE in high school, student major in postsecondary) • How do employment and postsecondary enrollment relate to employment patterns established during high school?

7. What questions? To examine employment status of students while enrolled • How many students are employed during the school year? • How much do they earn? • In what industries are they employed? • How does workforce participation relate to • Course completion and grades? • Postsecondary enrollment? Persistence in enrollment? • Application for and receipt of financial aid?

8. Questions the Economists Might Ask What is the effect of the current recession on employment patterns during and after enrollment? How long does is take for a graduate to find stable employment? What is the return on investment for various postsecondary programs? What college majors and training programs are associated with the highest earnings five years after graduation?

9. What Can’t Be Answered From single-state UI wage data, we do not know: • Employment outside the state • Occupation • Distribution of wages within a quarter • Different jobs for a single employer • Specific employee locations for multi-site employers • Employment not covered by UI program BLS publishes industry-specific occupational employment estimates U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, National Industry-Specific Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates, May 2011. <www.bls.gov/oes/2011/may/oessrci.htm>

10. Workforce Data Sources

11. The Unemployment Insurance Program About the Unemployment Insurance (UI) Program • A federal-state program financed by payroll taxes paid by employers (and in a few states by employee) • U.S. Department of Labor sets broad criteria for eligibility and coverage. States determine specifics. • Nearly all employers who pay wages to employees participate by • Registering with the state • Submitting quarterly reports • Paying UI taxes or reimbursing for benefits paid

12. Who is covered by the UI program? Bottom line: Approximately 97% of the employees on nonfarm payrolls nationally are included in these files. A small percentage of workers are not covered by the state UI program, including: • Small farm operators • Some employees performing domestic services with total wages less than $1,000 in all quarters • Non-profit preschool staff, if fewer than four staff; church employees • Business owners, sole proprietors, self-employed workers • Federal employees (civilian and military), U.S. Postal Service employees, railroad employees Work-study students, as long as the employer is a non-profit, state government or local government Licensed insurance agents, real estate agents, brokers, and investment company agents

13. What’s in a UI quarterly record? Wage Data • Year and quarter of earnings • Employer account number • Employee identifier (usually SSN) • Wages paid (earnings) • Hours worked (in some states) • Name

14. What’s in a UI quarterly record? Employer Characteristics • North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code – a hierarchical coding scheme • Ownership (Federal, State, Local, International, Private) • Number of employees • Geographic location within state

15. NAICS (pronounced “NAKES”) North American Industry Classification System Hierarchical, up to 6 levels The over 20 different 2-digit codes are sometimes combined into “supersectors” “Introduction to NAICS,” U.S. Census Bureau. <www.census.gov/eos/www/naics/> U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Supersectors: <www.bls.gov/ces/cessuper.htm>

16. What’s in a UI Wage Record SSN Year Hours Name Wages Quarter Industry Location Employees Ownership Employer Account UI Wage Record Employer Characteristics Note: These examples are presented for illustrative purposes and do not represent actual UI wage data.

17. When does wage data become available?

18. Other sources of UI wage data • Federal Employment Data Exchange System (FEDES) – contains federal civilian employees, U.S. Postal Service employees, and Department of Defense active duty personnel. Operated by the Jacob France Institute at the University of Baltimore. www.ubalt.edu/jfi/fedes • Wage Record Interchange System (WRIS/WRIS2) – a multistate collaborative that facilitates the exchange of wage data among participating states. www.doleta.gov/performance/WRIS.cfmand www.doleta.gov/performance/WRIS2.cfm • Local Employment Dynamics (LED) program – a partnership between states and the U.S. Census Bureau that provides summary information on employment and earnings at local level. lehd.did.census.gov/led/led/led.html

19. UI claimant data Workers becoming unemployed are eligible for UI benefits if: The individual worked 680 hours of covered employment in a base year The unemployment is due to circumstances beyond the control of the worker, such as lack of work or business closure Individual is physically able to work, available to work, and actively seeking work

20. UI claimant data P-20W questions How are spells of unemployment related to industry of employment (and college major field of study)? How does the pattern of unemployment insurance claims (duration and number of spells) vary for the cohort of secondary career-technical education graduates entering the workforce immediately after high school graduation?

21. How to get Workforce Data

22. Get to know your state lmi shop Identify the workforce data custodian in your state • Get acquainted with your state’s labor market information (LMI) office • In many cases the state LMI shop is in the same agency as the state Unemployment Insurance program • LMI staff should have familiarity with the data and the processes necessary to move to the next step • Check the directory on the website lmiontheweb.org/ to find your state’s LMI director • Discuss your needs with LMI specialists

23. Get familiar with privacy issues Goals of P-20W Data Governance • Protect student and employer privacy consistent with applicable laws • Both FERPA* and U.S. Department of Labor** regulations are in play • Promote responsible data use • ERDC distributes link to PTAC Technical Brief #3***: Statistical Methods for Protecting Personally Identifiable Information in Aggregate Reporting • *FERPA reference: www2.ed.gov/ptac • **US DOL reference: Electronic code of Federal Regulations, Part 603 • ***PTAC Technical Brief link: nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2011603

24. Establish data-sharing protocols Establish a data-sharing agreement • Be prepared to provide or discuss • Any legislation that authorizes you to access this data • The role of UI wage data in the proposed research • Data items needed to conduct the research • Additional components include • Limitations on access and use and re-disclosure • Physical safeguards, data transfer protocol • Notice of Non-disclosure to be signed by all with access to UI data

25. Using the Data

26. SSN – The key linking identifier SSN is the nearly universal linking field between education and workforce data • Can come from a variety of sources within a centralized P-20W data system • Can be used with name fields to confirm link • Use auxiliary data sources to establish or confirm link • Within-sector name change information • Driver license records (may contain SSN) • Marriage-divorce and court records for name change

27. Cleansing the data SSN data quality varies by P-20 sector. • Parent SSN sometimes entered in K-12 student records. Work history should not start before student reaches working age. • In our experience, SSNs from higher ed sector are usually valid. Should be only one SSN per employer account per quarter • Name fields can be used to eliminate records with data entry errors in SSN The more tools applied, the cleaner the data.

28. Adjusting for inflation Important when using data spanning more than one quarter • Consumer Price Index • Day-to-day living expenses for urban consumers based on fixed “market basket” of goods and services • Implicit Price Deflator for Personal Consumption • Assumes that the consumer has made allowances for changes in relative prices The index is the ratio of the cost in a particular time period to the base cost.

29. Putting it all Together: P-20 Examples

30. Career-Technical Education Follow-up Indicator 5S1 – Secondary Placement • Denominator (the cohort): Number of CTE concentrators who left secondary education during the reporting year • Numerator: Number in the cohort who were “placed” in postsecondary education or training, or in employment in a specific post-exit quarter • Washington uses P-20W data (Washington public postsecondary enrollment, National Student Clearinghouse, and UI wage data) to develop this indicator

31. Workforce Participation, H.S. Grads *These two categories are not mutually exclusive, so totals add to more than 100%. Workforce Participation, Washington State High School Graduates, 2008-09, April 2011. < www.erdc.wa.gov/briefs/pdf/201102.pdf >

32. Employment by industry group

33. Answers lead to more questions… Median earnings by quarter by post-high school enrollment status Note the difference in earnings between CTC and 4-year students

34. Higher Ed Application Goal: Express workforce outcomes relative to the timing of an event – receipt of degree

35. Preparation of De-Identified Data • Employer Account  Employer Research ID • SSN  Student Research ID • Industry Code  Reduced to 2- or 3-digit • Number of Employees  Size classes • Unchanged: Wages, hours, year, quarter • Additions include: • Inflation-adjusted wages (plus values of index used) • Imputation details (basis for imputation, imputed hours) • Reference year and quarter (relative to date of award)

36. Preparation of Student Completions Data • Student ID  Student Research ID • Specific CIP codes for major may be aggregated • Other characteristics (age, race/ethnicity, geographic origin) may be grouped into broader categories • Groupings done in consultation with IR shops and will not necessarily be the same across all institutions • Possible additions • Survey results • Enrollment status (Washington public institutions plus National Student Clearinghouse data) by quarter

37. Three files to Researchers (all de-identified) Wage Detail File – One record for each year-quarter-employer-employee where year-quarter falls within study range • Original data (de-identified) as described plus additional elements Wage Summary File – One record for each graduate • Annual (by reference year): primary employer, industry of primary employer, number of employers, total wages Student File – De-identified student and degree information

38. Example from Baccalaureate Follow-up Analysis of 2005-06 bachelor’s degree recipients from a Washington higher education institution. Inflation-adjusted. “Connecting Unemployment Insurance (UI) Wage and Baccalaureate Data,” presented at Association for Institutional Research Annual Forum, June 5, 2012. <www.erdc.wa.gov/presentations/pdf/20120605_air.pdf >

39. Additional Resources and Contacts

40. Additional Resources and Contacts For more information on education-workforce connections, see: Employment Data Handbook: A Guide for Incorporating Employment Information from a State Unemployment Insurance (UI) Program into a P­20 Longitudinal Data System www.erdc.wa.gov/briefs/pdf/EmploymentDataHandbook_v1.pdf Contact information: Carol Jenner: carol.jenner@ofm.wa.gov Tim Norris: tim.norris@ofm.wa.gov