Changes to the Employment Situation News Release on February 5, 2010

Overview

Beginning with the release of data for January 2010 on February 5, 2010, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) implemented several changes to the content and format of the Employment Situation news release. Changes are reflected in both the text and tables.

Summary tables

Both the household survey and the establishment survey now provide separate summary tables, which contain commonly used data series from each section of the release. These two summary tables immediately follow the text analysis describing the monthly data. They replace table A in the prior version of the news release. Unlike the prior table A, the HTML versions of the two new summary tables are found at separate links rather than embedded in the text of the news release.

Household survey data from the Current Population Survey (CPS)

Three new tables have been added to the household survey section ("A tables") of the release. These new tables cover the employment status of veterans, persons with a disability, and the foreign born. (Data on these persons have been collected in the CPS previously, but now are included in this news release.) In addition, two new seasonally adjusted series have been added to the table showing unemployment by reason; specifically, the series for permanent job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs.

Establishment survey data from the Current Employment Statistics (CES) survey

New data on all employee hours and earnings have been added to the Employment Situation news release starting with this release. The text and tables ("B tables") reflect these additions. BLS also now publishes CES data on employment of women and production and nonsupervisory employees in the Employment Situation release each month concurrent with the newest-available establishment survey employment data. Previously, employment data on women were available with a one-month lag and were not published in the Employment Situation news release.

The establishment survey tables in the news release have been redesigned to incorporate the addition of the all employee hours and earnings and employment series for women and for production and nonsupervisory employees. The redesigned tables display seasonally adjusted data, while the CES public database contains both seasonally adjusted and not seasonally adjusted data. Some diffusion indexes and industry level detail for manufacturing production worker hours, earnings, and indexes of aggregate weekly hours have been removed from the CES tables in the news release, but are available through the CES public database.

Employment Situation Technical Note and access to historical data

The technical notes at the back of the news release have been updated to cover the new concepts introduced. The historical links section of the HTML version of the news release on the BLS Web site has been modified, again providing easy access to historical data for every series presented in the release.

Employment Situation crosswalk information

Several new tables appear in the Employment Situation release beginning February 5, 2010. Some prior tables were renumbered. Crosswalk information can be found at www.bls.gov/bls/empsit_crosswalk.htm.

The Employment Situation news release is online at http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.toc.htm. Earlier versions are available from the news release archive.