What began as a small-scale startup, twenty years ago, has become the Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics (LEHD), a source of innovative data products, including Quarterly Workforce Indicators (QWI), OnTheMap, Job-to-Job Flows (J2J) and Post-Secondary Employment Outcomes (PSEO).
These tools give users access to data with little required training, at no cost to state partners and minimal cost to taxpayers. Also, it doesn’t require workers and employers to collect additional data.
“LEHD provides the data infrastructure and economic statistics necessary to capture the complex interactions between workers and businesses that characterize the dynamics of the modern U.S. economy,” said Keith Bailey, assistant center chief for LEHD Research at the Census Bureau’s Center for Economic Studies.
Decision makers, state partners, economists, geographers and others use the data daily to inform local and national labor market policy.
Minneapolis, for example, turned to OnTheMap to evaluate travel costs during morning and afternoon peak hours of traffic after a bridge collapsed there in 2007.
Businesses also use data products. For example, Seattle-based real estate company Redfin uses LEHD data to create its “opportunity score” – a metric that shows potential home buyers a location’s access to jobs.
The Census Bureau is now producing the Post-Secondary Employment Outcomes (PSEO), which provides earnings and employment outcomes for college and university graduates by degree level, degree major and post-secondary institution.
To learn more about LEHD’s past, present, and future,
continue reading …