Occupational Wages:

Wage information, by occupation, was provided directly by the Virginia Employment Commission (VEC) for the regions used on the YesVirginia website. The current occupational wage data are from the May 2005 survey. The wages represented are for “Total, All Industries”, and include the mean wage, the entry wage, and the experienced wage. Occupational wage information is available directly from the VEC (http://velma.virtuallmi.com) for statewide figures, local workforce investment areas, and the occupational employment statistical areas, which include Virginia’s metropolitan statistical areas and four non-MSA areas.

Occupational Employment:

Estimates of employment by occupation and ten-year projections by occupation are available from the VEC for the state of Virginia and are completed on a biannual cycle. The most current set of projections, to 2012, uses 2002 employment data for the base year estimates. In order to obtain occupational employment estimates for the regions used on the YesVirginia website, a methodology was applied by VEDP that combines two different sources of data obtained from the VEC.

The first data source is the industry-to-occupation matrix, commonly referred to as a staffing pattern matrix, which matches statewide employment by industry to the occupations that are used in that industry. More specifically, the staffing matrix provides the percentage of industry employment pertaining to each of 722 occupations. This matrix, which includes current year estimates as well as ten-year projections, is used by the VEC to determine occupational employment estimates and projections for various geographic areas, such as local workforce investment boards. The matrix matches occupational employment to 125 NAICS-based industries, at the 3-digit and 4-digit level.

A second source of data used to obtain occupational employment estimates is employment by industry, available from the VEC as part of the quarterly covered employment and wages data (QCEW), formerly referred to as ES-202. VEDP uses the most current data available, although release of the data typically takes six months from the end of the quarter. For the current occupational employment estimates, VEDP used the first quarter, 2006 employment data from the QCEW series . Employment by industry data is assigned to VEDP-defined regions using a county code provided with the QCEW series. When the industry-level data is combined with the staffing pattern information, it is possible to obtain occupational employment for each industry in the region. At this level of detail, much of the data would have to be suppressed to protect the confidentiality of businesses within each industry. Fortunately, the YesVirginia website simply requires the occupational employment estimates in the aggregate for each region. In other words, for each occupation, the employment across all industries is summed up to get the total for the occupation, regardless of the industry of employment. In cases where the aggregate number employed in an occupation is under ten employees, the specific number has been withheld, in order to protect employer confidentiality.

The final result of this approach is a set of occupational estimates for each of the VEDP-defined regions on the YesVirginia website. While the methodology is based on discussions with the VEC and our understanding of the VEC’s derivation and use of the staffing pattern matrix, our use of the matrix and presentation of the data differs from that of the VEC. Therefore, the numbers reported on YesVirginia cannot be compared to data directly available from the VEC. VEDP appreciates the professional consultative and technical input from VEC economists and database administrators and the various sources of data that were supplied for this analysis.

As is the case with many data sources, historical data are sometimes revised to reflect improvements in data collection, methodological advancement, or new information that was previously unavailable. The YesVirginia website endeavors to present the most current data available and to replace historical data with revised series as necessary.

[1] Due to the fact that VEDP used the most recent QCEW data available, our estimates would not match the VEC’s occupational employment estimates even if the VEC published employment estimates for the VEDP-defined regions. The VEC uses the 2002 base year in order to comply with the reporting cycle determined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics for employment projections.