Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW)

June 2007

QCEW Operating Manual
Preface

Page xvii

Preface
Purpose and Organization
The QCEW Operating Manual describes the methods and procedures to be used by the States in
the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages program, commonly called the QCEW
program. In this Federal/State cooperative program, the States collect and compile employment
and wage data quarterly for workers covered by State unemployment insurance (UI) laws as well
as federal civilian workers covered by Unemployment Compensation for Federal Employees
(UCFE). These data are combined with address and code information from the Annual Refiling
Survey (ARS), a mail survey conducted each year that covers all employers over a three-year
cycle. The combined information is transmitted quarterly to the Bureau of Labor Statistics in
Washington, DC, on the Enhanced Quarterly Unemployment Insurance (EQUI) file. BLSWashington edits and processes the State-supplied data, then makes it available to a wide variety
of users. Throughout the process, technical assistance is provided to the States through the BLS
regional offices, which serve as liaisons between the States and BLS-Washington.
The resultant micro data cover over eight million business establishments and provide a virtual
census of payroll employment. These micro data are aggregated to the macro level, screened for
confidentiality, and made available to the public. The resultant macro data series are the most
complete universe of monthly employment and quarterly wage information available by industry,
geography, and ownership. The data are also made available to other statistical agencies,
programs within BLS, and academic researchers. The successful cooperation between States and
the Bureau of Labor Statistics results in high-quality data that have widespread application.
This manual documents the responsibilities and operations of the QCEW program. It begins
with a chapter of overview and background material, then proceeds through additional chapters
of State and BLS operations. The sequence of chapters is, in a general sense, chronological.
Several early chapters cover basic concepts such as assigning classification codes and handling
multiple-worksite employers. These are followed by a chapter on the Annual Refiling Survey.
The remaining chapters work through the quarterly sequence of loading, editing, and transmitting
the data via the Enhanced Quarterly Unemployment Insurance file, including such items as BLSWashington processing and BLS-Washington/State coordination. Following the chapters are
appendices providing extensive technical information such as file layouts, data element
definitions, edit conditions, imputation formulas, due dates, and a recommended processing
schedule.
This manual is updated from time to time in the form of replacement pages accompanied by
numbered QCEW technical memoranda. The manual updates may require the replacement of
selected pages or of entire appendices, chapters, or chapter sections. The printed manual should
be kept in a loose-leaf binder to facilitate incorporating these changes. The latest manual will
also be made available on CD and as an online document. Each time the manual is updated, the
online document will be replaced with the most current version and new CDs will be mailed.

June 2007

QCEW Operating Manual
Preface

Page xviii

Submitting Your Comments
BLS welcomes suggestions from State staff on improving this manual, as well as suggestions for
improving the QCEW program. Please provide any comments to your regional office. Regional
offices may submit comments to BLS-Washington via E-mail to the group name QCEW
Manual Feedback. All comments will be read and evaluated.

Confidentiality
BLS considers the maintenance of the confidentiality of data collected under a pledge of
confidentiality to be critical to our program integrity and our ability to successfully convince
employers to report data for our statistical programs. Because of this, BLS has developed rules
to strenuously protect the confidentiality of respondents. States are an integral part of the
Federal-State data collection system and must maintain a high level of confidentiality in order to
guard the trust we have developed with respondents over many years of operating the statistical
programs.
States are required to adhere to the BLS confidentiality requirements as stated in the Labor
Market Information (LMI) Cooperative Agreement.
The Confidential Information Protection and Statistical Efficiency Act (CIPSEA) of 2002 (Title
5 of Public Law 107-347) safeguards the confidentiality of individually identifiable information
acquired for exclusively statistical purposes under a pledge of confidentiality by controlling
access to and uses of such information. In some cases, CIPSEA has a significant impact on the
State’s ability to share data with other users. A copy of the CIPSEA law can be found on the
State Intranet at http://199.221.111.170/security/CIPSEA%20Title%20V.doc
CIPSEA precludes the release by BLS and BEA to other agencies or to the public of any
employer reported data for individual reporting units without the specific written authorization of
the State Workforce Agency. Blanket authorization for this type of data sharing can be granted
to BLS via the LMI Cooperative Agreement by checking the appropriate boxes in section F
(Data Sharing Blanket Approval) of the QCEW program work statement.
General guidelines for the sharing of data under CIPSEA include the following:
•

Data collected by UI and the State Workforce Agencies for the QCEW are sharable for
statistical and UI administrative purposes.

•

In the case where data collected by the States for other BLS programs that pledge
confidentiality (Current Employment Statistics (CES), Occupational Employment
Statistics (OES) and Occupational Safety and Health Statistics (OSHS)) are used in the
QCEW, these data are not sharable without intervention to remove the confidential
portion. Both of the State QCEW systems have programs that allow the creation of
CIPSEA compliant files.

•

Data may be shared fully between governmental agents who have sworn to protect the
confidentiality of data under CIPSEA. These include all BLS and State staff participating

June 2007

QCEW Operating Manual
Preface

Page xix

in BLS programs or using BLS confidential data. As a result, States and BLS may freely
share QCEW data with each other.
Other laws that affect the release of QCEW data include:
•
•
•
•

The Social Security Act
Chapter 23 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (the Federal Unemployment Tax Act)
The Wagner-Peyser Act
Other regulations issued by the Employment and Training Administration and/or the
Secretary of Labor

The regulations cited above are applicable to data collected by the State on the State's quarterly
contribution reports or initial status determination forms for inclusion in the QCEW Program.
Information collected for the QCEW Program on U.S. Office of Management and Budget
(OMB) approved forms (such as the Industry Verification Form, Industry Classification Form,
and the Multiple Worksite Report) are governed by the BLS Commissioner's Order No. 1-06
(Appendix A – Commissioner's Order on Confidentiality), which requires BLS to hold these data
in confidence to the full extent permitted by Federal law. The informed consent language on the
individual forms indicates that the States will use the information for Unemployment Insurance
program purposes, statistical purposes, and other purposes permitted by State law.
Public disclosure of QCEW data is limited in some cases, in order to protect the identity and
economic information of employers that provide data under a pledge or expectation of statistical
confidentiality.
Higher-level aggregates can include the nondisclosable data suppressed at the detailed levels.
However, disclosure limitation techniques have been applied to limit the extent to which these
totals could be used to reveal the data for individual employers.
Information regarding employment and wages of UCFE-covered Federal employees is deemed
to be fully disclosable under provisions of the Freedom of Information Act.
The State Intranet http://199.221.111.170/ has a section on Confidentiality and Security that
provides a convenient source of information on BLS rules, including determinations on handling
data based on CIPSEA.

Authorization
COLLECTION APPROVED BY O.M.B.: O.M.B., 1220-0012
O.M.B. APPROVAL EXPIRES JUNE 30, 2008
Reports from the "Employment, Wages, and Contributions program" (also known as the "QCEW
program") are authorized by 42 U.S.C. 503, 20 CFR 609, and 29 U.S.C. 882. Reporting is
required to obtain or retain funding by BLS.
The Department estimates that the burden on State Workforce Agencies for providing all
deliverables and meeting all requirements of the QCEW program will be 1,098,240 hours per
year in the aggregate.