Note to Reviewer

June 23, 2008

MEMORANDUM FOR: Reviewer of 1220-0170

FROM: John Wohlford

Branch Chief

Job Openings and Labor Turnover

Office of Employment and Unemployment Statistics (OEUS)

Bureau of Labor Statistics

SUBJECT: Information Correction Worksheet for the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Response Analysis Survey (RAS) for the Temporary Help Industry

Attached is the questionnaire we would like to field to a small group of active Job Openings and Labor Turnover (JOLTS) respondents in the Temporary Help Services industry (NAICS 561320). We would ask respondents these additional questions in order to investigate data quality for this industry. We are planning to ask current JOLTS respondents these questions in July 2008.

Current OMB approval of the JOLTS survey is scheduled to expire March 31, 2009.

If you have any questions about this request, please contact John Wohlford at (202) 691-6480 or e-mail at wohlford.john@bls.gov.

Note to Reviewer of 1220-0170

I.Introduction and Purpose

The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) collects data on Total Employment, Job Openings, Hires, Quits, Layoffs & Discharges, and Other Separations. These data serve as demand-side indicators of labor shortages at the national level. Data from a sample of approximately 16,000 U.S. business establishments are collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics through the Atlanta JOLTS Data Collection Center. The JOLTS survey covers all nonagricultural industries in the public and private sectors for the 50 States and the District of Columbia.

The JOLTS program does not publish an employment series, however, there is an implicit net employment change series easily derivable from the JOLTS published data: Hires minus separations. The Hires minus Separation series can diverge substantially from the net employment change shown by the CES and QCEW. One of the industries with the largest divergence is Temporary Help Services, and JOLTS research suggests that there is response error in the direction of under reporting the separations. Further research on this possible response error is necessary to minimize the divergence.

The Response Analysis Survey (RAS) will assess the quality of the data reported to the JOLTS by Temporary Help Industry respondents. Findings from the RAS could result in proposals to change JOLTS survey design to account for difficulty in this industry in providing data items using existing JOLTS definitions. Active JOLTS respondents will be asked questions about their records sources, their understanding of data items and other survey definitions, and other questions related to their reporting and data divergence.

These data will be collected by paper and pencil interviewing used by JOLTS national office staff.

Other elements that will take place during the RAS are:

• Case management

• Respondent materials (advance letters)

II.Respondents

There will be an estimated 50 reporting units that will be contacted for the Response Analysis Survey (RAS). Each respondent will be asked to complete a telephone interview that will follow the attached RAS questionnaire (Attachment A). Each of the reporting units were selected based on a divergence between new hires and separation data during 2007). It is expected that each interview will take 15 minutes to complete per JOLTS respondent.

We anticipate an overall response rate of 80 percent based on previously implemented Response Analysis Surveys.

	Interview
Number of respondents	50
Number of responses	50
Minutes needed for interview	15
Total Minutes	750
Total hours	12.5

Total Hours Response Burden is = 12.50

The estimate of costs to respondents based on burden hours to participate in this survey is $178.00. This estimate is based on an hourly pay rate of $14.24, which is the 2006 annual average of the median hourly earnings of "Human Resources Assistants, Except Payroll and Timekeeping" from the CPS survey, and was multiplied by the 12.50 burden hours.

Confidentiality assurances will be relayed to the respondent through the introduction script at the beginning of the interview.

III.Payments to Respondents

There are no payments made to the respondents for this survey.